Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary was written in 1856 by Gustave Flaubert, and was very controversial for its time.

BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY (SPOILER)
Charles Bovary, a wealthy doctor, marries, but his new wife's total adoration of him (as well as constant intrusions such as opening his mail) becomes somewhat of an annoyance. The marriage turns out to be quite an unhappy one. After his first wife's death, Charles remarries, this time to Emma, a woman whom he had fallen deeply in love with. Emma, who has dreamed since a child of marriage and the happiness that would be found within, soon grows bored with her husband's devotion and affections, and begins to seek happiness and fulfillment in other areas.
First she falls for Leon, a young law student, but it is short lived and Leon eventually moves away. Then she falls for Rodolphe Boulanger. They have an intensely passionate affair, which leads to a plan for the two to run away and start a new life together. But Rodolphe does not really love Emma, and at the last minute their plans are cancelled. Heartbroken, Emma falls ill.
Leon re-enters her life, and they restart their entanglement. Emma is very indiscrete, and they are almost caught. Soon, however, Emma grows bored with Leon.
Emma's losses, her depression and her longing for excitement leads her to spend exorbitant amounts of Charles' money, and she ends up accumulating a huge debt, that ends with Charles losing almost everything. Not being able to cope with the burden of successive losses and her part in the ruination of her loyal husband, Emma poisons herself with arsenic, and dies a slow, painful death.

ANALYSIS
Emma Bovary is a woman full of passionate longing for the life and love she reads about in books, and suffers early on from a sort of anxiety over the mundanity of life that nothing seems to cure. She enjoys the passion of romantic love, but can never seem to hold it in her arms for long. Her desperate need to escape 'normal' leads her into regrettable situations. Charles never seems to notice his wife's sadness until the end, but by then it is far too late. Although he loves her, he takes it for granted that Emma is as happy and fulfillled as he is. While Emma indeed finds escape in her books, perhaps they only fuel her desire for the unattainable.
I found that I could identify with Emma Bovary in alot of ways, however, I found her to be alot more materialistic and foolish with money than I would be. Due to the time of Flaubert's writing, though, conditions were alot more limited, and thus there were fewer means for escape or fulfillment. Flaubert's character, Emma Bovary has captured the eternal essence of this anxiety we all face when we realize that endless pursuit of something greater than ourselves is futile. Perhaps happiness much be sought within for that which is greater to be uncovered.

QUOTES FROM MADAME BOVARY:
"Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, and the melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering, and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for it." (pg 136)

"Everything seemed to her enveloped in a black atmosphere floating confusedly over the exterior of things, and sorrow was engulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such as the winter wind makes in ruined castles. It was that reverie which we give to things that will not return, the lassitude that seizes you after everything was done; that pain, in fine, that the interruption of every wonted movement, the sudden cessation of any prolonged vibration, brings on." (page 154)

"No matter! She was not happy - she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life - this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leant? But if there were somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegaic epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance should she not find him? Ah! how impossible! 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 upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight." (page 346)

To read Peep's review of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", click HERE.