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Madame Bovary

Introduction

In literature, characters play a central role in the development of the plot and articulation of the author’s interests. In particular, the authors use the characters to relay vital information and inform the audience of the inherent societal attributes and trends. This is attained through characterization and manipulation of the character’s capabilities. In Madame Bovary, Flaubert depicts the protagonist as one with defective behavior that compromises her ability to lead a normal and fulfilling life. Her ambitions and desires compel her to assume certain behaviors that are unacceptable by the society. This paper analyzes how Madame Bovary created her own downfall in an effort to find marital happiness and personal fulfillment.

To begin with, Emma marries Charles without having a clear identity with respect to her feelings towards him. She is not sure about her love for Charles but nevertheless goes ahead to marry him. Arguably, she marries Charles not because she loves him, but because she resents leading a farm life. She believes that once married, the feelings would develop and she would lead a happy life. The failure of these feelings to develop makes her depressed and restless about having to endure the monotonous nature of her married life. Thus it is certain that by marrying Charles without being sure of her love for him, she contributed to her discontent and ultimate downfall in marriage.

The discontent that she gets from her marriage and the frustration that stems from her inability to afford the kind of lifestyle that she desires makes her to have extra marital relationships. She develops love relationships with different men who do not appreciate her feelings. This further has far reaching implications as she gets more frustrated and blames the other men for her unhappiness.

In a bit to address the depression that emanates from her failure to experience passionate feelings in marriage, she also assumes reading sentimental novels. From this, she constantly imagines herself as a heroine and a successful woman who falls in love with rich men. She idealizes her perfect match as being not only passionate but also rich. Put differently, she develops fictional figures of men who enter in to fulfilling love relationships with her.

This imagination prevents her from facing the reality and contributes significantly to her development of unacceptable sexual behaviors which later lead to her downfall. The reliance on sentimental novels to provide her with comfort notably contributes to her development of fantasy and prevents her from appreciating her actual experiences. In addition, the vision that she creates in her mind about the type of man she wants makes it difficult for her to sustain her extra marital relations too. Notably, she feels dissatisfied with every man that she encounters as they do not have similar attributes as those of which she reads in the novels.

Her ambition to be class conscious and relate with the rich also leads to her downfall. When she marries Charles and finds out that she cannot have a fulfilling relationship with him, she resorts to buying things for her house as well as for herself. She tries desperately to associate herself with the rich and wealthy in society after she attends the La Vaubyessard ball (Flaubert, 67). Seemingly, this gave her a chance to experience the complex world of the upper class that is characterized by immense spending and sophisticated mannerisms. This makes her to have a love relationship with Rodolphe, whom she considers wealthy, besides making extravagant purchases. In the long run, the accumulated debts make her life miserable and contribute to her suicide death.

She puts unprecedented pressure on her husband to help her in climbing the social ladder. This is exemplified when she posits that her husband is experienced in performing surgery on club foots. The surgery fails and instead brings humiliation to her and the husband. At this point, it can be argued that had she not put pressure on Charles to perform surgery on an area that he was not well informed, this could not have culminated to the resultant humiliation.

Further, after she had been notified about that public auctioning of her property, she plunges in prostitution in order to source for funds to clear the debt and hence save her from the relative humiliation. However, this does not yield any beneficial results but rather frustrates her efforts. In the long run, she resorts to committing suicide as a way of escaping the inherent shame and public humiliation.

Conclusion

Characters usually play an instrumental role in literature with respect to relaying vital information to the audience. In Madame Bovary, the author uses the protagonist to inform the audience about the importance of upholding societal values. Madame Bovary contributes to her own downfall through her ambitions to live a wealthy life and have fulfilling sexual relationships. When her husband fails to provide her with this, she resorts to extra marital relationships and extravagance purchasing that increases her debt. Ultimately, she commits suicide in order to avoid public humiliation that would result from the auctioning of her property to repay the debt.

Work Cited

Gustave, Flaubert. Madame Bovary. USA: Bantam Books, 1982.