Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary

In Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary is a victim of her own foolish disposition, and fueled by her need for change. Emma’s nonstop waiting for excitement to enter into her life and her romantic nature eventually lead her to a much more realistic ending than in her romantic illusions. All of these things, with the addition of her constant wavering of one extreme to another, contribute to her suicide in the end. Throughout the story, Emma’s foolishness and mood fluctuations lead to the eventual breakdown of her stability in life.

In the beginning of the story, Emma has a desire to change around the house. A popular view on this aspect is that Emma experiences a stroke of individuality. I think the action is actually the first taste the reader gets of her incessant need for change. With every change that Emma makes, she tries to find the happiness she desires so much.

An example of Emma’s fluctuation of moods is after Leon’s departure. Once he left, to deem herself from the lack of love toward her husband, Emma transformed into the model wife. She would go from constantly thinking about another man, to another woman that no one would even dare think about accusing of considering adultery. I think that in her variability of moods, Emma is simply lost in her desire. The contrast between her romantic illusions and the realities of society create a condition in which she has no control over her emotions.

Regardless of Emma's search for eternal passion, the dullness of her thoughts and inability to move past this dream prevent her from developing into a round character. Flaubert accentuates this point by displaying Emma’s romantic struggles with Charles, Leon, and Rodolphe. Through this, Emma ultimately creates a scornful caution against living her life through a novel.

While in her physical state during pregnancy in which she was "filling out over her uncorseted hips" (Flaubert 62), Emma creates a contrast to the flatness of "her affection" for her baby which" was perhaps impaired from the start" (Flaubert 63). This is another example of Emma’s imprudence, in that she particularly wanted a boy, because she thought that with it would come along new and exciting experiences and challenges. Upon the child’s arrival and realization of the female gend...

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...ght to the readers about her character. It says that Emma has a yearning for things that are exciting, new and different from the dull normal world in which she lives in. Once again Emma’s romantic illusions come into view, and I think it is obvious that she simply has no distinction between her dreams and the real world.

In closing, Emma Bovary’s character consistently supports the recurring theme of the shattering of romantic illusions in this novel. She cannot reconcile her passionate romanticism with reality. Emma enters into adulterous relationships to fulfill her unrealistic desires, and maintains a fashionable lifestyle in keeping with the life described in the books she has read. In the end, her suicide is an outcome of her withdrawal from reality. Emma just cannot come to grips with the fact that she could be a failure, and she refuses to admit that she possesses an impractical romantic perspective on life. In this theme, we can see that Emma’s suicide is an escape from the world she is a part of, and highlights her inability to determine dreams from reality.

WORKS CITED

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. New York: Bantam, 1959.