“She was not happy – she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life - this instantaneous decay of everything on which she leant? But if there were somewhere a strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet’s heart in angels’ form, why perchance could she not find him? Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for greater delight.”
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She was Madame Bovary. A woman imprisoned by her unglamorous middle-class surroundings, plagued by a sense that she deserved a life better than being just a country doctor’s wife. The story of one of the most controversial heroines in literature. A brilliant psychological portrait.
Acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its publication in 1857, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, is a must read for the lovers opulent (yet contemporary) language. A perfectly worded, linguistically rich account of a perennially dissatisfied woman.
This is a novel filled with moving descriptions and abounds in richly textured, extremely well-written characters, especially the lead protagonist’s. Flaubert’s prose changes as per her mood. When she is bored and restless, the prose plods dully; when she experiences sensual pleasure, it moves with racy swiftness.
It has a rather slow start (initial 3 chapters require a good deal of patience), but soon as that section is over the effort to read this book will be more than supremely rewarded with a rich topography of one of the most superior linguistic style.
Those who love the beauty of language will enjoy this book very much. Like any great work of literature, Madame Bovary is thought provoking and requires special attention to its intricacies.
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Blame those damned romance novels
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Since girlhood, Emma (Madame Bovary) read romantic novels that fed her discontent with ordinary life. She imagined marriage as a cure to all desires, but soon loses passions for her husband Charles, a village physician. She sees him as a dull, despicable, bumbling idiot, as he simply can’t measure up to her expectations of a gallant lover.
She finds life routine and banal, and lives in a fantasy world where swashbuckling valiant men whisper poetry in her ear all the time.
She longs for the wealth, romance, and adventure in every moment, like she finds in her romance novels.
Emma gives birth to her daughter, Berthe. Motherhood too disappoints her as she was expecting a strong, heroic son (now c’mon Emma, get a life). She lacks maternal instincts and is often unreasonably annoyed with the child, as with her husband.
Emma embarks on torrid, reckless affairs with Rodolphe, a wealthy landowner and later Leon, a young lawyer. The former gets painfully bored of her, while she loses interest in the latter.
She steadily runs into mounting debts due to the trader Lheureux, for expensive clothes and household effects that Charles can scarcely afford.
Lheureux orders the seizure of Charles’ property to compensate for her accumulated debts. Terrified of Charles finding out, Emma frantically tries to raise the money, appealing to her ex-lovers and to the town’s businessmen.
Driven to despair, she commits suicide by eating arsenic.
She assumes that poison would make her effortlessly swoon into death (again like in her romantic novels. Man, this lady is pathetic), but then death comes to her slowly, in a painfully grotesque manner. She dies in horrible agony.
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Can someone tell me what did she want?
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What was she? An adulterous nymphomaniac? A morally corrupt person? A sullen woman living in her own dreams, finding reality unfulfilling? Madame Bovary shows how ridiculous and stifling the trappings of the so-called high society can be. Many women and men would share Emma’s struggles and desires. Her desire was obviously not just sex, it was an obsession with grandiose visions of dramatic romance and a luxurious lifestyle.
“Accustomed to the calm aspects of life, she turned on the contrary to those of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of its storms, and the green fields only when broken up by ruins. She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and rejected as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate desires of her heart.”
Charles Bovary though incompetent and stupid has genuine sentiments for Emma. Unlike her swashbuckling lovers merely using her for good sex, which she fails to see. He never sees through her duplicity and deception, giving her the benefit of the doubt whenever her lies seem to fail her. He does everything he can to save her when she is poisoned. His is a tragic character.
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Lest anyone put off thinking its a pulp romance novel, please don’t expect it to be some kind of a Danielle Steele or an M&B.
It is for lovers of mature, rich language that is not common place. If you are one, then take numerous languid dates with Madame Bovary whose story runs into 500 pages.
Conduct a passionate affair with her, and she will be an arousing, interesting lover till she lasts.
You may wash your hands off her (like Rodolphe and Leon), after you are done, but she is unforgettable and indelible.
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