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The Reality Of Romanticism In Madame Bovary

Decent Essays

Darrell Ahouansou
Mrs DeVaney-Lovinguth
ENG 272 research paper
11/22/2014

The reality of Romanticism

Realism is a literary movement and artistic movement of the 19th century where authors give an exact representation of society, nature and people as they are. Throughout this century, numerous problems were emerging in society in Europe because of the Industrial revolution which took place between 1760 until around 1840. Problems such as poverty, poor working conditions, poor living conditions, and life was no longer a fairy and these changes influenced art and literature. In France, many writers, painters and artists represented the reality of life in their works.
Gustave Flaubert as well as many other French artists described their society with as much detail and honesty as they could possibly fit. They wanted art to be a testament of the contemporary society and the romantic works did not quite represent life accurately. The artists of the realism period valued science over supernatural, dirty truth over beautiful lies and sometimes they were criticized for exposing problems of the society that no one dared to expose, such as the role of women in society.

After publishing Madame Bovary, Flaubert received a lot of criticism for his work. The main character Emma Bovary did not have the characteristics that a woman of his time is …show more content…

Charles Bovary is well described. Although mediocre in all aspects, he represents the working class of the society; men do not live easy lives. They are struck by reality and most of the time, their efforts are not rewarded. A character like Rodolphe represents the deceivers. He is really a mockery to the typical romantic antagonist. The fact that he is an impostor and a liar was probably Flaubert’s way to show a contrast between realism and romanticism. Every character has so much to tell about society at the time, and we can expect it to be

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