"The literary classic Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, tells the story of a woman who is bored with her husband, bored with her fellow townspeople, and, in general, bored with her life. Her days are too tedious and predictable, and she is filled with romantic, idealistic fantasies. In order to escape from boredom, she enters into two love affair, both of them disastrous. In the end, she commits suicide by taking arsenic. First published in 1857, Madame Bovary illustrates that boredom is no newcomer to the human race as a psychological problem."