Zhengwei Ma

Mrs. Fry

IB SL English: Hour 2

February 10, 2012

Context and Culture of the Victorian Age

While watching different oral projects, our class examined unique aspects of

Victorian age culture: home décor, etiquette, fashion, marriage, entertainment, and

historical events. Then we listened for parallels between the aforementioned and to

details mentioned in Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert.

Before, I had not paid much attention to the more descriptive details through

Madame Bovary. With regards to home décor, I learned how the architecture of the house

in which Emma Bovary lives mirrors her personality; the windows are symbols of both

freedom and repression with the canary yellow wallpaper mocking Emma’s entrapment.

When Emma redecorates the house, she is portrayed as trying to live in the more

Romantic ideal and trying to live the upper class lifestyle.

I found that Emma’s Romantic ideals, her vain ideas about love- as portrayed in

her books- pulls her away from Victorian etiquette rules and her role in marriage.

Victorian etiquette rules dictated women’s lives- women were not allowed to directly

look at men or to express emotions. Men took ownership of his wife’s property and were

in complete control in the house. I realized that Emma tries to transgress this to become

the ultimate dichotomy which causes Charles to retain less and less control over her.

Eventually she is moved into the arms of other men, because of Charles’s naivety

continuing until the end.

The common topic throughout all of the presentations was the topic of the

different social classes. The upper Victorian class worked less but yet was able to

maintain expensive tastes in everything from entertainment to fashion. I learned that with

regards to fashion only the upper class was able to keep pace with the latest fashion,

something Emma tries to achieve with her more prodigal lifestyle as time passes. She

manages to rise from a country girl to become a woman of mystique; although she tries in

vain to move up the social ladder, she ultimately falls back down into the depths of debt.

Throughout the book, men determine her fate for women were nothing without their man,

regardless of social class.

The oral presentations were beneficial in enhancing my understanding of the

multitude of cultural and contextual considerations in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. The

ideas in the presentations increased the connections (and consequently symbols) that I

was able to relate between the Victorian Age and in Madame Bovary .

Word Count: 399