Madame Bovary

Throughout history Romance has been According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Romance is defined as a narrative or work of fiction that has the nature or qualities of a romance. Romanticism is a period, movement, or style in literature, music, and other arts starting in the late 1700s and flourishing in the early 1800s. During the Victorian Age, romantic love became viewed as the primary requirement for marriage and courting became even more formal, almost viewed as an art form among the upper classes. But more commonly, the term “Romantic" refers to feelings of love or desire, and "romance" is used to describe a love story. The critic Benjamin F. Bart wrote, “He never ceased to be a Romantic, but now he knew better, and his view while writing Madame Bovary may better be though of as anti-Romanticism: he was both possessed by it and aware that it was a false doctrine.” Although many believe Flaubert is an over the top romantic, through the use of satire, realism, and characterization in Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert may be better thought as an “anti-romantic” or a more realist author.

Throughout the novel, Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert's writing frequently bounces between realism and over the top romanticism. “the novel paints a tragic portrait of Emma Bovary, whose ideal of happiness becomes gradually suffocated both by the weakness of her own character and by the repressive moral standards of her age. At the same time, the book levels a scathing attack on nineteenth-century bourgeois values, exposing what Flaubert perceived to be the self-righteousness and crassness of middle-class society.” (LitFinder)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a “satire” is a poem or a novel, film, or other work of art which u...

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... the Romantic main character, Flaubert ends up killing her in the novel. It’s pure satire by Flaubert to make such a romantic character out of Emma and then have her kill herself.

Although Emma shows the romantic side of Flaubert, Catherine Leroux is the exact opposite of what Emma is portrayed to be.

Her thin face, framed in a simple coif, was more wrinkled than a withered russet, and out of the sleeves of her red blouse hung her large gnarled hands. Years of barn dust, washing soda and wool grease had left them so crusted and rough and hard that they looked dirty..." (Flaubert, 176).

This woman is the total opposite of "romanticism," especially when compared side by side with Emma. Although Leroux might have dreamt about being swept away by a man at some point in her life, unfortunately for her she traded her dreams for reality and who and what needed her.