Madame Bovary
...country girl educated is a convent. Charles is in love with her from the first time he meets her while visiting her fathers house late one night to set a broken bone. She has grand romantic illusions about how she believes love works, displays passion, tries to be sophisticated with no help from Charles, at times she is devoutly religious. With the negative traits of infidelity, easily bored, and sometimes falls into deep depression when her life does not turn out the exact way she plans it. When Flaubert introduces Emma she is young and impressed with Charles. The opportunity Charles presents of taking her from her simple country life and offers her the fantasy life she has always dreamed of. “Before her marriage she thought she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken.” (1108) Marriage does not turn out to be the solution to her problems. Emma sets off on the path over the course of the story to moral and financial ruin. She must be very beautiful by the way many men fall for her, but she is morally corrupt and unable to appreciate the realities of her life. She dreams of an impossible form of love and ignores the beauty in life she is given. In the end her financial and moral situation can be compared closely. The men she approach and solicit to help her shows her reckless nature and that she is becoming desperate. From the lawyer, who treats her like a prostitute, then Binet, showing how desperate she really is getting, and finally to Rudolphe compromising the strong moral attitude she took with the lawyer only hours before just to see that Rudolphe was not interested. Even though she has created a romantic fantasy world for herself throughout the story until finally her financial situation wrenches rips her away from her dreams and forces her to confront her reality. Charles Bovary represents the society and personal characteristics of a love interest that Emma despises. He is incompetent, showed in the botched clubfoot surgery, stupid, and not very thoughtful. Despite his lack of passion he is the story’s most sincere and moral character. He truly and completely loves Emma, forgiving her when he is confronted with her infidelities. He does everything he can to help her when she is sick even going into debt to hire every physician he can. Charles is Emma’s opposite. While she is pretty, sensitive and can carry on an intelligent conversation, Charles is good-hearted and unremarkable. After the marriage, the newlyweds settle into their house in Tostes. This is the first time Emma realizes Charles is not the romantic hero from her novels, not even close. Flaubert foreshadows early in the story Madam Bovarys determination to get her own way by the planning of the wedding. Even though she gives in and has a traditional wedding it is plain to see she is not pleased to make a compromise. Soon Madame Bovarys willingness to compromise is replaced by her demand to get her way. She is determined to sculpt her life into the perfect life of her imagination. If Madame Bovary could of realized early in life that sometimes love is not easy and does not always come effortlessly she could of saved herself years of unhappiness and grief. If the story would have taken place in more modern times these two could have gotten a divorce, she would have custody of Berth, monthly alimony and child support checks, and in the end Emma could have gotten out of this relationship before she took her own life. Madame Bovary starts with Charles, but soon finds him dull and uninteresting. We get a glimpse at her ability to cheat on Charles after they move to Toste and go to an extravagant ball at a wealthy nobleman’s home. Although she does not cheat at this point in the story she does become sick and pregnant. Charles believes that moving to a new town will help. This brings the Bovarys to the town of Yonville and Charles settles into a new practice. Emma finally finds someone she can relate to, someone who can match her intellectually and stir feelings inside of her Charles never uncovered. This kids name is Leon and shares Emma’s passion for romance. They spend hours at a time talking and Leon lights the spark in Madame Bovary that will send her looking for love or what she thinks love should be. I feel like there is not just one person that can give Emma the perfect relationship because the perfect relationship does not exist. Although Leon wakes up in her the passion that Charles cannot the relationship still is not physical now. Her physical infidelity starts with Rudolphe, a wealthy neighbor, that declares his love for Madame Bovary and the two begin a love affair that Charles is oblivious to. Madame Bovary indiscrete actions get the town gossip going and she soon gets in debt with a local loan shark after wanting to buy Rudolph fancy gifts. These actions show how Madame Bovary is living beyond her means and how unhappy she is with her life...