FLAUBERT AND MADAME BOVARY

Flaubert and Madame Bovary

Flaubert and Madame Bovary

Introduction

It is generally famous among the critics of nineteenth-century regarding French literature that Gustave Flaubert created an example for the contemporary realist novel with his classical work such as, Madame Bovary. However, Flaubert himself might not agree with his classification as a realist, because he was not loyal to only one literary genre or period. Rather, he urged to create literatures on various topics that would be differentiated as an object of art. In order to make this dream a reality, he adopted techniques because he believed in generating crafty and communicative writing style. Although Madame Bovary is not the book about nothing that Flaubert had an aim to write, it is a classic of world literature and is a work of art. Therefore, all issues related to Flaubert's “Great art should be scientific and impersonal” will be discussed in detail.

Discussion

Gustave Flaubert's mid-nineteenth-century French novel was surrounded by controversy from the very start. Originally published as a magazine serial, Madame Bovary's author was put on trial for committing an outrage against public and religious morality. Critics condemned Madame Bovary and its author for presenting an unpunished heroine who had sexual interests outside of marriage, and the goal of the trial was to prevent the continued publication of the novel. The horror of the idea of a woman with desires that a husband or motherhood could not fulfil not only shocked many, but was also so scandalous that it was the impetus for putting an author on trial. Critics charged Flaubert with writing a novel that, according to assertions by the text's opponents, had the ability to corrupt the morality of an entire society by its depiction of the heroine's extramarital affairs or, in short, it had the potential to ruin a good thing by putting ideas into the heads of French women everywhere (Aronson, 1980, 82).

Romanticism and Realism figure prominently within the world of Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The novel establishes the dichotomy between the two philosophical, cultural, and literary movements and, in doing so, presents an argument about the quality of life, society, and human nature. As a movement, Romanticism began in Germany, but it is closely associated with France, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau is considered the father of Romanticism although he did not give birth to it. The movement was characterized by a focus on the ideal and on individualism, primitivism, and emotions as a means of self-expression, feelings of nostalgia, and the melancholic. A primary tenet of Romanticism was that anything is possible. While many may connect Romanticism with idealism, there is also much darkness springing from its simultaneous interest in the nightmarish and the morbid. Realism, as a movement, responded to Romanticism and revolted against it in much the same way that Romanticism rebelled against the Enlightenment and the ideas embedded in the neoclassical period. Works of literary Realism are often set in working- or middleclass households featuring real characters who struggle with real life, especially ...