Between Countess de Mortsauf and Emma Bovary

an essay on virtue and vice

Abstract

The realist literature of the 19th century, especially The lily of the valley by Honoré de Balzac and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, serves as a framework for reflecting on the female condition in the face of moral and social imperatives. This essay aims to analyze, from a comparative perspective, the contrast between Countess de Mortsauf and Emma Bovary, whose trajectories reveal opposing extremes: submission to duty and pursuit of desire. The psychosocial analysis of the characters is conducted through a dialectical approach, based on theories of love, Christian morality, and female roles, drawing on authors such as Barthes, Lukács, Rougemont, and Todorov. The research concludes that, although situated in different contexts, both characters reflect the structural impasses of female autonomy in societies shaped by rigid normative models, thus opening space for reflection on the contemporary echoes of these dilemmas.