Example research essay topic: Madame Bovary Is A Universal Text - 1,052 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ONCE REMARKED, Madame Bovary, cest moi (Madame Bovary is me). On the surface, this comment seems ridiculous; the circumstances of Flaubert's life have nothing in common with those he created for his most famous character. However his reasons for writing and the techniques he administers in portraying his characters make it obvious that he was the basis for the character of Emma Bovary. Of course he failed to add that so are you and I, we are all the victims of unrealized or unrealizable dreams. Written in the mid-nineteenth century Madame Bovary is the portrait of a female adulterer who seeks freedom from a dull, disappointing life and ultimately is destroyed by her selfishness and sin.

Emma is a country girl educated in a convent and married to Charles Bovary (a dull and unremarkable doctor) at a young age. She holds idealistic romantic fantasies, longs for sophistication, sensuality, and passion, and lapses into fits of extreme boredom and depression when her life fails to match the soppy romantic novels she treasures. Hoping that this marriage will fulfil her romantic and sexual fantasies ands solve all her problems she is greatly disgusted by the monotony and lack of passion. The Bovary's meet Homes, the town pharmacist, a pompous windbag who loves to hear himself speak. Emma also meets Leon, a law clerk, who, like her, is bored with rural life and loves to escape through romantic novels. When Emma gives birth to her daughter, motherhood disappoints here had wanted a sound she continues to be downhearted.

Romantic feelings blossom between Emma and Leon; however Emma feels guilty and throws herself into the role of a dutiful wife. Leon grows tired of waiting and departs to study law in Paris. His departure makes Emma miserable. Soon, at an agricultural fair, a wealthy neighbor named Rodolphe, who is attracted by Emma's beauty, declares his love to her. He seduces her, and they begin having a passionate affair. Emma is often indiscreet, and the townspeople all gossip about her.

However, refusing to elope with her, Rodolphe leaves her. Heartbroken, Emma grows desperately ill and nearly dies. By the time Emma recovers, Charles is in financial trouble from having to borrow money to pay off Emma's debts and to pay for her treatment. Still, he decides to take Emma to the opera in the nearby city of Rouen. There, they encounter Leon and this meeting rekindles their love affair. As Emma continues sneaking off to Rouen to meet Leon, she also grows deeper and deeper in debt to the moneylender L heureux, who lends her more and more money at exaggerated interest rates.

She becomes careless in having her affair with Leon and on several occasions, her friends nearly discover her unfaithfulness. Over time, Emma grows bored with Leon, but not knowing how to abandon him, she instead becomes increasingly demanding. Eventually, the moneylender orders the seizure of Emma's property to compensate for the debt she has accumulated. Terrified of Charles finding out, she frantically tries to raise the money that she needs, appealing to Leon and to all the towns businessmen. Eventually, she even attempts to prostitute herself by offering to get back together with Rodolphe if he will give her the money she needs.

He refuses, and, driven to despair, she commits suicide by eating arsenic. She dies in horrible agony. For a while, Charles idealizes the memory of his wife. Eventually, though, he finds her letters from Rodolphe and Leon, and he is forced to confront the truth. He dies alone in his garden, and Birth and their daughter is sent off to work in a cotton mill.

Real 19 th century tragedy isnt it? Gustave Flaubert's highly famous novel is a goldmine when one looks at the techniques used. His attitude toward his story and his characters is evenly divided between sympathy and ironic contempt. Flaubert is actively arguing with his own characters, thus enhancing the narrative dynamic of the novel. By mocking and ridiculing their actions he is creating another interesting level to the prose. Madame Bovary has just the right style, is calm in tone, mildly ironic, concise and exact although quite pessimistic and harsh.

There's persistent irony throughout Flaubert's work, some of it obvious, some of it more subtle Charles, unaware as usual, announces to the Rodolphe, Emma's lover that his wife was at his disposal. " He writes neither in the third person, nor the first, but in the unique Free indirect style" Events are recorded as if from the viewpoint of a particular character but not in that character's voice. Flaubert holds a distance that evokes a lack of interest but also seems mocking. Flaubert was battling in his writing between two schools of writing: the realists, and the romantics. Although the novel was seen as highly realistic, he judged it in a romantic style.

The strong sense of the insufficiency of language is in part a reaction against the writings of realism. Although Flaubert was in some senses a realist, he also believed it was wrong to claim that realism provided a more accurate picture of life than romanticism. Because of its verge between realistic and elaborate writing, the universal ideas become more easily present. Flaubert describes how words seem to fail us when we are trying to express our deepest emotions."..

and human language is like a cracked kettledrum on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity. " Gustave Flaubert scandalized readers with the publication of his first novel, and he was even put on trial for offending public morality. Flaubert chose his subject to illustrate his belief that any aspect of life, however trivial or vulgar, could be a subject for literature, and could be raised to the status of art by the quality of the writing. Madame Bovary's cause is universal in that the themes and ideas present are harsh realities, such as the selfishness and inadequacy Emma possesses. Dreams somehow slip from our grasp or glitter before our eyes, only a little beyond our reach. "I admire tinsel as much as gold, " Flaubert once wrote in a letter. "Indeed, the poetry of tinsel is even greater, because it is sadder. "

Research essay sample on Madame Bovary Is A Universal Text