Madame Bovary Questions
...uacies. Homais is constantly trying to deceive people in order to make himself seem smarter. He claimed to have read about a procedure that would fix Hyppolytes’ leg, and asked Charles, a doctor, to perform it. Homais thought he could gain popularity this way, an example of his decaying morals. The blind man had an impact of these characters of the novel, as well as the reader. #3. “Compare Flaubert’s novelistic treatment of adultery with Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog.” Many parallels exist between Chekov’s and Flaubert’s treatment of adultery in their novels, “The Lady with the Dog” and “Madame Bovary.” The theme of adultery can by symbolically viewed as a breakdown of the bourgeois way of life Emma reflected and the aristocratic society in which Gurov lived. Both authors use adultery as a means of escape for the main character. Both Emma (MB) and Gurov (LD) feel bored and unfulfilled in their marriages, which results in numerous affairs. I believe that both authors treat adultery sympathetically, they explain why the characters act as they do as well as the results of their actions on their well-being. Chekhov and Flaubert express feelings of loneliness, seclusion, and imprisonment in Emma and Gurov. This technique causes the reader to understand why these feelings manifested into adultery, and how the feelings seem to worsen with each affair. I noticed that both authors use color to depict the characters emotions, Flaubert uses blue and Chekhov uses grey. For example, Chekhov describes Anna’s grey dress and the grey dust, and Flaubert describes Emma’s blue pill container. Gurov is fulfilled through his affair with Anna, he realizes he truly loves her, for her mind and her body. In addition to being physically attracted to Anna, he enjoys talking and sharing life, real life and real emotions, with Anna. Emma, on the other hand, realizes that the love and joy she has been searching for is encompassed by her husband Charles. She realizes this too late and dies before she can live the life she had always dreamt of. Flaubert was tried on charges of immorality stemming from the publication of MB; he successfully defended himself by arguing that the death of Emma illustrates the consequences of sin. I doubt that Flaubert’s reasoning and explanation was truthful, he simply said what he thought he should to get himself out of trouble. I do not believe either author present adultery in a negative manner, in both novels, good eventually outweighs the bad. Although Emma and Gurov remain unfulfilled through their affairs, they eventually become true to themselves. This emotional enlightenment could not have occurred without the hardships their hearts withstood. #6. ...