Madame Bovary
The male who conquers and protects his territory, the representative a whole social class: the bourgeoisie, the predator and the opportunist, this is how the pharmacist of Yonville, omais, one of the most despicable characters in Flaubert's novel, Mme Bovary, can be described in short.

As the best suited character for a battle between classes, omais triumphs over everything. With omais, Flaubert succeeded to create the essence of what his most famous protagonist, Emma Bovary, hated along her entire existence.

omais is the central figure in a hall of shame of human existence. e is the man who does not hesitate to harm others for his own sake, the man who seeks glory without having the slightest shred of worthiness in himself, the man who walks on dead bodies on his was to an undeserved glory. Flaubert makes us of his incisive irony until the last words of his novel. In…...

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Homais' own explanatory support for the reasons he should be awarded the Medal of Honor are presented in an even more ironic manner. The only thing related to this profoundly amoral character that deserves admiration is his stubbornness to get that medal. The medal is the symbol of his complete success, the recognition of his life achievements that although highly questionable, are nonetheless worthy of praise in his own eyes. He deceives himself and the whole public opinion he relies on for his success to the point where he even gets the Medal of Honor. This is the biggest irony of all since that medal should be awarded for bravery, for outstanding merits outside the line of duty, for exceptional capacities and for exceptional deeds.

Since Homais eventually got the Medal of Honor, the society that made possible his existence appears to fall into derision. If Homais is publicly recognized as an outstanding, out of the ordinary, brave man, that means that the rest of his ordinary countrymen are worthy of everyone's despise. The great qualities of life, the guarantee to succeed appear to be: deception, lies, manipulation and lack of respect for life in general as long as it does not provide any direct benefits to the person him or herself. Everything about Homais is ironic and the best writer to come up with such a character was Flaubert.

Flaubert, G. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. 1998. Gerard Hopkins; Oxford University Press

Denied marriage, the only other societal option is suicide. Society is the agent of her demise, not Lilly: "her life is not unpleasant until a chain of events destroys her with the thoroughness and indifference of a meat grinder."
Goetz, Thomas H. "Flaubert, Gustave." orld Book Online Reference Center. 2006. [1

Oct 2006] http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar200180.

Biographical overview, provides insight into Flaubert's role as a uniquely realistic writer, thus stressing Emma's economic and moral ruin not as extraordinary, but ordinary.

The House of Mirth." Directed by Terrence Davies. 2000.

This film version takes a slightly feminist reading of Lily's suicide, stressing the aspects of harton's novel that imply that middle class women have few venues for self-expression, other than in marriage. Rather than delicate and retiring, Gillian Anderson portrays Lily as strong, and actively makes the unfortunate decisions that result in her social ostracism.

Inness, Sherrie. a. "An economy of beauty: the beauty system in Edith harton's…...

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Wagner-Martin, Linda. "Wharton, Edith." World Book Online Reference Center. 2006.

Oct 2006] http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar600060.

Overview of Wharton's life, with interesting reminder in light of Lily's despair over not being able to earn enough money through, work, that Wharton supported her own husband financially during their marriage.

"(Flaubert, 235)
Her spleen seems to spring from an almost metaphysic lassitude with life. Emma is never satisfied, and for her, as Flaubert puts it, no pleasure was good enough, there was always something missing. If Emma cannot kiss her lovers without wishing for a greater delight, it is obvious that she cannot cling to anything real, but only to the ideal dreams. She desperately tries to find a responsible for her own unhappiness, without realizing that the tragedy comes from within herself, from her discontent with the real world:

But on whom could she pin the responsibility for her unhappiness? here was the extraordinary catastrophe which had turned her life upside down? She raised her head and looked about her, as though seeking the cause of all her suffering." (Flaubert, 155)

Significantly, Emma is incapable of finding any delight in her lover for example, and prefers to spend her time in a…...

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Works Cited

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Thornton, Lawrence. The Fairest of Them All: Modes of Vision in Madame Bovary," in PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association. Vol. 93. No. 5.1978, p. 982-91.

The whole of the sequence leads one to believe that Charles is so daft that he would put his own life, not only his reputation on the line if Emma believed that it should be so. Charles from this point forward in the work becomes a piteous example of a spineless fool, and Emma likes him even less for it and therefore becomes even more distant.
hen Emma begins her infatuation with Leon, at first she is able to control her desire to become his lover, though others clearly notice her favoritism of him and assume that such is the case. Charles ignores many of his wife's detractors in the community and even goes without questioning her extravagant gift giving to Leon, he sees no real danger just an innocent infatuation. After Leon leaves unrequited, Emma is seduced by the cad Rudolphe and proceeds to have a long sordid affair…...

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Works Cited

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. Trans. Lowell Bair New York: Bantam Classics, 2005.

There is a feminine side to his masculinity, that is, and this passage shows that Emma has an equal share in this dichotomy.
Hours after she is back at home, after Charles has left her alone in the house to attend to something, Emma shuts herself in her room to contemplate her experience and her joy. It is here that the realization of her own feminine power, and the active and "masculine" side that it possess, comes fully and explicitly to light: "when she looked in the mirror, she was startled by her own face. Never had she had eyes so large, so black, so mysterious. Something subtle, transfiguring, was surging through her" (150). The blackness and mysteriousness associated with her face through the narrator's description of her thoughts is highly symbolic of the feminine receptiveness, while the force "surging through her" is more evocative of masculine entrance and movement.…...

Flaubert's novel also presents an overwhelming dissatisfaction over the French bourgeoisie at that time through the eyes and in the person of Emma. She only reflects the aspirations of her time for refinement and sophistication of the higher social classes where she desires to belong. Those of her class do not have the wealth and nobility of those in higher levels. Those above are materialistic, indulgent and wasteful without discrimination. That is how Emma wants her life to be like. She wants to be indulgent and wanton like them but she does not have their means and so she borrows money indiscriminately until she can no longer come to terms with it. The pain of abandonment by the men who seem to give her personal importance, a frustrating marriage, a demanding motherhood to erthe, utter financial insolvency and a total disillusionment with her personal limitations all combine to push her…...

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Bibliography

Flaubert, Gustave. Hall, Geoffrey, trans. Madame Bovary (1857). Paperback. Oxford World's Classics, June 2, 2005

At last! My darling is recovered, and she seems almost back to her old, dear self, with an increased passion for her religion, I notice.
Tuesday - My darling, I cannot believe you have left me. Devastated and alone, I fear that your creditors will be the death of me, as well. You would not know your home, Emma, as I have had to sell almost everything in order to pay your debts. I lack the will to work, or even to remove myself from what once was such a happy home. I found your letters, you know, and I finally recognize what you truly thought of me. Was I so horrible a husband that you were forced to have affairs with other men? Could I never satisfy you or make you happy? I think not, and the thought fills me with despair and self-loathing. I saw odolphe, you know,…...

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References

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. Trans. Gerard Hopkins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

It seems to her, says Flaubert, that her being, rising toward God, is going to be annihilated in love like burning incense that dissipates in vapor. But her response during this phenomenon remains curiously erotic... The waving of the green palm leaves relates this scene to the previous scenes of sexual seduction. (Duncan para, 5)
At times, the green in the novel moves from springtime to the idea of the presence of Satan, the Tempter, coming into Emma's Garden of Eden with blandishments to sin. Earlier in the novel, Emma's relative tranquility is interrupted by the appearance of a stranger wearing green and carrying a green box. This is Lheureux, "an eruption of the occult in the dismal stagnation of provincial life" (Duncan para. 9). Lheureux is a man with no clear origins and the only outsider in the community. He also serves to bring two of the Seven Deadly…...

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Works Cited

Bersani, Leo. "Flaubert and Emma Bovary: The Hazards of Literary Fusion." Novel: A Forum on Fiction (Fall 1974), 16-28.

Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Bowie, Malcolm. "Introduction to Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Russel Whitaker and Kathy D. Darrow. Vol. 185. Detroit: Gale, 2007.

Brombert, Victor. The Novels of Flaubert: A Study of Theme and Technique.

Madam Bovary
For good or for bad, as people get older they learn that real life is not a romantic movie plot. How often is it that boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love and walk into the sunset for the rest of their lives? The boy and girl may meet and fall in love, but what life is happy ever after forever? With the love and happiness in life come different amounts of disappointment, illness and pain. In fact, that is what makes the special smaller moments in life so special. The realist understands that accepting the good means accepting the frustrations as well. Because Emma never understood this human reality, she could not cope and decided to search for everlasting romanticism in life after death. Her mistaken view of life eventually leads not only to her death, but also to that of Charles, who unrealistically continues to…...

Charles' mother is a kind of reverse image of Emma -- she believes that all fantasy is wrong, but even though Flaubert cannot sympathize with her ideas entirely, there is truth to the idea that Emma needs some sort of work and occupation. Emma is kept like an ornament, and as she is bored, she has time to fantasize and feel frustrated with the pointlessness and limits of her life -- which is why she exclaims: "what does it all matter?" Madame Bovary senior's advice for Emma to work also could be rather proto-feministic, rather than just anti-romantic, and unlike Emma's spending, Flaubert does not present this part of her advice as ironically as Emma's spending and lounging around in fake 'Oriental' clothing.
Flaubert, even though he often presents Charles humorously, also shows sympathy for him in this passage. Charles is a doctor and believes that physically treating people's illnesses…...

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Works Cited

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Complete e-text available March 30, 2009 at  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2413/2413-h/2413-h.htm

In any case, fate has sadly a very negative air about it in Madame Bovary.
The most important use of Fate is acknowledged by the narrator in the novel. It is when Charles says that Fate is to blame for it had willed it this way. "[Charles] even made a phrase, the only one he'd ever made: 'Fate willed it this way'" (Flaubert 255). Flaubert's emphasis on the use of fate makes our assertion about role of fate even more certain. Fate acts as the force that brings Falubert's characters to their roots and doesn't let them break free. Thibaudet discusses the use of fate in the novel:

The development of the action, in Madame Bovary, does not occur by a simple succession of events but by the concentric expansion of a theme [...] the process reflects the very motion of fate. e call 'fated' a development that was already contained…...

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Works Cited

Thibaudet, Albert. "Madame Bovary." Trans. Paul de Man. Madame Bovary Backgrounds and Sources Essays in Criticism. Ed. Paul de Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1965. 371-383.

Madame Bovary Backgrounds and Sources Essays in Criticism. Ed. Paul de Man. New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, 1965.

Charles in Madame Bovary
Charles in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary represents a provincial archetype -- in fact, the exact sort of common countryside provincialism that his wife Emma comes to resent, find banal, and from which seek to escape. Yet, it is exactly this provincialism that allows Charles to remain grounded in his work and life: his "common sense" as it might be called keeps him, essentially, from becoming a "jealous type." hether Emma (and the reader) would have benefited more had Charles become such a type, we may not say, but neither is it the course of the narrative to show. This paper will examine the precise reasons why Charles shows no human jealousy of Emma, even as she begins her adulterous way of living.

e can, to a certain degree, better understand Emma than we can Charles. Emma at least represents for us the modern consciousness -- bored, neglected, and…...

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Works Cited

Amann, Elizabeth. Importing Madame Bovary. NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. Print.

Anderson, John P. Flaubert's Madame Bovary: The Zen Novel. USA: Universal

Publishers, 2004. Print.

Aveling, Eleanor Marx. "Introduction to Madame Bovary." Madame Bovary. London:

Flaubert Madame Bovary
Realism came as a counter balance for romanticism. It came up "against all formalized and aestheticized images of things" ((Nineteenth-century literary realism: through the looking-glass, p.3). With the hindsight one has today, realism appears as a highly formalized art, but at the time it developed it fit the criteria for a movement that did not fit the canons previously imposed by the art of writing. The French literature in the nineteenth century was the first to make way for a new movement, a reaction and also a natural sequence to romanticism. atherine earns admits that realist fiction is an oxymoron, but she points out that although objectivity is the main concern of the writer who chooses realism for his work, there are no identical two accounts on reality since it depends on each accountant's point-of-view. Historically and geographically, realism can be traced as having originated in France, in…...

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Kearns. Katherine. Nineteenth-century literary realism: through the looking-glass. Cambridge University Press, 1996

Porter, Laurence M.; Gray, Eugene F. Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary: a reference guide. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002

Villanueva, Dario. Theories of literary realism. SUNY Press, 1997

Gulliver's Travels," "Tartuffe," "Madame Bovary," "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," & "Things Fall Apart"
The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and compare how the theme(s) of "Things Fall Apart" by Achebe relate to the theme and/or storylines of "Gulliver's Travels," by Swift, "Tartuffe," by Moliere, "Madame Bovary," by Flaubert, and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Tolstoy. All these authors use their works to "expose and alter the fundamental moral codes that determine political systems and social mores" (Levine 136).

POLITICAL SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL MORES

Things Fall Apart," by Chinua Achebe is a novel about an African family named Okonkwo, who try to fit in to the white man's society. However, their own society was balanced, happy, and complete, and they did not really need to fit in with the white man. hen they did, it ultimately destroyed their society, and way of life.

Gulliver's Travels," by Jonathan Swift, carries…...

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Works Cited

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. Trans. Gerard Hopkins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Grossman, Debra. "SparkNotes on Gulliver's Travels." SparksNotes.com. 2002.  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gulliver 

Levine, Alan. "Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a Case Study in Nietzsche's Transvaluation of Values." Perspectives on Political Science 28.3 (1999): 136-141.

Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin. "Tartuffe." Project Gutenberg. 2002.  http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2027

While on another walk later in the book, "all the sensations of her first tenderness came back to her, and her poor aching heart opened out amorously" (Madame Bovary Part III Chapter 8). If a first person narrator had said, "all the sensations of my first tenderness cam back to me, and my poor heart…," there would appear to be some sense of self-control and self-reflection; the actions taken would be described by the person taking them, and commentary such as referring to a heart as "poor" would not be a label attached by someone else, but rather a reflection of one's own thinking. This is not the case here, however, but instead a narrator with more information than a true stake in any outcomes or actions describes characters and behaviors in a highly subjective manner that takes power away from the other characters. Because Emma Bovary is the…...

1. Sissys moral traits in Hard Times by Charles Dickens, such as compassion and empathy, contrast with Emmas values in Emma by Jane Austen, which prioritize social status and appearance over genuine human connection.

2. Sissys selflessness and willingness to help others, regardless of their social standing, serve as a stark juxtaposition to Emmas tendency to manipulate and control those around her to maintain her position in society.

3. Sissys humility and modesty in Hard Times highlight Emmas vanity and conceit in Emma, as Sissy values inner qualities and character over superficial appearances and material wealth.

4.....

1. In Dickens's Hard Times and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Sissy Jupe and Emma Bovary emerge as polar opposites in their moral character and imaginative capacities. While Sissy embodies the power of imagination for positive change, Emma's flights of fancy lead her down a path of self-destruction.

2. Sissy's unwavering resilience, empathy, and moral compass contrast starkly with Emma's selfishness, vanity, and reckless disregard for societal norms. These contrasting traits ultimately shape their respective destinies.

3. Dickens's portrayal of Sissy as a beacon of hope and moral fortitude highlights the transformative power of a principled imagination. Sissy's ability to maintain her....