Similarities Between The Awakening And Madame Bovary

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High Expectations, Big Dreams
Throughout Kate Chopin and Gustave Flaubert’s novels The Awakening and Madame Bovary, we read of what would have been considered extremely unheard of behavior by the main characters. Edna Pontellier and Madame Bovary are characteristically the same person. They both distance themselves from their husbands and attempt to find independence. While seeking independence and freedom they find new men and have quite the experience with affairs. In the end they become overwhelmed with the amount of weight on their shoulders and commit suicide. Edna Pontellier and Madame Bovary’s unrealistic expectations of romance cause their unhappiness.
In The Awakening, Edna and her husband are vacationing at the Grand Isle when she has …show more content…

Since her husband is rarely around, Edna ends up spending quite a bit of time with another man who teaches her new things and gives her the attention her husband won’t. When the Pontellier’s return home, it is now Edna ignoring her husband and he worrying. She spends most of her time painting instead of doing the expected housewife duties. Marion Muirhead states, “For an upper- or middle-class woman to work is a threat to her husband's social status and self-esteem. Lower-class women work because they need to, while upper-class women entertain and run the household. For a woman of Edna's social status to work would imply that her husband is not successful.” Her husband becomes so concerned as to consult a long time family friend who happens to be a doctor. In Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary becomes bored and feels trapped within her marriage. She has

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