"O, de ce, Doamne, m-am căsătorit cu el?"
Eroina lui Gustave Flaubert, Emma, este o gospodină provincială plictisită care își abandonează soțul pentru a-l urma pe libertinul Rodolphe într-o relație de dragoste disperată.
Portretizarea erotică și psihologic acută a lui Flaubert despre Emma Bovary a stârnit controverse la publicarea sa în 1857, iar Flaubert a fost urmărit penal pentru că a ofensat morala publică, însă a fost ulterior achitat.
Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi'.
'Oh, why, dear God, did I marry him?' Flaubert's heroine, Emma, is a bored provincial housewife who abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a desperate love affair. Flaubert published published "Madame Bovary" in 1857. The book created a sensation when Flaubert was prosecuted for offending public morals and later acquitted.