Madame Bovary

Published in 1857, the novel tells the story of Emma Bovary, a farmer’s daughter who, with girlhood dreams fueled by sensational novels, marries a provincial doctor bored and unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood. She embarks upon a series of affairs in search of passion and excitement, but is unable to achieve the splendid life for which she yearns. Instead, she finds herself trapped in a downward spiral that inexorably leads to ruin and self-destruction. Flaubert inaugurated a literary mode that would be called Realism. Flaubert’s portrayal of the breakdown of Emma’s marriage and her adulterous liaisons were so authentic that it scandalized many of his contemporaries.