Emma's Unorthodox Behavior in Madame Bovary

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Emma's Unorthodox Behavior in Madame Bovary

From earliest infancy, an individual's character is molded by experience.

In Gustave Flaubert's novel entitled Madame Bovary, Emma's unorthodox behavior

during her married life can be attriuted to the illusions she maintained about

life during her girlhood. These, combined with her father's disinterest in her

mental happiness become the force which eventually leads Emma Bovary to commit

suicide.

When she was 13 years old, Pere Rouault took his daughter, Emma, to town

to put her in a convent where she would receive an education. She received more

than her father bargained for. All that Emma later believed love should be, she

learned from books there, mostly from romance novels lent to her and the other

girls by an old maid who worked for the convent. In the fine pages of those

books, Emma read of parted lovers, excitement, romance, knights in armor, and

ladies in white satin dresses. These novels painted a world where palm trees

and pine trees lived...

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