I would argue that it is crucial for us to view Emma’s own sense of self in these terms, especially through the way a portrait of her is created over the course of the novel, for every event or liaison that shapes her seems to be experienced secondhand. And she is even denied the chance to open and close the novel: Charles is given that privilege. In other words, she is some kind of palimpsest, a reused version of other women. Through the conventions of society and marriage, she is obliged to take on someone else’s surname, but she is not even afforded the dignity of being the only Madame Bovary in the book, with her position as third in line behind her husband Charles’s disapproving mother and Charles’s first wife. It is strangely telling that the novel’s title, Madame Bovary, does not allow Emma the individuality of her own first name or her familial identity. One could argue that Emma’s search for an identity that is hers alone is admirable, but Flaubert brilliantly shows the brutal reality of women’s lives of that and many other times. But on another level, it becomes all too clear that Emma’s dreams of bettering herself involve a great deal of self-deception that will prove to be destructive not only to herself but also to people around her. On one level, she aspires for a better life than the monotonous one she experiences as the wife of a decent but uninspiring country doctor at certain times in our lives, we have probably all felt the kind of ennui that Emma wishes to escape from. It is possible, I think, to both empathize with and laugh at the idealistic yearnings of the central character, Emma Bovary.

Perhaps the first point to make about Madame Bovary is that, even though it is rightly hailed as a realist masterpiece, puncturing the idealism of the romantic fiction of the earlier part of the 19th century, it can be read and enjoyed on many levels and in different ways. As it’s clearly impossible in just a few minutes to capture all the elements of this great novel’s complexity, I am going to dwell instead on just a few examples that show its richness.

Today, I am going to suggest that now is the time to finally take the book down from your shelves or order it from your favorite bookstore. I suspect that Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary is one of those books at the top of many people’s “To-Read-One-Day” lists. Note to readers: You may choose to read this analysis of Gustave Flaubert ‘s Madame Bovary here or listen to it on the audio file at the end of the article. Rodolphe (Christophe Malavoy) and Emma (Isabelle Huppert) at the agricultural show in Claude Chabrol’s 1991 film of Madame Bovary.

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