Madame Bovary Summary | Chapterly
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: A Complete Summary "She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris." Overview Madame Bovary (1857) is the novel that invented modern literary realism. Gustave Flaubert spent five years crafting the story of Emma Bovary, a provincial doctor's wife who, intoxicated by romantic novels, pursues love affairs and material luxury in a desperate attempt to escape the crushing boredom of her life. The result is both a devastating character study and an indictment of a society that offers women no outlet for their intelligence and ambition. Flaubert was put on trial for obscenity when the novel was first published. He was acquitted, and the scandal made the book a bestseller. But Madame Bovary's real revolution was literary, not moral. Flaubert's prose style, his refusal to judge his characters explicitly, his obsessive attention to physical detail, and his use of free indirect discourse changed fiction permanently. When asked who Emma Bovary was based on, Flaubert reportedly answered: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Emma's restless dissatisfaction, her hunger for something more, is universal. Plot Summary Emma Rouault, a farmer's daughter educated in a convent, marries Charles Bovary, a well-meaning but dull country doctor. She expects...