In the novel, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, a small town doctor by the name of Charles Bovary find a young and beautiful wife, Emma. They live in the small country town of Tostes and life is okay at the beginning. However, as life starts to reveal it’s true colors, Emma becomes very unhappy. She wants more than what this small country life has to offer, and will do anything she can to try to get it. In nineteenth century France, societal norms prevented women from advancing socially or economically, independently of their husbands. Gustave Flaubert shows the effects of this kind of imprisonment on Emma, by his use of point of view, contrast, irony, and mood.
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
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