Comparison of Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary

Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary share numerous similarities as well as differences due to the demeanors and situations of the lead characters in each novel. The analysis serves as a key basis for possible essays.

Differences:

In terms of personality, Anna is calmer, pragmatic, passionate but not destructive, familial; Emma idealistic, unchecked, self-deluded, romantic, easily won over, stubborn and selfish in every sense of the word

In terms of position: Anna is of the upper crust of society; unburdened by financial troubles that Emma may have, respected and adored by all, at least in the beginning; cultured and educated to the very highest degree that Russian society will allow a woman; Emma is of the middle-lower class, plagued by financial troubles that partially leads to her ruin, and educated primarily in the convent, which may offer an education that is admirable in the bourgeois society, but is probably incomparable to Anna's knowledge in language and other subjects

In terms of network, Anna's expanse of family and friends reach a much wider breadth than Emma's, probably due to her status and position in society; it invariably leads to a much more scrutinized and morally questionable status than that of Emma's, at least in the book (in my opinion anyways)

Anna's relationship with her son, although cut short by her husband, is loving and direct, filled with affection and perhaps one of the truer relationships Anna has in terms of with her family; Emma, however, never truly cared for her daughter Berthe, and passed her over as only a trifling aspect of her life

Anna's husband, although tasteless, is not altogether a flat character; it is he that forces Anna to make decisions and actually argues back; generally one feels more sympathy for Karenin than Anna in terms of their fallout, though not to the extent of Charles in Madame Bovary (a.k.a M.B.)

In her suicide, Anna's primary reason is to spite Vronsky, and essentially to "get back" at all those who opposed her; Emma used it as an escape from her debts and burdens as well as from the crushed hopes of a romantic life and love

The settings of the book are vastly different; Anna Karenina takes place mainly in the major cities of Russia as well as some parts of the country, leading to many and varied characters; however, M.B. only exists in three locations; Rouen, Yonville, and Tostes

Anna's society is one that obscurely embraced unfaithfulness( as can be inferred to the large amount of adultery and divorces that the society provided as a backdrop); however, in Madame Bovary Emma is the only one that is fully committed to an adultery (the people she partakes in the said adultery are unmarried and therefore publicly "pure")

Similarities (in Anna and Emma, not necessarily the book's plot):

Both call on God towards the end of their lives, although both may have been too late

Both gave up their morality and their virtues, obviously, for their passions and

came to ruin for it

Both committed suicide after a final, desperate plea

Both husbands (Charles and Karenin), at their wives' deathbeds/death forgive the other man that partook in the adultery

Both have settings that ultimately reflect the undulations of the plot as symbols (i.e. Rouen's theater as a representation of all the Emma wishes for, and as a setting of passion between Emma and Leon; Petersburg as the center of the Russian aristocratic society and place where Anna is most criticized)

Both books inevitably echo the political and philosophical beliefs of the authors, although in different forms (Flaubert through a satirizing of the bourgeois society that he hates, Tolstoy through the voice of the pragmatic voice of the book, Levin)