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Madame Bovary Composition


            The novel, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert is greatly comic. When first informed that some might find this novel humorous, the reader may express severe disbelief. This is not because it is actually an incredibly serious and complex novel, it is because the reader just does not see the humor. When informed of this, the reader may be inclined to dig deeper into the novel and struggle vigorously to find this aspect of the novel they do not see. The reader may then analyze every paragraph and every chapter, reading between every word and line. When at last the reader exhausts his/her last reserves, he/she sits back and quietly broods about the novel, wondering just where that humor could be hiding. Finally, the realization dawns on some. .
             When taken lightly, the novel is indeed quite comic. It is not comic in the way a man slipping on a banana or a man hit in the face with a pie is funny. It is funny in a different sense. The humor is subtle and skillfully hidden among the vast quantities of details Flaubert uses. However, analyzing each word or sentence will not help the reader because each word or line is taken out of context and displayed as a single idea. This comic aspect of Madame Bovary can only be appreciated when the novel is as a whole.
             In this novel, Flaubert uses many techniques to create humor. The most obvious of these techniques can be seen in his intrusive narration. Flaubert constantly pokes fun at the people of France and of the Church and shares a small laugh with the reader. One example of this method is Flaubert's description of Lestiboudois, the Yonville gravedigger. .
             "The watchman, who is also the gravedigger and the church sexton (thus deriving a double profit from the parish corpses) has utilized the vacant land [in the graveyard] to plant potatoes there. From year to year, however, his little field narrows, and when an epidemic strikes, he doesn't know whether he should be happy about the deaths or miserable about the burials.


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