SOURCE: "Flaubert's Madame Bovary," in Adultery in the Novel: Contract and Transgression, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 233-367.
In the following excerpt, Tanner links Emma Bovary's vague but persistent mental unease and unhappiness with her male-defined and largely superfluous role in society. He then examines "why Emma's story should start with Charles Bovary 's somewhat inauspicious entry into a schoolroom" and connects this scene with the larger theme of language and meaning in the novel.
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