1. Find three passages spread over the first 75 pages that illustrate Flaubert as a master of realistic detail at work. Explain and defend your choices.
2. How does the point of view in the novel work, and how does it affect your impressions of the main characters? Pick a passage in which you find the point of view striking, and analyze why it interests you.
3. How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?
4. What is the role of women in the text? How are mothers represented? What about single/independent women? Could Emma ever have survived as a single woman?
5. Do you consider this novel a work of feminist literature?
6. What are the conflicts in Madame Bovary? What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) are in the novel?
7. What is the central/primary purpose of the story? Is the purpose important or meaningful?
8. What are some symbols in Madame Bovary? How do they relate to the plot and characters?
9. How would you describe the tone of the book? Does it change?
10. Discuss how Emma's fascination with romantic (and Romantic) ideals affects her life.
11. Images of machines reappear at intervals; what ideas do these images call up?
12. Describe how Flaubert portrays basic bourgeois behavior and attitudes. How do these compare with the aristocrats; does either group come out ahead?
13. How does socio-economic class figure in Bovary? How would a Marxist analyze the book?
14. Why begin and end with Charles? How does this place Emma in perspective?
15. Is Emma's fate tragic? Is the novel tragic? Why or why not?
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