Madame Bovary

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 luxury 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 …

…houses." She also found interest in the sea but only because it was stormy. Of all the things that Emma found interest, she soon became bored with, from Charles to Leon. This cycle of boredom and the progression of images of confinement, escape, and chaos, parallel both the Chapter on Emma's education and the novel as a whole the entire mural of the novel as Emma's journey from boredom in reality to self-destruction in fantasy.