Madame Bovary
Emma Bovary has the deepest desire to live a “novel” life: one that has a likeness to those that she constantly reads about, and one that is always new and striking. Relating to that desire, Emma also wants to feel intensely. Gustave Flaubert allows for this need of Emma’s to be fulfilled through out her weekly Thursday trips to see Leon in Rouen. Flaubert’s detailed description of emotion and surroundings allows for the reader to feel as though he is reading a part of a novel that Emma would so dearly love; and the symbolism acts as a call back to Emma’s reality. From the moment that Emma wakes up on Thursday she is filled with anticipation as she paces up and down waiting for the quarter past seven to come. After Emma made her way to the Lion d’Or, she waited there tapping her foot on the cobbles. Flaubert’s way of describing how much Emma had to continually wait helps for the reader to feel Emma’s impatient nature and the excitement that is bound to follow. While traveling to Rouen, Flaubert points out that Emma “knew every inch of it” and then goes on to describe it. The first dose of Emma’s reality comes into play here when the ditch of yellow water is mentioned. I believe that Flaubert consciously placed that there in order to symbolize the impure nature of what Emma was on her way to doing. Then, the fact that Emma shuts her eyes is symbolic of how she is shutting her eyes to the fact that she knows what she is doing is not right.