Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is almost cynical. Emma is flighty; she is unable to face the prospect of not being completely, happy, and rich. She turns her back on a loving husband who would give her anything it was in his power to give, and quests after a life out of a storybook. This book is satirical; Flaubert is almost poking fun at Madame Bovary’s silly reasoning. She does as much as she can to liven up her life, and ends up regretting everything she does. She regrets her marriage, this is shown when she burns her bouquet. She tries to fulfill herself with books, but soon finds that she cannot live her life in a fairytale land, and she is unable to come to terms with that. Expectations are what cause her distress, she was brought up by a bourgeois indulgent father that no doubt told her that she deserved, and would get the very best in life. She grew into twisted expectation of her life, and it shatters her image of her life, and she becomes sullen with want, want for a better, richer more enjoyable life. She is unable to cope without fulfillment. She uses books to try to imagine herself in a different life, almost as if it was an escape from her real life. In short, Madame Bovary is a baby that has never had to deal with real life, and the shock of it destroys her.