Emma Bovary: entre livros e romances

Abstract

The nineteenth century consolidated the modern novel as a genre, and as soon as possible, it received the function of serving as a source of entertainment. However, not long after its conception, the novel has become an important tool to teach about morals and good manners, developing even some trace of refinement in societies. Reading novels has become one of the main spare-time activities among women of that period, and also the main instruction media for them, even if not all types of texts were recommended to female readers. Taking into account the discussion on the recommended and dangerous types of women reading this paper seeks to study the novel Madame Bovary (1857) by Gustave Flaubert, specifically the title character, Emma Bovary and her reading habits. The focus of the analysis is to observe how the reading of literary texts, especially novels, had contributed to the formation and development of the way of seeing the world and the protagonist’s imaginary, regarding the pursuit for happiness in love and marriage. Given these issues, we consider relevant to establish at what level the literary education of Emma Bovary is crucial in the constitution of her character and her personality, because throughout the narrative, we come across some texts / authors read by the protagonist, so we consider valuable to take a closer look at the reading material with which the character is instructed and how they relate to her actions.