text: There is little more I can contribute to this literary masterpiece--even though the essential structure of my review is clear in my mind, it will not be able to truly capture the magnificent splendor of this work. Gustave Flaubert was a conscientious literary artist who revised and perfected Madame Bovary with care. He worked on the novel for nearly six years, during which time he rewrote the manuscript several times, often spending days perfecting a single paragraph. The result of his painstaking creativity was a masterpiece that rivals the heavens with its beauty. Madame Bovary is a penetrating psychological study of its heroine, Emma Bovary, as she struggles to find fulfillment through a realization of her romantic fantasies of love and wealth. She exists in a dream world and longs for freedom from her middle-class humdrum lifestyle. Flaubert's realistic portrait of the tragic fate of this complex woman is nothing short of phenomenal.
  
  In perfect contrast to Emma, Flaubert introduces Charles Bovary, a proto-typical doctor who has no real talent or ambition and is content to enjoy the simple things that life has to offer. Soon after their wedding, Emma becomes disillusioned by the bumbling Charles and yearns for a romantic interlude. Flaubert represents the absolute clich� of provincial life with his portrayal of this undemanding, unimpressive, and unnoticed middle-class man. Flaubert brings all facets of human personas full-circle with the shy, well-mannered, and well-liked young man-next-door, Leon. With a slow-blossoming relationship with Emma, Leon leaves for Paris to study law. Upon his return--and with a little experience--the two become lovers. Flaubert's portrayal of this dysfunctional couple is reminiscent of tragic romances of yore. Thereafter, the degeneracy of Emma's lifestyle is evident, and she is brought to the brink of destruction.
  
  In Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert gives us a vivid and life-like glance into the reality and the mannerisms and the customs of small-town people living in France during the mid-nineteenth-century. Flaubert's descriptions are detailed and beautiful--and paint a real portrait of the natural world he is describing. Opening with first-person narration that sometimes shifts to third-person has earned Gustave Flaubert the reputation as one of the most celebrated and influential novelists of the nineteenth century
  