Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

Issues & Contexts

Main issues

Anti-Romantic novel with underlying Romantic impulses– simultaneous criticism and admiration of Emma Bovary;

Emma as base and materialistic but also unfulfilled dreamer, failed Romantic hero, a sort of female Don Quixote

– Flaubert was tried on charges of immorality stemming from the publication of the novel; successfully defended himself arguing that the novel's ending upholds morality and illustrates the consequences of sin

Critical portrayal of bourgeois life as driven by petty self-interest and hypocrisy

More Issues

Novel Illustrates: Belief in possibility of genuine professionalism, craftsmanship,

and scientific knowledge

Redeeming power of art– victory of art over reality, a passionate search for Beauty,

even though it is an illusion

Narrative technique blends authorial and characters' perspectives.

– "The author, in his work, must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere" (Flaubert)

Main Historical Contexts

Flaubert's critical attitude toward the bourgeoisie related to the failure of the popular revolutions in France and the growing power, selfishness, and arrogance of the middle classes.

– French Revolution: popular uprising against the monarchy of Louis XVI; ideals of liberty, equality, and brotherhood; storming of the Bastille (July 14); "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen" (August 27)

Popular and egalitarian character of 1789 French Revolution betrayed in Napoleon Bonaparte's Consulate (1799-1804) and his later crowning as Emperor of France (1804-1815)

Napoleon as characteristic of the bourgeois adoption of aristocratic values and attitudes; return to monarchic, dictatorial model; denial of the values of freedom and equality embodied in the Revolution of 1789

More Historical Contexts

Repeated failures of revolutionary movements in France (1830-1848)– The July Revolution in France, students and workers who wanted a

republic against monarchists.

Constitutional monarchy, Louis-Philippe, king of France (1830-1848); Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's repetition of his uncle's historical trajectory and favoring of the bourgeoisie at the expense of the popular classes

French middle classes represented in Madame Bovary by the variety of professionals (doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, notaries, bankers, etc.) and townspeople; middle and professional classes marked by seeming "progressiveness" masking underlying selfishness and hypocritical, self-serving purposes