Madame Bovary

Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary, a well-meaning provincial doctor, and becomes trapped in a life that feels smaller and duller than the romantic world she imagined. Restless in marriage and dissatisfied with domestic routine, she pursues affairs, fashionable possessions and social display as possible routes out of provincial boredom. The novel follows Emma’s longing, deception and mounting debts within a Normandy society governed by reputation, money, religion, medicine and the limits placed on women’s choices.