'Madame Bovary' and Us

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary' on public morality and the Catholic Church's portrayal in the novel.

By Casey Chalk But first a note from Robert Royal: We're near the end and near the goal! We're only several thousand short of putting TCT on a solid footing for this year and beyond. Now's not the time to slack off. One last, big push. . . .And then we can all get back to the main, truth-telling purpose of The Catholic Thing. Now for today's column... When the classic French novel Madame Bovary first appeared in 1856, public prosecutors tarred the serial novel as obscene – outrage aux bonnes mœurs et à la religion ("an outrage to public morality and religion") – given author Gustave Flaubert's intimate portrayal of a bored bourgeois woman enmeshing herself in multiple extra-marital affairs. As these things often go, the ensuing trial of Flaubert only elicited more public attention for the book, and after his acquittal the following year, it became a bestseller. When it was translated into English two decades later, Madame Bovary became a global phenomenon. The irony, today, is that Flaubert's description of Bovary's sensual escapades would barely merit a "PG" rating. The Catholic Church doesn't come off particularly well in Flaubert's celebrated masterpiece. Uneducated lay…

People in this episode

Guest: Casey Chalk

Topics covered

• literature
• Catholicism
• morality
• French novel
• Flaubert
• Bovary
• public perception

Keywords

• Madame Bovary
• Flaubert
• Catholic Church
• morality
• literature
• public perception
• French novel

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Catholic Church

Books & works: Madame Bovary

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