sum up Emma's lust for life and her desire to experience and learn new things; to actually go out and live. Perhaps a trip such as the one described in Mr. Allen's short story would have been the thing to save Emma Bovary, although I doubt she would have ever wanted to go back to Yonville as she does in Allen's story. Emma Bovary is an unhappy, unfulfilled woman. Emma's tragedy is that she cannotescape her own immanence. 'Everything including herself was unbearable to her,' But just as her walks always lead back to the detested house, so Emma feels thrown back into herself, left stranded on her own shore (Brombert 22). She constantly strives for experience and passion, but is continually restrained by a society that did not tolerate the growth, education, and mature development of women. Emma was fortunate to have had any education at all in her day. Brought up in convent of the Ursuline order, she had received, as they say, a good education, "as a result,she knew dancing, geography, drawing, tapestry weaving, and piano playing (Flaubert 40). These are not exactly mind expanding subjects except perhaps for the geography (no offence meant toward piano players and tapestry weavers). Unfortunately, as we discover in Emma's case, a little education can be a dangerous thing. Once someone begins to learn they want to continue their education, so it was with Emma. She supplemented the education of the good sisters with one of her own, the dreaded romance novels. Emma's world has suddenly been opened to new possibilities. She now knows thatthere is more to life than being a nun or a farmer's wife. Now she had learned that there could be more, there could be passion and excitement. Emma sought to learn what was really meant in life by the words "happiness," "passion," and "intoxication," "words that hadseemed so beautiful to her in books (Flaubert 55). Taking her jump from the romantic novels she read, Emma now strove to emulate th...
