Gemma Bovary
Analysis and discussion of Gemma Bovery
Why does Simmonds mix text fonts throughout the novel? What effect does the use of these various fonts have on the story?
Posy Simmonds' graphic novel Gemma Bovery transposes Flaubert's classic tale of middle class adultery Madame Bovary into a modern context. Madame Bovary is about a woman who becomes so obsessed with leading the kind of romantic life she reads about in novels, she sacrifices everything she has in the pursuit of pleasure. The English heroine of Gemma Bovery is obsessed with leading a romantic life, and a Frenchman prophesizes that she will die like Emma. Ironically, Gemma's life parallels the existence of Flaubert's Emma and she meets the same fate. While Emma yearned for an exciting life in Paris, the London Gemma seeks out an idyllic life in the French countryside with a lover -- the life that Emma was leading, and despised in her novel!
Contrasting fonts show the difference between Gemma's own emotional and subjective feelings, conveyed in her diary entries, for example, and the clinical and objective narration of the authorial voice of an observant French baker who takes a Flaubert-like tone he witnesses Gemma's foibles. Also, the use of the French language by the characters in a different type shows how the English regard French and France as exotic, in contrast of course, to Flaubert's own provincial French characters. The culture clash between French and English language and culture is a running theme in the novel.
The use of different fonts also allows for far more text on the page than is typical of most graphic novels. This befits the subject, given that it is a literary satire, and a satire of how art affects life. For example, in one dinner party, Gemma is distracted, ignoring what other characters are saying, and thinking about her lover in a similarly distracted state thinking about Gemma. This is shown by depicting thought balloon within thought balloon ad infinitum.
Works Cited
Simmonds, Posy. Gemma Bovery. Pantheon, 2004.
