Étude sur les notions de 'nouvelle femme' et de 'nouvel homme' dans Madame Bovary de Gustave Flaubert

The creation of Emma Bovary, the major character in Madame Bovary written by Gustave Flaubert, must have been one of the most reckless literaray enterprises of its time. There is no doubt that its inventor, Flaubert, aimed to promote a feminist viewpoint. In this masterwork, Flaubert fully depicts the different options, offered to women in the Napoleon era. However, somehow Flaubert’s novel is concerned less with the differences between men and women, as they are pre-given, than with what differentiates men from other men. Therefore, I have in this essay also payed particular attention to the codified social roles and rights for men within the legal framework of the Code Napoléon, leading to a reformulation of ‘masculinity’ and ‘manhood’ in nineteenth-century France. These codified roles and rights reveal a number of negative power-and social relationships with men, as well as with women. Not all men are equal or unaffected by the laws of Patriarchy. In Madame Bovary shifts in gender value, shifts in the codification of what is ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ are present throughout the entire novel, thus creating a real gender trangression or a new woman and a new man