MAdame Bovary and The House of the Spirits

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Recommended: Reality and romanticism in madame bovary

Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary both express the destructive nature of greed and fantasy on reality. One would expect reality to dominate the two novels; however, both House of the Spirits and Madame Bovary underscore idealistic views and focus on the illusionistic concepts of greed and fantasy. Both greed and fantasy share a common factor; in the manner of acting as exploiting factors to certain characters in each novel such as Esteban Trueba in House of the Spirits, and Emma Bovary in Madame Bovary. Nevertheless, both greed and fantasy showcase their use in different ways. While greed tends to showcase its effect of the characters through emotional desires and beliefs, fantasy attempts to influence the characters through a psychological and factual meaning. The showcasing of greed and fantasy and the discovery of how they affect the novels, lead to sawed off strings of reality too severely damaged to repair.

The greed expressed by Esteban Trueba and Emma Bovary, fuels the desire for wealth and influence over others, while also being responsible for a negative perception on the world. In the case of Esteban, the desire for political success and respect impact his life to a point where he finally discovers its deceitful ways .Over the course of his fine political career, Esteban establishes himself as a well respected figure in politics. However, the reality of his success becomes overshadowed by his hate to the socialists system and Utopian ideals. “Charity, like socialism, is an invention of the weak to exploit the strong and bring them to their knees” (Allende 297). Esteban believes that if socialism were to take hold of his country, then the undeserving people of the country wou...

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... of marrying an eccentric and siring three good-for-nothing crazies who were ruining his life. (Allende 221)

Esteban has strict ideas about what a family and a society should look like, and he’s constantly trying to get his own family and his own society to fit that mold. His anger is likely the one area that gets in the way of his goal, and causes him to lose that fantasy. He needs to realize, that in reality, no one is going to have a perfect family or society.

These two novels do an excellent job of giving a good idea about what it reality and what is not. In both novels there are themes that the author’s use to showcase the fantasy the characters live in and the way they choose it over the reality that no one wants to face. It was through the two themes of greed and fantasy, that novels were able to exploit reality and show that there is no perfect life.

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