Emma Bovary and the Bride of Lammermoor

In Flaubert's Madame Bovary Emma and Charles attend a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in French at the end of Part II of the novel. Emma rapturously identifies with the ill-fated Lucia, and an intertext is established that functions in several directions at once: it serves as a dramatic metaphor of Emma's immediate situation; it recalls her convent upbringing and the influence Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor had on her; finally, it foreshadows her tragic destiny. Like her heroine, Emma will succumb to madness and death in the name of love. Her life will have been a grotesque imitation of art. (JRW)