Flaubert's Madame Bovary

1.  What is the definition of "love" as Emma experiences it?  Consider particularly the last four paragraphs of the excerpt.

2.  How does nature imagery contribute to Flaubert's portrait of the relationship between Emma and Rodolphe?

3.  Emma's love for Rodolphe is adulterous; she is a married woman.  How does the fact that she is married (and the nature of her relationship with her husband -- briefly glimpsed on p. 93) affect her experience of love?

Allen's "The Kuglemass Episode"

1.  Must one read at least a bit of Flaubert's novel to appreciate Allen's story, or does it stand on its own?

2.  It can be very difficult to explain what makes something funny; but if Allen's story makes you laugh, do your best to pinpoint how it does so.

3.  Does Allen's story mock Flaubert's?  Does it replace Flaubert's definition of love with a definition of its own?

4.  How much alike are Flaubert's Emma and Allen's Kuglemass?  How much alike are Flaubert's Emma and Allen's Emma?

5.  After his first encounter with Emma through the magic of Persky, Kuglemass thinks to himself, "I am in love, . . . I am the possessor of a wonderful secret."  To what extent are these two statements equivalent?

6.  Emma Bovary is very, very literally a "lover in literature."  Does that exclude her from being a lover outside of literature?  What does the story imply about the relationship between literature and life?

7.  Jewish-American novelist and short story writer Philip Roth achieved first fame with GOODBYE COLUMBUS (1959), which consisted of a novella and five short stories and described the life of a of Jewish middle-class family. Ten years later published PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT, a story about young man's search for freedom using forbidden sex as his way of escape.  Does Kuglemass make the same mistake all over again by asking to get into Portnoy's Complaint?

8.  Does Kuglemass deserve his fate?  Why is he assigned that particular fate?

Poleskie's "Love and Janus Zyvka"

1.  Janus's experience of love is profoundly ill-fated; does his story tell us anything about love in general?  Does it suggest a definition of love?

2.  Who is the narrator of the opening two paragraphs?  When does his or her voice return?  What is the effect of Poleskie's alternating between that narrator's voice and Janus's voice?

3.  Does Janus's role as a professor of art history affect his approach to love?

4.  Is there any significance to Janus's name?

5.  Follow this link to a representation of  Seurat's Painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."  How does a glimpse of Seurat's famous work affect your reading of Poleskie's story?