Genre/Literary Time Period: Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary

Genre/ Literary Time Period:
Gustave Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary during the Realism period, which focused on details and attempted to replicate the true reality of nature through literature (Rahn). Writers of this literary time period did not rely on profound events to propel the story forward; instead, they wrote about the nuances of one’s daily life (Rahn). For this reason, most of Madame Bovary lacks excitement; it relies on the portrayal of everyday events to develop the plot. Madame Bovary belongs in the genre of realistic fiction; thus, it embraces the idea that people were neither completely good or completely bad (Rahn). This allows Flaubert to develop Emma Bovary in such a way that makes readers sympathize with her situation despite

Being the younger son, Flaubert was sent to study law in Paris, but when he was twenty-three, Flaubert suffered from a series of convulsions that convinced his family to bring him home, where he was allowed time and space to write (Merriman). Given permission to abandon his legal studies and left with a broken family after the deaths of his father and sister, Flaubert was free to temporarily escape the bourgeois life that he detested and to experience worldly delights in both temples and brothels (Merriman). After spending nearly all of his inheritance during his eighteen-month tour of the Near East, Flaubert returned home, having realized that he could not attack the faults of the bourgeoisie with open rebellion through prostitution and wine; instead, he understood that he would make a more significant impact through his words (Flaubert xix). When Flaubert began to write his début and masterpiece, Madame Bovary, in the early 1850s, the railroad and the telegraph were emerging (Flaubert xx). While such innovations brought rapid change to the French society and economy through the quick circulation of goods and information, Flaubert chose to set his story in