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Symbolisim in madame bovary


When she married Charles she put on the wedding dress and with it she became tied down to her husband. She freely takes her own life to escape and her husband still confines her in her death by enclosing her in three coffins, as to not let anything in or out, and laying her to rest in eternity in a dress that represents why she wanted out of her life so badly. .
             Flaubert also uses windows to show Emma's entrapment. Throughout the novel, Emma is always looking out of windows onto the town, or people on the street catch glimpses of her through the window of her house. Flaubert uses windows to represent Emma's desire to escape from her marriage and her dull life. She looks out the window thinking about the freedom she will never have. At one point, Emma even thinks about jumping out the attic window after Rodolphe. Windows are also used to bring back memories of Emma's childhood. When the window breaks open at the ball, Emma can see the peasants outside and is reminded from where she truly came from and belongs, this further shows how she cannot escape her middle class status. "As she looks at the faces of the peasants pressed against the window she is reminded of the farm again, the muddy pond, her father in his apron under the apple-trees, and she saw herself again as formerly, skimming with her finger the cream off the milk-pans in the dairy." (Pg. 37) .
             Another object that is used is a cigar box. On their way home form the ball, Charles finds a cigar case on the ground, "he picked up a cigar-case with a green silk border and a crest in the centre like the door if a carriage," (Pg. 39). Emma keeps the cigar case which she assumes belongs to the Viscount she danced with at the ball. With the cigar case and her fashion magazines, Emma's life becomes consumed by her desire to be part of high society in Paris. Flaubert uses the cigar case as Emma's link to a world she will never experience.


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