Madame Bovary, the Unexpected Heroin
The young Madame Bovary in Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (translated by Geoffrey Wall) has a personality that is classically romantic, “Like a shipwrecked sailor, she perused her solitary world with hopeless eyes, searching some white sail far away where the horizon turns to mist” (58); filled with unrequited desire for her dreams of love, “Emma was thinking that it was hardly forty-eight hours ago they had been together, secluded, delirious, and gazing of insatiably upon each other. She tried to capture the minutest details of that departed time” (235); and uplifted by the refinement of luxury, “Emma, as she entered the room, felt herself immersed in warmth, a mixture of the scent of flowers and fine linen, the smell of roast meat and the odour of truffles.” (45)
She is clearly wanting to live a life where her senses are stimulated and her soul enthralled, “The sweetness of this sensation went down deep into her past desires, and just like grains of sand in a puff of wind, they were swirling about in the subtle breath of the odours that were spilling down into her soul,” (136) as she absorbs the scent of her lover’s, Rodolphe’s, hair and contemplates her adulterated fantasies. She is very different than the others in her town of Yonville (a play off the word Yawn-ville, implying an extremely boring town), especially her husband Charles whose affections toward her lack passion and romance, “His eagerness had turned into a routine; he embraced her at the same time everyday. It was a habit like any other, a favorite pudding after the monotony of dinner.” (41) The staleness of her marriage seems to be a catapult that flings her further into her romantic fantasies and dissatisfied self as she envisions the ideal baby she is to dutifully have, “She wanted a son . . . and this idea of having a male child was like an anticipated revenge for the powerlessness of her past. A man, at least, is free; he can explore each passion and every kingdom, conquer obstacles, feast upon the most exotic pleasure.” (82) The only power she feels in her life is either through an ideal child she can create, or through romance novels she can read that free her imagination, “Even at the table, she had her book with her, and she would be turning the pages, while Charles was eating and talking to her. The memory of the Viscount haunted her reading. Between him and the fictional characters, she would forge connections. But gradually the circle of which he was the centre widened around him, and the halo that he wore, as it floated free of him, spread its radiance ever further, illuminating other dreams.” (54) It really seems Flaubert set up an opposing situation (the trappings of a boring town and husband) for her, so that she would have every excuse in the world to behave as she did (committing adultery, lying to her husband, spending money she didn’t have, etc.)
Her surroundings of mediocrity, create a compassion in me for Emma, the woman who is not even marked as an individual by name, but one of three Madame Bovaries (Charles’ mother is the first and his first wife before Emma is the second, leaving Emma to be the third, but not final-Emma’s daughter will be the fourth-Madame Bovary). Therefore it is easy to interpret Emma as a heroin that does not seem to triumph in the end (she dies), but who does choose the horrible fate of death over a stale mediocrity (which was killing her soul) of her surroundings. This act, to me and perhaps Flaubert, is heroic.
Flaubert’s portrayal of Homais (the town’s pharmacist) and Charles (her husband) also plays a role in making Emma a heroin. Homais likes to know about many things, science, current events, cooking, etc., but he is only superficially interested. For instance, he reads about all the misfortunate events from the newspaper, then without second thought switches his attention to the fine art of cooking: “Homais . . . almost knew [the paper] by heart; and he would reproduce it in full, with the editorial comments and all the stories of individual catastrophe from home and abroad. But, once this topic was played out, he was not slow to venture a few observations on the foodstuffs before him.” (90) When Flaubert writes, “he was not slow,” this tells me that the author is noticing that Homais is unaffected by the news, especially the tragedies, otherwise he would spend more time feeling them (being affected by them). If Flaubert did not think Homais was inappropriately switching subjects to cooking, I doubt he would have drawn attention to the timing of Homais’ commentary. Therefore if Homais is unaffected by what he learns, then what other motivation does he have to aquire the knowledge in the first place? Does he merely want good conversation, no matter how meaningless? Homais seems detached in other ways, like when he tries to convince everyone around Emma’s death bed that she doesn’t need prayers: “All the same, Homais went on, it must be one thing or the other; either she died in a state of grace (as the Church puts it), in which case she has no need of our prayers . . . ” (308) or is shown as merely practical by Flaubert’s juxtaposition: “Monsieur Bournisien sprinkled the room with holy water and Homais poured a little chlorine over the floor.” (312) Homais is definitely not the romantic that Emma is, but he is also so cool in his detachment from feeling and sentimentality that it seems to boost Emma’s position, in spite of her delusional ideals of romance and love, “Love, she believed, had to come, suddenly, with a great clap of thunder and a lightening flash . . .” (93) Her ideals feel refreshing in comparison with Homais’ objectively cold personality. I feel I try desperately to like a character in the town, but only see soulless people. With this predicament, I begin to understand why Emma is so unhappy. Not that I think she is the only one with a soul, she has many flaws too, but she at least tries for a life beyond the every day expectations of society.
Charles, of course is another prime example of a character that sets up reasons for Emma to be justified in her romantic necessities. His clumsy inelegant manner, makes me feel, again, more sympathy for Emma. His dumfounded ordinariness seems ugly and full of the grit of his body’s reality of living: “After meals, he used to suck his teeth; eating his soup, he made a gurgling noise with every mouthful, and as he put on weight, his eyes, already tiny, seemed to push up towards his forehead by the swelling of his cheeks.” (58) His ways obviously offend Emma’s aesthetic sensibilities and dull her daily existence.
Even the eldest Madame Bovary is against Emma’s romantic outlook: “‘[She is] busy indeed! And with what? Busy reading novels, wicked books. . . . It all leads to not good.’ . . . Therefore, it was decided to prevent Emma from reading novels.” (117) Her miniscule methods of escape are prohibited!
In her home, her very material surroundings, shun her fantastical spirit with a drone of reality: “But it was particularly at mealtimes that she could not stand it anymore, in that little room on the ground floor, with its smoking stove, its creaking door, its sweating walls, its damp flagstones; it seemed as though all the bitterness of life was being served up on to her plate, and, with the steam off the stew, there came a swirling up from the depths of her soul a kind of rancid staleness.” (61) She cannot escape. Her innocence of spirit, no matter how illusory, is deeply immersed in an inevitability of drudgery. In fact, her flaws and failures in love only create even more compassion in me for her. She is starving and just can’t find satisfaction. How is that not sad? What person has not had their dreams crushed? And yet we see Emma, frantically, try and try again (another affair, more spending of money)-even sadder! In addition, since we know of Emma’s thoughts more than any of the others’, compassion for her comes naturally. It is customary and necessary to feel compassion for a character that is made to be the heroin. Heroines are heroic because they face their challenges and don’t give up on their goals, which are righteously justified. Emma does just this. She does not face her challenges directly, but does refuse to submit to them. Flaubert, in this way, excels with his intent of portraying Emma as an unexpected heroin. Unexpected, because she seems to struggle and be defeated by her desires and weaknesses, but upon closer examination, she sticks fast to her ideals (her inability to pay her debts, or metaphorically, her inability to lose her romantic yearnings), and is prepared to die for them.
As another possible clue to the author’s intent of how Emma should be perceived, Flaubert compares Emma to the operatic heroin: “She recognized the exaltation and the anguish of which she had almost perished. The voice of the heroin seemed to be simply the echo of [Emma’s] own consciousness, and this enthralling illusion might almost have been contrived from the very stuff of her life.” (207) The dramatics of the opera and exactly how they might resemble Emma’s life are not as significant here as the fact that Flaubert chooses to compare Emma with this heroin. This tells me that Flaubert indeed saw Emma as heroic and deserving of understanding. Of course it is not to be overlooked that Flaubert himself grappled with the mundane French bourgeoisie in his own life. This is further evidence that Emma, as flawed as she is in her romantic illusions, is perhaps better of dead, in Flaubert’s mind, than having her soul rot away, bit by bit, by the listless culture around her.
