Madame Bovary: Linguistic Figurings of Imaginative Corruption

The inner life of La Strada’s heroine eludes us. The inner life of Emma Bovary is displayed with unmatched completeness, even though that life is constituted largely of mental confu-sions and inauthentic desires. Readers of Flaubert’s novel share in Emma’s consciousness (as we do not in Gelsomina’s)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMake Believe in Film and Fiction pp. 93 - 106
Main Author Kroeber, K
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Palgrave Macmillan 2006
Palgrave Macmillan US
Subjects
Film scripts & screenplays
Films, cinema
Free Indirect Discourse
Gradual Devolution
Literature & literary studies
Ordinary Life
Thoroughbred Horse
Verbal Troping
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Summary:The inner life of La Strada’s heroine eludes us. The inner life of Emma Bovary is displayed with unmatched completeness, even though that life is constituted largely of mental confu-sions and inauthentic desires. Readers of Flaubert’s novel share in Emma’s consciousness (as we do not in Gelsomina’s), so we too undergo psychic confusions and self-deceptions. We enter into Emma’s mental processes not just at special moments but also during the chronic dreariness of her daily life. We even participate in the gradual devolution of her consciousness as she slides into courses leading to ghastly self-destruction. We are appalled by the black liquid that pours from dying Emma’s mouth because we have imaginatively been a party to her self-poisoning.
ISBN:1403972796
9781403972798
9781349534012
1349534013
DOI:10.1057/9781403983220_8