Extract
[...] Conclusion To conclude, through the evocation of the heroine's dream, this passage presents the portrait of a young woman who idealizes life, influenced by her romantic readings. Emma Bovary dreams of a fairy-tale and romantic world. She will soon be disillusioned: in the continuation of this novel, Rudolph, her lover, will break up with her, and her romantic escape dreams will come crashing down. This excerpt, in fact, illustrates what Bovarism is. This psychological complexion of a person who sees themselves as different from what they really are and who condemns themselves to always being disappointed by the banality of existence. [...]
[...] Fourth movement - The return to reality: The coordinating conjunction 'but' marks a break and the return to the omniscient point of view. Emma regains her status as mother and wife: 'Her child' line 18 and the name 'Bovary'. To emphasize this brutal return to reality, there is an alliteration in in 'was coughing in her cradle' and an alliteration in 'Bovary snored louder', which imitates the whistling and snoring that breaks the sweetness of her dreams. The verb 'was whitening' (l.20) shows that the bright colors of the dream journey disappear. [...]
[...] The verbs are no longer in the imperfect, but they are in the present conditional: 'would stop' (l.12), 'would live' (l.13), 'would walk' (l.14) and 'would contemplate' (l.16). We are faced with a conditional that marks uncertainty. At the same time, we find an accumulation of elements that refer to a sagging, collapse. - Madame Bovary seems to have changed level We can first note that she finds herself in an environment that has nothing to do with the previous one. In fact, after having been at the summits of the mountains, Madame Bovary seems to have descended, to the beach. [...]
[...] Published in 1857, Madame Bovary is the first novel of Flaubert. Inspired by a true story, this novel explores the dissolute life of Emma Bovary, the wife of a country doctor, who is bored, as her life does not resemble the one described in her readings. Indeed, throughout his narrative, Flaubert mocks the romantic outbursts of his heroine who wants to live like in the novels she has read. This excerpt presents the heroine in one of these moments of daydreaming. [...]
[...] - It is a dream of a romantic journey. One can also find the lexical field of travel, as the author explains the places they pass by, and it seems quite dreamlike: 'splendid city with domes' 'bridges, ships' 'citrus forests' 'marble white cathedrals' (l.6) and 'the pointed steeples carried stork nests' (l.6-7). - There is an abolition of spatial limits, illustrated by the accumulation : « of domes, bridges, ( . ) and white marble cathedrals.' It seems that all the places are intertwined. [...]
