I en närläsning av Gustave Flauberts Madame Bovary fokuserar denna studie på huvudkaraktären, Emma Bovary, och hennes brytningar från de förväntningar som finns på henne som kvinna, hustru och moder. Förväntningar som bestämmer hur hon bör vara och agera. Emma jämförs dessutom med romanens andra kvinnor då även de analyseras. Studien utförs med stöd i feministiska teorier men även ett socialhistoriskt perspektiv används. Det resultat som går att finna består av Emmas ovilja till anpassning i sina kvinnliga roller. Hon vägrar vara enbart kvinnlig, sätter sig själv i första hand, frånsäger sig ansvaret för hem och hushåll och stöter bort sin dotter. Emma varken kan eller vill vara den kvinna som det förväntas av henne, istället vill hon vara den hon drömmer om och det i en annan verklighet än sin egen.

The focus of this thesis lies on the outstanding Spanish realistic and naturalistic novel of the 19th century known as La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas "Clarin". The thesis is divided into two parts, the first is oriented towards historical and cultural context of the novel's origin, biography of the author and general introduction of the novel. The second part of the thesis concentrates on a main character Ana Ozores de Quintanar, mainly from psychological and sociological perspective. Sole chapter is then dedicated to comparison of novels La Regenta and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and its main heroines. The primary aim of the thesis is to study the main character Ana Ozores, her gradual formation and to analyze her relationship with other key characters of the novel and factors which brought heroine's demise in the end.

Le travail porte sur la lecture de Madame Bovary de Flaubert. Menacée d’être proscrite en 1857, elle devient ensuite progressivement prescrite par les programmes de littérature au lycée et à l’université en France et dans les pays anglo-américains. La chercheuse explore le processus de « classicisation » du roman et l’histoire de la réception de son personnage principal par trois communautés interprétatives : les journalistes et critiques contemporain·e·s de Flaubert, les critiques universitaires français et anglo-américain·e·s des années 1960-1980 et des lycéen·ne·s français·e·s en 2016. Le travail interroge donc la constitution des interprétations dominantes ainsi que la dynamique des phénomènes d’identifications au cœur de ces différentes lectures en relation avec l’esthétique de l’auteur. Des problématiques de légitimation structurent en effet ces discours lectoraux et révèlent dans les valeurs qu’ils convoquent la « valence différentielle des sexes », universelle selon Françoise Héritier, qui fait d’une lecture masculine la référence de toute lecture légitime du roman en invalidant des attitudes lectorales perçues comme féminines. Cette situation a pour conséquence un encadrement pédagogique spécifique des interprétations lectorales dans le cadre scolaire dont la thèse interroge les présupposés et les effets sur les lecteurs et lectrices contemporain·e·s.Diverses méthodologies ont été utilisées pour mener la recherche. Les articles de journaux et les textes judiciaires publiés lors du procès de Madame Bovary ont été analysés. Un corpus de travaux structuralistes et post-structuralistes, des théories de la réception et féministes a également été examiné. La chercheuse a par ailleurs eu recours aux techniques de l’explication de texte pour comprendre l’esthétique de Flaubert et la confronter aux réactions des divers lecter·rice·s. Enfin, la chercheuse a mené une enquête de terrain basée sur un questionnaire, des journaux de lecture et des entretiens avec une classe de lycéen·ne·s français. / This work carries on reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Although reading the novel threatened to be prohibited when it was first published in 1857, it progressively became mandatory in French studies in French high schools and at French universities and Anglo-American universities. The thesis explores the « classicisation » process of the novel as well as the reception of its principal character by three interpretive communities: journalists and critics who were Flaubert’s contemporaries, French and Anglo-American academics between the sixties and eighties, and high school French students in 2016. The work thus examines the making of dominant interpretations and the dynamics of identifications at play in relation with the aesthetics of the author. Readers discourses are indeed shaped by self-legitimation purposes and by the universal « differential valency of genders » that Françoise Héritier conceptualized. Masculine reading is thought to be the template of « good » readings of the novel, while all readers’ demeanours perceived as « feminine » are invalidated. This situation results in a specific framing of pedagogical expectations, expectations of which the thesis intents to decipher the assumptions and effects on French high-school readers.To do so, the researcher used a variety of methodologies. She analyzed articles published in newspapers when the book was first published as well as the judiciary speeches and texts written during the trial of Madame Bovary. She also analyzed academic papers and structuralist, post-structuralist, reader-response and feminist theories. She used literary close reading to understand the aesthetics of Flaubert and confront his writing to the reactions of his readers. Finally, she gathered and analyzed empirical data through a survey, reading diaries and interviews with a class of French high school students.This thesis therefore belongs to the field of cultural studies, in the sense that it uses various academic approaches to understand a cultural object and its effects on its readers and because it tries to shift the epistemological viewpoint from which a classic such as Madame Bovary as been examined in Western culture.

anglicky : Title of the thesis : Emma Bovary and Thérèse Desqueyroux : destructive women or victims ? Keywords : literature, G. Flaubert, F. Mauriac, Emma Bovary, Thérèse Desqueyroux, destructive women , victims, comparison Abstract : The thesis deals with two female characters of French novels from the 2nd half of the 19th century, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Thérèse Desqueyroux by Françoise Mauriac. The life and work of the two authors are briefly described as well as the time when they lived. The longer part of the thesis presents a content analysis and a formal analysis of the novels. The thesis places particular emphasis on the analysis of the story, the main characters and turning points in their lives. The aim is then to compare the two heroines based on the previous analysis of the novels and to highlight what they have in common and in what they differ and to answer the question of whether or not Emma Bovary and Thérèse Desqueyroux are victims, victims of circumstances, or whether they are inherently destructive and rightly described as monsters. All the important points of the thesis are summarized in the conclusion.