Every issue we invite submission for literary reviews- critical analysis or reflections on poetry or prose (modern or classical), through an imaginative feminist lens. From D.H Lawrence and Sylvia Plath, to Naguib Mahfouz and the Romantic poets- be as creative and open as you like. By Lauren Farrow.
Mar-May 2007
Reading about a self centred, superficial and generally un-likeable character is always a bit of a challenge. The novel Madame Bovary was at once a frustrating and enlightening read. It’s all about unrequited passion and the evils of arsenic.
So if you are in a rut, feeling generally unsatisfied and want someone to share your pain, you might want to give this one ago.
When most people talk about period novels, there is a constant threat of the phrase ‘it still has relevance today.’ There is also the fear of overworked language and a slow-paced plot. Madame Bovary is only around 300 pages, so while it’s peppered with flowery phrases it isn’t torturously slow.
It’s a story that shows a world full of restrictions and rigid social customs. It explores how personal choices impact others and how society’s limitations affect an individual’s choices.
Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was first published in 1851. Flaubert was subsequently taken to the courts for offending the church and moral decency. Fortunately he won the fight against censorship and was able to widely publish his controversial work.
Interestingly it is said that the character of Madame Bovary (Emma) is based both on his own weakness for romance and intense sentimentality, and his illicit affair with a poet named Louise Colet, who also happened to be married. Their tumultuous relationship was ended when Madame Bovary was published, sparking Louise to write a scathing poem about his betrayal.
How much of Flaubert’s novel depicts his relations with Louise is unclear, but his thoughts on the morals of adultery which run throughout his work were no doubt shaped by his experiences.
In his novel, Flaubert illustrates the demise of his adulterous creation Emma, who is in constant pursuit of her romantic ideal. After believing herself in love Emma marries Charles Bovary, an incompetent country doctor who is plain to the point of dullness.
Within a week her dreams of being swept away by a heroic man, modelled on the romantic novels of her youth, are thwarted. She imagines her school friends, enjoying the wonders and excitement of Paris “living lives where the heart had room to expand and the senses to develop.” But as for her, her life was “as cold as a garret that looks to the north, and ennui like a spider spun its web in the shadow of the corners of her heart.”
Trapped and unable to be an agent in her own life, Emma waits for something to happen.
Cue Rodolphe, a wealthy and handsome bachelor who enjoys considerable freedom (choosing to use it with other men’s wives). Capriciously deciding to feed his vanity, “he makes her fall in love with him.”
What follows is an affair which is shallow and narcissistic. Their language is embellished and superficial. There is nothing real to their relationship except their insatiable desire to fulfil their own vanity.
This is mercilessly summed up by Rodolphe’s own thoughts on their relationship. “Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and the same language.”
Emma dreams of running away with Rodolphe, but he chooses society and a comfortable life. Eventually he writes Emma an affected farewell letter, which he sprinkles with water to look like his tears.
Through her actions with Rodolphe and her complete surrender to despair at his leaving we are constantly led to at once to feel pity and also loathing towards her. Flaubert keeps this state of tension throughout the book, emphasising how Rodolphe is able to freely indulge in his romantic vanity, moving from one woman to the next — while Emma is forced to regret and revert to a life of boredom and constriction.
However, Rodolphe’s rejection is pushed to the back of Emma’s mind when she takes on a second lover. Leon has more true feelings for Emma and shares her tendency for exaggerated sentimentality. Their relationship, though intense in feeling at first, gradually begins to whither as their passion becomes stale.
But the damage to Emma is done. Endless borrowing to finance her extravagant tastes and romantic liaisons leaves her facing bankruptcy.
Flaubert writes both tenderly and critically about Emma Bovary’s choices in her pursuit of romance. Her idealism towards the other sex is at once mocked and glorified, making it a squeamish read. I hated Emma’s utter lack of self-reliance, and her constant need to find fulfilment outside herself. Her character is whole-heartedly flawed. Her incapacity for self-reflection and her inability to take any responsibility for her choices is irritating. In the end she takes on the role of the failed Anna Karenina heroine type, whose character is totally destroyed by her obsession with love.
There is no middle ground with a character like Emma. From her wishes to be loved — in a way that is unsustainable for anyone — to her thirst for wealth and extravagance, it is impossible to respect Emma. But Flaubert’s mastery lays in the way in which he constantly makes the reader feel empathy for Emma despite our judgement.
In the end Flaubert leaves us with a lesson, plus a bleak view on life. Brutal death. Financial ruin. Disillusioned love. None of it is pretty.
Although her choices wreak havoc on everyone — a situation Emma is completely oblivious to — society and its framing of the female plays a large part in this book. Reminding us when choices are limited and life is unfulfilling; the women who risk everything for a bit of excitement and passion (however misguided), and who use ‘love’ to escape the banality of their life can have potentially transformative and destructive consequences.
