Emma's Masculinity in Madame Bovary

Set in the Victorian era of the 1800’s Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert exemplifies society’s views on the established gender roles of this time. Flaubert utilizes Emma Bovary’s masculinity to accentuate Emma’s desire for control. Her desire for control extends from the social pressure of the period, revealing her envy towards men. Flaubert undoubtedly depicts Emma’s characteristics to have a masculine undertone and throughout the novel her femininity deviates as her priority shifts. Emma’s lack of femininity translates to her relationships by maneuvering an interchanging role of a girlfriend or boyfriend.

In Madame Bovary, Emma creates conspicuous goals based off romantic novels she reads. In reaching her goals, she requires a level of control and meekness especially regarding the relative goals a woman could have during the Victorian era. Eventually, she finds herself struggling with the limits society puts on her as a woman. Emma says,

A man, at least, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures . . . A woman is always hampered . . . there is always some desire that draws her, some conventionality that restrains. (Flaubert 93),

Emma projects her views of an ideal man in her expected son. As if fantasizing what her life would be like having the control that men have in society. The resentment she feels towards her choices correlates to the resentment she feels being a woman. Emma tries to prevail over the obstacles of being a woman by trying to do activities that a man would typically do like going out all night in town, spending vast money on a rendezvous and courting a desired companion. After Leon’s departure the narrator speaks of Emma’s method of copi...

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...the appropriate role of a woman in relationships when she feels things are going her way.

Throughout the novel, Flaubert utilizes Emma Bovary’s masculinity to accentuate Emma’s desire for control. Emma’s actions presented a rebellious delusional woman that challenges Victorian models revealing her envy towards men; Flaubert portrays Emma as a masculine type figure that uses her femininity and masculinity on various levels depending on her circumstances. She specifically maneuvers her gender role in relationships for the purpose of making her dreams come true. Through the use of masculinity Flaubert exemplifies the morals of the Victorian era and gives perspective on the realism and romanticism of those expectations and the relationship with desired control.

Works Cited

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling. Mineola (NY): Dover, 1996.