王仕秀
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Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
content
• About the author
• Analyses of
characters
• Major characters
•
Summary
• About
Madame Bovary
• Theme Analysis
Gustave flaubert(1821-1880)
Nationality
France
:
Occupation:
novelist, playwright
Literary:
realism
Major works
• Madame Bovary (1857)《包法利夫人》
• Salammbo (1862) 《萨郎波》
• Sentimental Education (1869)《情感故事》
• Three Tales (1877) 《三个故事》
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Major characters of the novel
• Emma Bovary
Mr Homais
• Charles Bovary
Mr Lheureux
• Leon
• Rodolphe
Emma Bovary
A country girl educated
in a convent(女修道院)
and married to Charles
Bovary at a young age .
Charles Bovary
• A country doctor. He
lacks intelligence
but loves Emma very
much.
Rodolphe
• Emma's first lover, a
shrewd(精明的) and rich
bachelor.
• Leon
• Emma's early friend and
later her second lover.
Other characters
Mr Homais ----A chemist in Yonville
Mr Lheureux----A greedy merchant in
Yonville,he made Emma have a vast debt
and wanted to get possessions of Mr
Bovary.
Berthe---The daughter of Charles and Emma
Bovary.
Heloise--Bovary's first wife.
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Summary
1.The growth background of Charles
Bovary made him grow to be a kind,
simple, dull, and unremarkable man.
2.Emma married Charles Bovary ,then
felt bored about her marriage.
3.Became the mistress of Roldphe,but
soon was abandoned by him.
4.Met Leon again and became his lover
quickly.During this period ,Emma spent a
lot of money and made a vast debt.
5.Be asked to pay off the debt ,had no money
and tried to lend money from her
lovers ,but neither lent her.
6.Could not pay off the debt and worried
about the ruin of her reputation ,suicided.
7.Mr Bovary know all the things ,sad ,mad,
died.
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Analysis of Emma
She pursues
idealistic romance,
sophistication,
sensuality and
passion.Very beautiful.
Analysis about Charles Bovary
A country doctor, kind, but
simple,dull,and unremarkable .
Bovary is a terrible doctor who
manages simple cases decently but
is incapable of performing
difficult operations.He loves Emma
but does not understand her .
Analyses about the two lovers
•
Rodolphe is shrewd, selfish.
He has many lovers,Emma is
only one of them.He refuses
to lend money to Emma when
she needs it most.
•
Flaubert presents Leon as
awkward and full of himself .
Analysis of Mr Homais
The chemist at
Yonville,selfish. he is only
befriending Charles because he
wants Charles to turn a blind
eye to his illegal medical
practices.
He is the perfect
embodiment （化身）of all the
bourgeois(中产阶级) values and
characteristics that is so
disgust（厌恶）by Flaubert.
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About Madame Bovary
About Madame Bovary
•
This story takes place in the early 19th
century in the French countryside. Gustave
Flaubert,the author ,was sickened with the
French middle class he was born into.He
believes them to be lazy ,unconcerned and
selfish. Madame Bovary is a self-centered,
envious, and dramatic middle class French
woman.
•
About Madame Bovary
Flaubert spent over five
years writing the novel. At
times,he spent one week writing and
rewriting two pages of the novel.he
took great care in writing Madame
Bovary ,more care than any novelist
before him.
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Theme Analysis
• Desire
• woman
Desire
Emma not only desires love but is impelled to
desired herself. For this reason she pushes her
lovers to continually give proof of their desire for
her.She insists that both Rodolphe and Leon to write
her letters and poetry,and she makes increasingly
greater demands on both.For instance,she insists that
Rodolphe think of her at a particular time in the
evening .Ironically,her immense need for displays of
love succeeds only in driving both men away. Other
characters are also driven by their desires .
•
Homais, for example, desires the reward
from the government .The merchant Lheureux ’s
passion is obviously the money. Charles
Bovary‘s desires are seemingly （表面上）
fulfilled when he marries Emma, which leads
to his lack of professional ambition
Women
Emma's
failure
is not completely her
own, but also her character and the position
of women in the nineteenth century. ( for
example ,at that time, she
has no other
means of finding money except using sex as
an exchange ) If Emma were a rich man as
her lover Rodolphe ,she would be free to
indulge the lifestyle she imagines.
Flaubert suggests that her dissatisfaction
with the bourgeois society she lives in is
justified. But Emma's inability to accept her
situation and her attempt to escape it cause
harm to innocent people around her, for
example, her husband and her daughter.
END
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