Narcissism In Madame Bovary

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Gustave Flaubert portrays strong visual description that goes beyond scene setting, and uses a level of precision in description that is used repeatedly throughout Madame Bovary. Readers indulge in numerous moments of intimate detail relating to Emma Bovary’s various states of being. Flaubert uses description to depict the recognition of Emma Bovary’s narcissism through suicide and religion.
Emma asks for a mirror and gazes at herself for a long time. In this moment appears the memory of an earlier mirror-scene that Flaubert describes. After her first romantic rendezvous with Rodolphe, Emma returns home and notices herself in the mirror and is astonished at the transformation of her face. “But catching sight of herself in the mirror, she was surprised by her face. Her eyes had never been so large, so dark, or so deep. Something subtle had spread through her body and was transfiguring her.” (Flaubert II.9.137) The mirror is a motif that links the scene of adultery and dying. After her ride with Rudolph, Emma observes her own face, however at her deathbed it is Berthe who remarks Emma’s eyes. “Oh, how big your eyes are, Mama! How pale you are! You’re sweating! . .” (Flaubert III.8.310) Although we don’t have access to Emma’s final thoughts on her deathbed Flaubert gives enough description that allows the readers to imagine that the mirror triggers a dramatic narcissism, and generates the roles of adulteress and expiring heroine.
Suicide is considered one of the most selfish acts a human can commit, it leaves people behind that may need taking care of such as children, and loved ones without a sense of closure and understanding for why that person committed suicide. Already a selfish act, Emma's motives for committing suicide can be ...

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...pletely superficial; she is drawn to religion by mystical languor exhaled by the perfumes of the altar, the coolness of the fonts, and the glow of the candles”(Flaubert I.6.61) She indulges in them to fulfill her own desires and project herself as a saintly, admirable person, although her ulterior motives are solely for personal satisfaction.
When Emma first goes to the convent, as a young woman, the Flaubert evidently states Emma's intentions: "She needed to derive from things a sort of personal gain; and she rejected as useless everything that did not contribute to the immediate gratification of her heart, being by temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions and not landscapes.” (Flaubert I.6.62) As usual Emma wanted to get some sort of personal gain out of things, and would reject anything useless or inadequate to the her immediate desires.

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