Paper Topic:

Madame Bovary and The Death of Ivan Ilyich

MADAME BOVARY AND THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH

What is the nature of man ? Gustave Flaubert 's Madame Bovary and Leo Tolstoy 's The Death of Ivan Ilych portray not only a glimpse of what man 's nature is , but also in so doing provide a criticism of it . Both works look into the life of people who want more out of life , and yet ironically what they desire only adds shallowness and not meaning to their existence . Whereas Flaubert 's Madam Bovary shows the depressing end of a woman consumed by passions

, Tolstoy gives hope with a dying man 's last days where he gets an epiphany of what the nature of man should be

Emma is Madame Bovary , a young woman who lived in her world of romantic fantasy . She came from the country and read romantic novels when she was in the convent , and believed in earnest that love and marriage will make her happy . But after marrying a simple-minded and incompetent doctor Charles , she grows disillusioned as she sinks in the routine activities of daily life . She wanted romance , passion , excitement , and although her husband loves her and adores her , she wanted more . She wanted the latest trends in fashion and she felt that she was born unjustly to a lower class than was supposed to be for her , the aristocrat

But Emma does nothing to earn the admiration or the respect of the people she admired : she can copy their outward mannerism and clothes but...

8 pages

36.5 KB

Free sing-up