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Although Emma Bovary is one of the most celebrated characters in literature, the complexity of her motivations has gone largely unnoticed.* We open the pages of this Journal issue with a corrective from Bernard Paris. Paris shows how much a Horneyan psychoanalytic approach helps us to recover Flaubert's psychological intuitions and to appreciate the brilliance of Flaubert's portrait of Emma. From a Horneyan perspective, as interpreted and applied by Paris, Madam Bovary is the story of a woman whose romantic dreams are the product of an interaction between the phantasmagoria of sentimental realities she encounters in her culture and a narcissistic personality that makes her highly responsive to such influences. Paris explains: according to Horney, because narcissists have an “‘unquestioned belief’” in their “‘greatness and uniqueness’” and in the power of their claims, they have a “‘buoyancy and perennial youthfulness,’” a “‘resiliency’” in the face of disappointment that is lacking in people with other solutions. Although Emma's hopes are repeatedly crushed, she retains her “‘ever young illusions’” and soon finds a new dream. Her search for glory takes many forms: she tries to confirm her idealized conception of herself through religious fervor, romantic love, devotion to duty, and her husband's achievements. As each solution fails, she turns to another, or she escapes into memories, reading, and dreams. When the future looks hopeless, her rage and despair lead to inconsistent behavior, cynicism, and psychosomatic illnesses. With all her solutions failing, Emma turns to suicide, which she envisions partly as an escape form the intolerable situation and partly as a vindictive triumph. Flaubert does not grant her a romantic death, however, but has her die in physical and spiritual agony.

Paris shows how a Horneyan approach also illuminates our sense of the author. He argues that Emma represents a side of Flaubert that Flaubert despises, pities, and fears. Flaubert need