Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are two novels written in two different languages, around the same time period (late 1800s). Though they belong to two separate countries and are separated in history by a margin of about twenty five years, their socio political setting, and situational complexities are quite similar.

‘Madam Bovary’ takes us on a journey through the life of the extremely complex character of Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Raised in a convent, a lover of sensuality, desirous of an expensive urban lifestyle yet not very smart about money, it is this dichotomy of traits that keeps Emma careening from one radically different situation to the next: first falling hard for her father's roving rural doctor Charles Bovary, thinking that their marriage will finally bring her the sophisticated Paris life full of passion and grandeur she's always dreamed of; but instead getting stuck in a provincial town where nothing ever happens and trying and failing at a domestic life. This leads to a hot-and-cold emotional affair with a young law student named Leon, followed by a much more serious affair with a major womanizer named Rodolphe. An unceremonial dumping by Rodolphe after she offers to leave her husband for him and bring her daughter along leads to a short period again in her life as a pious born-again Christian. A reacquaintance with Leon, the now successful young urban lawyer, leads her to embark on a sexually explicit affair. Meanwhile, Emma, given over to vanity, purchases increasing amounts of luxury items on credit from the crafty merchant, Lheureux, and crushing levels of debts mount quickly. When Lheureux calls in Bovary's debt, Emma pleads for money from several people, including Léon and Rodolphe, only to be turned down. In despair, she swallows