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May 20, 2017Janice21383 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Madame Emma is vain, pretentious, impatient and callous, and I adore her. Her author, Gustave Flaubert, once said "I am Emma Bovary!" -- he knows her joys, her sorrows, and her frustrated bourgeoise aspirations from the inside. Emma is often compared to Anna Karenina (see essay above), and it is interesting to see the contrast between an author who is in love with his heroine (Tolstoy), and makes all the excuses for her he decently can, and an author who wants to ruthlessly expose her (Flaubert), but is madly in love with her anyway. Emma Bovary is a miserable creature, but she attains a kind of greatness in her misery. This story is a reminder of how short, painful, and limited most human lives are, and women's lives perhaps most of all.