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Romanticism In Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary

1655 Words7 Pages

The presentation by Janna, Ashley, Joey, and Amber described the effects of Romanticism through their powerpoint and role play game. Through Emma’s early life, marriage, and affairs, Flaubert criticizes Romanticism. These ideals just created an illusion for Emma about what life should be like, constantly making her unhappy, restless, and bored. The book was seen as obscene because the content truly exposed the consequences of vice and adultery. To Emma, her affairs seemed like the perfect way to escape from her mediocre life and mundane marriage. However, she soon learns that affairs aren’t perfect. Her frivolousness and romanticist views pushed both men away, even though Charles never strayed. The ball at La Vaubyessard opened Emma’s eyes even more to the kind of life she wanted. Everything she read about in books just created an image in her head of what she “needed”. All her whimsical decisions and extravagant spending delineated all the negative aspects of Romanticism. Romanticism was a foolish ideal that just made people unhappy and ungrateful. It focused too much on irrationality, …show more content…

This novel focuses on a female heroine’s affairs and romanticized view of the world to create a disparity between her fantasy and reality. This story was notoriously made successful by the perceived obscenity of Flaubert’s message of adultery and vice that led to a court trial. The use of precise and evocative language in the text exemplifies to readers everywhere the pertinent and appalling features of the new middle-class from beginning to end. The bourgeoisie is satirically criticized of its weaknesses and failures in this provincial tragedy through Charles Bovary’s mediocrity, Emma Bovary’s ennui, Monsieur Homais’s conventionality, and Monsieur Lheureux’s

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