Life was hard for women in the nineteenth century. Gender roles heavily influenced …show more content…
After the birth Flaubert states, ‘“It’s a girl!”’ cried Charles. She turned away and fainted” (Flaubert 101). Charles on the other hand is delighted that they have a girl, for he doesn’t know the effects that the imprisonment of women in the 19th century that will be thrown on this new baby girl. He is blind to them but Emma, clearly knows them, and that is why she turned away and fainted after the birth of her girl. The point of view that the reader has, allows them to “see” the reaction of Charles's simultaneously with the reaction of Emma. The reader is able to see how Emma is imprisoned and how Charles (men) are blind to it.
Flaubert also uses contrast to accomplish his theme of effects of imprisonment on women, by contrasting Emma’s idealized world and real world. Emma is unsatisfied with her reality life, so much that she begins to idealize her world, which becomes toxic for her. This contrast embodies the differences between her hopes and dreams and her actual …show more content…
When Emma comes home with Charles, she notices his dead wife’s wedding bouquet in the bedroom. This leads her to think about her future as a wife to Charles and she wonders what will happen to her own bouquet when she dies. Later, when Emma and Charles move to Yonville, she ends up burning her own bouquet because she is unsatisfied with her husband and marriage. She is unsatisfied because she is bound to her husband and cannot get the things that she dreams about, unless her husband moves up from his socio-economic status. Flaubert uses dead flowers to symbolize disappointed hopes, and the once happy, new marriage will eventually turn