Irony and detachment in Madame Bovary
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Irony and detachment in Madame Bovary
Over the span of the nineteenth century, Europe's socioeconomic and political reality was transformed by unprecedented changes in technological development. Urbanisation and the emergence of the middle class redefined the social stratification of most European countries. These dramatic changes did not go unnoticed in literature. The idealistic individualism of the romantic era gave way to a movement referred to as realism. This new wave of literature focused on the observations of everyday life and attempted to portray it with an almost scientific objectivity. Gustave Flaubert was one of the foremost writers at this time and his novel Madame Bovary is one of the most celebrated works of its time. Through the use of the free indirect discourse and a changing narrative point of view, Flaubert attempted to keep a level of detachment from his characters and thus to portray reality in as objective manner as possible. Despite the fact that Madame Bovary is the main character, the novel begins and ends with the point of view of Charles Bovary in order to convey the sense of objectivity characteristics of works of the realistic movement, as well as to reveal a series of ironies inherent in the main characters.
There are many hidden ironic elements throughout the novel and another reason why Flaubert uses Charles's point of view at the beginning and the end of Madame Bovary is to reveal two very ironic elements of the story. The first of these is the fact that despite their obvious incompatibility, the personalities of Charles and Emma share a number of characteristics...