Essay Archive - Madame Bovary: Emma's Escape
Madame Bovary: Emma's Escape
A theme throughout Flaubert's Madame Bovary is escape versus
confinement. In the novel Emma Bovary attempts again and again to escape
the ordinariness of her life by reading novels, having affairs, day
dreaming, moving from town to town, and buying luxuries items. It is Emma's
early education described for an entire chapter by Flaubert that awakens in
Emma a struggle against what she perceives as confinement. Emma's education
at the convent is perhaps the most significant development of the dichotomy
in the novel between confinement and escap....
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