Bovary

964 Words2 Pages

In Gustave Flaubert realist novel Madame Bovary we are taken to the struggles of a married women. We see the failure of a marriage and the suicide that finishes both of their lives. This story shows us that Emma and Charles are really the same person with different social roles. Charles never tried for anything. Even in his childhood Charles didn't want to work in school and if anything was a less than average student and was subsequently dependent on his mother. During med school he gives up. Spending his days avoiding his studies. When he fails his medical exams his mother makes the school give him another chance. He passes just enough to become a medical inspector. Later, we meet Emma a young women who grew up through a monastery and a farm. We see how she is spending her free time reading romance novels and envisioning her life of love and luxury. Hoping for someone to come along and bring her into the life of luxury she has so earned. Charles having been selected a wife by his mother, finds himself cheated of the life he deserves and begins to fancy Emma. When Charles’ wife confronts him about this Charles promises that he will no longer visit emma, He then continues to See Emma. Where upon this discovery His wife falls ill and dies. When Charles begins to go through her things later he finds her old wedding dress and realizes “She had loved him, after all”(18) Soon after this Charles and Emma’s father agree to have Emma married that summer. Charles and Emma both have one sided views of marriage. Charles treats Emma more like a prize horse. He feeds her, clothes her, but doesn't really get to know her as person. Whereas Emma wants Charles to be a heroic romantic solution to her dull sheltered farm convent lif... ... middle of paper ... ...nette bending to the wheat Down the fruitful rows.The wind blew good and hard that day, And snatched her petticoat away! ”(290) The sexual imagery aside, it shows how this character along with Emma both lost all that she had along her promiscuous journeys. The blind man represents a strong relationship between Emma and Charles. The blind man is all that Emma fears, a nobody, with nothing to there name, someone who is alone. As for Charles there's the blindness. Just as The blind man cannot see what is in front of him Charles could not see what was right in front of him until it had physical proof in his hands. Flaubert shows us Emma and Charles are similar characters who have been put in different social roles. Showing us the readers the dangerous on missed placed hope, love, and fear. Exploring how we view what we view and the importance of perspective.

Open Document