Commentaire composé, Madame Bovary
Travail remis aux Professeurs Pierre Folliet et Myriam Vien dans le cours FREN 251
Par Chloé Mendola 260552420
Université McGill 10 Avril 2014
En 1849, inspiré d'un fait divers, Flaubert écrit Madame Bovary, son « terrible pensum » qui lui prendra plus de quatre ans de labeur acharné. Il y raconte l'histoire d'Emma, jeune fille naïve et romanesque, qui, rêvant d'amour absolu et chevaleresque, devient victime de ses illusions. Fille d'un paysan aisé, épouse d'un "officier de santé", bien loin d'un médecin prestigieux et ambitieux, elle doit se contenter d'une situation de petite bourgeoise très éloignée de ses aspirations, d'où sa quête
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de l'amour romantique avec ses élans passionnés. D'autant plus passionnés qu'ils sont adultères, avec un gout d'interdit et de danger.
Ici, dans cette page, qui, à certains égards, ressemble à l'archétype d'une soirée amoureuse entre amants follement épris l'un de l'autre, dans la plus pure veine romantique, Flaubert instille un poison, le poison de sa lucidité. Les amants évoluent dans un cadre en apparence connivent, mais au-delà de l'apparence, que nous dit ce lieu fait pour l'amour ? Quant à l'amour idéal dont Emma rêve dans la fusion des âmes, a-t-elle la possibilité de pénétrer le cœur de Rodolphe pour en lire la fourberie ?
La nature romantique est une nature complice des états d'âme du poète ou des amants. Elle berce longuement le cœur, la méditation d'un Lamartine au bord du lac, même si c'est pour pleurer une absence. Ainsi, la nature se fait une interlocutrice de choix, un miroir de l'âme. Flaubert reprend ces éléments, et selon les voeux secrets d'Emma, plante un décor fait pour exalter les sentiments.
Les...
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...uilles jaunes, et j'étais les chevaux, les feuilles, le vent, les paroles qu'ils disaient et le soleil rouge qui faisait s'entrefermer leurs paupières noyées d'amour. ». Si l'on veut, il y a fusion entre la nature et le cœur. Mais ici, ce n'est pas un cœur plein, ce n'est pas une nature aimante. C'est un cœur fêlé, blessé, troué, la nature est une sorte de témoin froid, impitoyable, d'une brisure, d'une cassure. Dans ce décor, le libertin, la figure « donjuanesque » du libertin évolue avec aisance sur les décombres de la passion amoureuse, passion rêvée... Puissance destructrice de l'imagination, exaltation des sens remplacée par l'exaltation religieuse à la fin du roman, lorsqu'Emma reçoit les derniers sacrements ; à cet instant elle adore Dieu, son seul recours, comme elle adorait son amant. Elle a tout perdu, tout n'est que ruine autour d'elle.
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Cosi fan Tutte shows that anyone can be deceived or be the deceiver, can love for real, for fake, and desire pride or lust, and fall into a crisis. It is interesting (and certainly amusing) how all of these five words connect with each other. Was love between the two men and two women genuine? Who was the deceiver and deceived? Was it because of the men’s failure to trust, or women’s failure to resist desire? Is there always such a crisis in a relationship? All these questions make one wonder. One thing for sure is that there is a positive and a negative side to these words. Gender does not matter, in the four characters’ situation, both perspectives of the words applied. The five words have shown me that there is a double meaning, or a duality in
Initially, there is an underlying struggle of duty verses love. Both families of the “star-crossed lovers”, especially the Capulets, focus on a successful marriage having an emphasis on d...
Throughout time, love has been a steady theme in music, literature, and film. Love is perhaps one of the most obvious emotions to portray and it can often be described as be sensual, sexual, spiritual or mystic, and divine. The tradition of courtly love began in the twelfth- century with the traveling songs of the performing troubadours and trouvères throughout Europe. Their songs of love were the source of all Western vernacular poetry and through the evolution of time developed into the popular chanson of the fifteenth and sixteenth- centuries. Perhaps the most common themes in Burgundian, Parisian and international chansons is that of fine amour or refined love. Due to the influence of culture and the progression of time, the subject matter and compositional style of the chanson changed as it moved through Burgundy, Paris and eventually spread internationally.
...tion of both methods can be used to show France’s idea of what love is. Patrick John Ireland argued that France’s idea of love “is a human force controlled by man with great difficulty; it is a spontaneous, natural, and all-consuming power, the experience of which leads to an almost blind passion at times” (133). To be in love, one must be entirely devoted and passionate to one another to the point of blind passion. This is so for Yonec (the Princess jumps out of the tower) and Lanval (Lanval’s complete rejection of the human world until he is brought into the world of his lover). Not only does France portray love as natural and all-consuming, but also shows the private and unearthly nature of love that cannot be contained to the realm of the human world. Rather, love transcends the boundaries of the human world and enters into a world where love reigns supreme.
The values and morals set by the society must be influential to the social norms. Emma Bovary’s society is dominated by the ethics established by males. In reliving their expectations, the pressure is for women to believe they must be wrong, that they are to blame and that there must be something wrong with them. Thus, Emma has no image to seek a basis for her self-esteem. The expectations of men to women are that they must have,
From the beginning of fiction, authors have constantly exploited the one topic that is sure to secure an audience: love. From the tragic romance of Tristan and Isolde to the satirical misadventures in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, literature seems obsessed with deciphering the mysteries of affection. The concept most debated is the question of where the line falls between lust and love and what occurs when the two are combined, and few portray it more clearly than Edmund Rostand in his French drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The influence of fickle physical attraction and deep romantic love on each other are explored by the interactions of the four main characters: De Guiche, Christian, Roxane, and Cyrano.
Realistic works of fiction are similar to paintings, while we will get to the end result of the painting or novel, the artist or writer is still our guide; the author is then left to “paint” the picture or in this case, write a work of fiction, capturing the picture in their own peculiar, chronological order. While the novel is still created, it is up to Flaubert to decipher which parts he writes first. The story “A Simple Heart” is still the realistic mimic of the life of Félicité, but Flaubert is in complete control of what we will know and when we will know information about her. This means, Flaubert may be holding onto information and changing our ability to perceive the world as it truly may
In The Lais of Marie de France, the theme of love is conceivably of the utmost importance. Particularly in the story of Guigemar, the love between a knight and a queen brings them seemingly true happiness. The lovers commit to each other an endless devotion and timeless affection. They are tested by distance and are in turn utterly depressed set apart from their better halves. Prior to their coupling the knight established a belief to never have interest in romantic love while the queen was set in a marriage that left her trapped and unhappy. Guigemar is cursed to have a wound only cured by a woman’s love; he is then sent by an apparent fate to the queen of a city across the shores. The attraction between them sparks quickly and is purely based on desire, but desire within romantic love is the selfishness of it. True love rests on a foundation that is above mere desire for another person. In truth, the selfishness of desire is the
The can-can, cabaret and prostitution dominated Paris in La Belle Epoque. Sex was a commerce, an escape, and a way of life. It's prominence in Parisian culture made sexuality synonymous with power and a tool for obtaining it. The combination of beauty and assertiveness could get you places that hard, honest work simply could not. Both men and women took advantage of this lustful commodityprostitutes and mistresses were seen as status symbols, while flirtatious "femme fatales" had their way with the rich and successful. But love, illustrated in Guy de Maupassant's Bel-Ami, was far from romantic. It was a well-planned out ritual, full of lies, deceit and infidelity. However, the power of sexuality in La Belle Epoque does not stray far from its place in today's society"sex sells," after all.
The films of Minnelli and Chabrol represent two radically different approaches to Flaubert's novel. In general, Minnelli tends to romanticize the story, even sentimentalize it, making Emma much more of a sympathetic heroine than seems to be the case in Flaubert's text. Much of the ironic tone of the novel is lost. Minnelli also omits from his film all scenes which are not directly connected with Emma. The harsh realism and ironic social commentary which underlie Flaubert's novel are ignored for the most part. Chabrol, on the other hand, attempts to be scrupulously faithful to the text and spirit of the novel. The director claims that virtually every word of dialogue in the film was taken directly from Flaubert...
The same was true of his adulteress Emma. For Emma adultery was a poetry or a marvelously sweet existence in the supernal realm. She contemplated it an ethereal state of being that elevated her above the petty bourgeois existence. Her act of adultery was part of her desperate effort to fly into the immense space from her mediocre married life. She relished its “Passion, ecstasy and delirium” (Flaubert 124). Embracing her personal moral codes, she reveled in adultery without any prick of conscience. Moreover, she made an all out effort to cling to adultery and never repented her action. She sought the celestial lover of her dreams in two males--the Clerk Leon and the land owner Rodolphe. Love letters, tears and kisses touched sweetness in her. She never believed that adultery was a sin and her suicide at the end of the novel was not an act of
In Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert’s incorporation of confined spaces reveals Emma’s literal and metaphorical imprisonment. Starting from her adolescence, Emma becomes held back from the world at both the convent, and the farm. Flaubert depicts these confinements as literal. Later, Charles, her husband, physically overpowers her when they meet, and metaphorically suppresses her throughout the rest of the marriage. Finally, Emma imprisons herself when she becomes ill, and mentally encloses herself from her husband and the rest of the world. This continues with her affairs as she incarcerates herself once again from the world. These acts of confinements expose Emma’s reclusive nature.
Courtly love was a popular theme in literary works and poetry in thirteenth century Europe. Andreas Capellanus, chaplain to Marie de France and author of the classic The Art of Courtly Love defines courtly love as "...a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by common desire to carry out all of love's precepts in the other's embrace." In reality, courtly love was no more than an explicit court of rules for committing adultery. However, in literary works, the basis of chivalry became the presentation of lover's passion for one another and their consideration for others. I will be examining Geoffrey Chaucer's literary masterpiece, Troilus and Criseyde in light of this courtly love tradition.
Madame Bovary, a novel by Gustave Flaubert, describes life in the provinces. While depicting the provincial manners, customs, codes and norms, the novel puts great emphasis on its protagonist, Emma Bovary who is a representative of a provincial woman. Concerning the fundamental typicality in Emma Bovary’s story, Flaubert points out: “My poor Bovary is no doubt suffering and weeping at this very moment in twenty French villages at once.” (Heath, 54). Yet, Emma Bovary’s story emerges as a result of her difference from the rest of the society she lives in. She is in conflict with her mediocre and tedious surroundings in respect of the responses she makes to the world she lives in. Among the three basic responses made by human beings, Emma’s response is “dreaming of an impossible absolute” while others around her “unquestionably accept things as they are” or “coldly and practically profiteer from whatever circumstances they meet.” (Fairlie, 33). However, Emma’s pursuit of ideals which leads to the imagining of passion, luxury and ecstasy prevents her from seeing the world in a realistic perspective or causes her to confuse reality and imagination with each other.
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert’s first novel and is considered his masterpiece. It has been studied from various angles by the critics. Some study it as a realistic novel of the nineteenth century rooted in its social milieu. There are other critics who have studied it as a satire of romantic sensibility. It is simply assumed that Emma Bovary, the protagonist, embodied naive dreams and empty cliché that author wishes to ridicule, as excesses and mannerisms of romanticism. She is seen as a romantic idealist trapped in a mundane mercantile world. Innumerable theorists have discovered and analysed extensively a variety of questions raised by its style, themes, and aesthetic innovations. In this research paper an attempt has been made to analyse life of Emma Bovary as a paradigm of Lacanian desire.