REVIEW OF THE NOVEL MADAME BOVARY

Here is Danielle Stoner's winning book review, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did.

"The 1857 novel Madame Bovary by novelist Gustave Flaubert is truly a masterpiece in its own right. Unlike other novels of its time, Bovary touches on issues that are as relevant now as they were in nineteenth-century France; items such as dreams, infidelity, debt, suicide, and unrequited love constitute the makeup of this novel that is considered a classic of American and European literature.

"The novel centers around Emma (Roualt) Bovary, a bookish woman who holds dear her dreams of romantic love, and Charles Bovary, the smitten, mediocre doctor that falls for her. Emma falls for Charles soon after Charles sets her father's broken leg; to Emma, Charles is the ideal man, and they are soon wed. However, Emma is soon bored with Charles's superficiality and the mundane life she now leads as Madame Bovary.  Charles does not realize that his adoration is one-sided, and remains oblivious to Emma's disinterest throughout the novel. When Emma falls ill with what appears to be anxiety or depression, the Bovarys move to Yonville, a small village in the countryside. It is here where Emma falls in love first with Rodolphe, a wealthy landlord, followed by Leon, a young law student.  Emma's boredom with married life becomes a flurry of frantically concealed love affairs, sprouted from the romanticisms she had read about as a child and a young adult. To deal with her issues, Emma turns to compulsive buying, a trend with which many women can empathize today, but her problems come to an end abruptly and tragically.

"I found this novel to be quite intriguing for a novel of its time. In my experience, most novels from the nineteenth century seem to skirt over issues that were deemed "unseemly" or otherwise controversial. Bovary, however, approaches these topics at full force, describing in great detail the makeup of Emma's relationships with both Rodolphe and Leon. As a true romantic, myself, I liked the premise, even though I disagree with Emma's principles as a whole. I enjoyed the fact that Emma was seemingly able to find true love, or at least what appeared to her to be true love, even though she made the wrong choice in marrying Charles in the first place. Although I disagree with Emma's practices of adultery and abandonment of her child, I sympathize with her dilemma and I admire her will to achieve her dream of true love, no matter what it took to get her there. The novel is masterfully written, painting pictures of the French countryside so vivid that it seemed I was there inside the novel with characters smelling the fresh breeze and listening to the wind whistle through the trees. To me, that was one of the best parts of the novel; the descriptions of the scenery were absolutely lovely. Although the book has a tragic ending, I enjoyed the work as a whole. Overall, I like literature that deals with real issues, and Bovary did just that. Flaubert, although he received harsh criticism for his approach, did an excellent job making the reader aware of the prevalence of these issues in society, and showed them in a way that made the reader empathize with the characters' points of view. It is hard not to sympathize with Emma when Rodolphe abandons her, or grieve with Charles during any of the times where he experienced the death of a loved one. I feel that reading this novel has expanded my knowledge of classic literature, while helping me further understand the motives behind certain people's actions.  I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a change in pace, anyone interested in classic literature that is still relevant today, or anyone yearning to take a stroll in the French countryside."