Similarities between Madame Bovary and Mrs. Dalloway

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Two of the most notorious women in literature, the lives of Madame Bovary and Mrs. Dalloway, though very different from each other, do have a bit of similarity. Both women are seen to not be satisfied with their lives though for very different reasons. Mrs. Dalloway, who is the heroine of Virginia Woolf’s novel, lives in the world of the rich. Some of her daily worries in life consists of how to make sure that party guests will enjoy how the house looks like and the food and wine that will be consumed are said to be excellent. Madame Bovary, on the other hand, is a middle-class and has a bit of struggle in their daily lives. Although comfortable enough in her life, Madame Bovary longs and insists for more things in her life as she would like to live the life of the rich. The two women are seen to be both unhappy with the lives they live as they each feel that there is something that is lacking.
Mrs. Dalloway is portrayed as a woman who is rich, who has a somewhat happy life, and is carefree when it comes to obtaining material things and wealth. She has chosen to marry a wealthy man instead of her long-time friend who she knew loved her so much. She is seen to be content with how things are with her life but knows deep inside that there is more to life than material wealth. The day that is shown in the life of Mrs. Dalloway shows how she has been thinking of what could have happen if things are different and if she had chosen love and adventure rather than wealth and security. The story of Clarissa Dalloway also focuses on the life of Septimus Warren Smith, a World War I veteran who is Mrs. Dalloway’s neighbor. This focus was shown in order to be able to compare the thoughts of Mrs. Dalloway when she saw the ambulance taking away...

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...parties and wealth, that she did not see that if she did things right, she would have been able to get all that with Charles and the money that he has generously given to her. Madame Bovary, even if Flaubert tried to show her as somehow virtuous in terms of her initially refusing money in return for sexual favors, is too passionate and sexual individual for her own good. She is a free-spirited and very sexual person who should not be tied down to a child or a relationship as those would just hamper her down from who she really is as a person. The two novels which showed two different but similar women, were both interesting to read. Not only did it show the flight of women at the time it was written, but it also showed how decisions are being made by people and the way people act with regards to their situation that would decide how their lives would turn out to be.

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