‘Ma tête mise à nu:’ Wigs and Wigmakers in Madame Bovary

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the moments in Madame Bovary where wigs are mentioned, reading them as a microscope into the novel’s representation of meaninglessness and its consequences. Starting with the wigs at Vaubyessard, then moving to the solitary wigmaker in Tostes, who serves as a double for Emma, then to the wigmaker in Rouen, and to Emma’s wig at the masked ball, I argue that wigs’ sartorial function and material composition place them at the intersection of – or rather in the crack between – metaphor and metonymy. As such, they serve as clues to the production of the ‘livre sur rien.’