Book à Madame Bovary Æ 329 pages

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Book à Madame Bovary Æ 329 pages ✓ [KINDLE] ❀ Madame Bovary By Gustave Flaubert – Helpyouantib.co.uk 'Oh why dear God did I marry him'Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life An ardent devourer of sentimental novels 'Oh why dear God diIfelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine but Flaubert insisted 'Madame Bovary c'est moi'This modern translation by Flaubert's biographer Geoffrey Wall retains all the delicacy and precision of the French original The edition also contains a preface by the novelist Michèle Roberts Before marriage she thought herself in love; but the happiness that should have followed this love not having come she must she thought have been mistaken And Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by the words felicity passion rapture that had seemed to her so beautiful in books You might be surprised to learn that I was mesmerized by Emma’s life story I was mesmerized and suffered along with her as she capsized further and further into the ambushes life presented her Yes I felt like I was in a trance and could not escape Oh Emma dear Emma why do people hate you so Why did you make them feel that way I am sorry for being so blunt You and your seemingly shallow priorities gave your critics plenty of ammunition You did the unthinkable What excuse did you have for such a selfish impulsive and futile behavior Did you by any chance hear Virginia Woolf say 'You cannot find peace by avoiding life' What did you have to dive head first before she even professed this truth But you might have overdid it don’t you agree with me The horror of being a woman with no choices As I read on I kept coming back to one thought the most terrifying thing I can think of is getting caught in Emma Bovary’s life She was not alone in her infidelity did you know that Not in her time not today What about the reason for marriage She married to escape I know And she hoped for a better life I don’t believe she loved Charles not even in the beginning Maybe she romanced him what woman would not do it in her place sitting on the grass that she dug up with little prods of her sunshade Emma repeated to herself Good heavens Why did I marryShe asked herself if by some other chance combination it would have not been possible to meet another man; and she tried to imagine what would have been these unrealised events this different life this unknown husband All surely could not be like this one He might have been handsome witty distinguished attractive such as no doubt her old companions of the convent had married But she—her life was cold as a garret whose dormer window looks on the north and ennui the silent spider was weaving its web in the darkness in every corner of her heart And I remembered Jane Austen who opened the door for woman to search for happiness in their marriage Why did women marry in those times Women married only to increase their social standing or for money but with Austen they start to have a chance at happiness Flaubert does something similar with Madame Bovary I believe He accuses the status uo the position of women in a circumvented way by showing us Emma’s deep unhappiness and how her actions condemned her and society Poor Emma I pitied her for each time she fixed her gaze on some scheme of happiness and how her eyes led her astray Then the lusts of the flesh the longing for money and the melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering and instead of turning her thoughts from it she clave to it the urging herself to pain and seeking everywhere occasion for it She was irritated by an ill served dish or by a half open door; bewailed the velvets she had not the happiness she had missed her too exalted dreams her narrow home The only pastime she could enjoy without guilt was reading From that she built fantasies it is true But did she not have the right at least of her own fantasies It seems not as we overhear Charles and her mother in law talking Do you know what your wife wants replied Madame Bovary senior She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work If she were obliged like so many others to earn a living she wouldn't have these vapours that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her head and from idleness in which she livesYet she is always busy said CharlesAh always busy at what Reading novels bad books works against religion and in which they mock at priests in speeches taken from Voltaire But all that leads you far astray my poor child Anyone who has no religion always ends up turning badlySo it was decided to stop Emma reading novels As if she had the choice of earning a living being a female What hypocrisy The only choice they see to avoid her turning badly is to forbid her reading her novels One of the few pleasures she was allowedIn a time that judged everyone by their wealth; that breathed a suffocating morality deceptively reinforced mainly by women themselves society would be horrified by women’s pursuit of anything than their obligations On top of all that isn’t it understandable that Emma would pray for a son when she got pregnant She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past A man at least is free; he may travel over passions and over countries overcome obstacles taste of the most far away pleasures But a woman is always hampered She was so right men at least were much free than women I not only comprehend her reasons but commiserate with her So why look at a baby girl she knew had been born with the wrong gender It all went against her most heartfelt dreams Emma might have towards the end had a touch of evil brought by desperation But who wouldn't Ambushes and pitfalls Oh she tried to renounce all her dreams through moments of fervent religious devotion At mass on Sundays when she looked up she saw the gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising incense Then she was moved Intrigue however had already tempted her and kept coming her way Why would she be invited and attend a ball in a house so out of her reality Was it not a trap After that you could not help yourself but wish you had access to that fairy like life What an ambush when she was attempting to behave Her journey to Vaubyessard had made a hole in her life like one of those great crevices that a storm will sometimes make in one night in mountains Still she was resigned She devoutly put away her beautiful dress down to the satin shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax of the dancing floor Her heart was like these In its friction against wealth something had come over it that could not be effaced Such a fortuitous event served only to stress the undesirability of her life After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once remained empty and then the same series of days recommenced So now they would thus follow one another always the same immovable and bringing nothing Other lives however flat had at least the chance of some event One adventure sometimes brought with it infinite conseuences and the scene changed But nothing happened to her; God had willed it so The future was a dark corridor with its door at the end shut fast Another bait would present herself in the person of Monsieur Lheureux He began cajoling Emma uite innocently for the first time when offering her to buy some scarves 'I wanted to tell you he went on good naturedly 'that it isn’t the money I should trouble about Why I could give you some if need be' Thus another temptation felt into her lap like a dream come through The endless line of irresponsible credit was not than an option offered her that she could not have imagine existed if were not for this tricksterLater we witness how she tries to reform to be tolerant and wishing to endure her life as it was taking responsibility for her daughter and taking interest in the housework Just then up comes Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger who after first meeting Madame Bovary 'she is very pretty' he said to himself 'she is very pretty this doctor’s wife' And he goes on 'I think he is very stupid She is tired of him no doubt She is gaping after love like a carp after water on a kitchen table Yes but how to get rid of her afterwards' He decides so easily to seduce her Oh yes she went along with it and of her free will But it was too much temptation for someone so thirsty I imagined that if it was not Rodolphe it would be another And later on came Leon After the affair with Rodolphe begins Emma marvels at how much she had lacked living before I have a lover a lover delighting at the idea as if a second puberty had come to her So at last she was to know those joys of love that fever of happiness of which she had despaired She was entering upon marvels where all would be passion ecstasy delirium An azure infinity encompassed her the heights of sentiment sparkled under her thought and ordinary existence appeared only afar off down below in the shade through the interspaces of these heights Thus Flaubert puts all these temptations in her way It is as if Emma when walking down a meadow starts to stumble on beautiful ripe apples that lie on the ground and cannot resist but pick some and take a few bites Could she have resisted them all But could Emma have escape her destiny Could she have simply accepted life as it was offered to her with all its constraints and no reward I believe all that she lived was utterly inevitable Could she have run away from her own behavior and avoided her ultimate destiny Emma was on the same boat as Oedipus found himself in I felt after reading Oedipus Rex that there was not really anything that Oedipus could have done to get himself out of his destiny Could Emma have done it differently It seemed to me that the Oedipus attempted to get out of it the deeper he was immersed in its inevitability It is simply that there was no way for him to avoid doing it all and facing his fate Was Emma’s destiny any less inevitable I do not believe so There was no chorus to declare that to us but Flaubert himself serves the role even if it is not so explicit and you have to read between the lines It seemed to her that the ground of the oscillating suare went up the walls and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing boat She was right at the edge almost hanging surrounded by vast space The blue of the heavens suffused her the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had but to yield to let herself be taken; and the humming of the lathe never ceased like an angry voice calling her And so it all ends But as in the beginning in the end you beguiled me Emma I was with you from the start and you could not escape me even in death Seriously I tell all your critics your tragic story would not leave me alone It still doesn’t You had no choice like Oedipus could not escape killing his father or marrying his mother So why people do not stop condemning you when they pity himYou were clever and wanted to exercise your intellect Imagine the frustration of nothing to do Perhaps your mother in law was right you were fated to end badly What a tragedy of never finding someone that could begin to understand you Flaubert with his impressive prose evokes her thoughts and feelings throughout the novel and I had no choice but be enticed by his heroine it seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably she had never felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for others She would have liked to strike all men to spit in their faces to crush them and she walked rapidly straight on pale uivering maddened searching the empty horizon with tear dimmed eyes and as it were rejoicing in the hate that was choking her Finally I think I was able to grasp the reasons that make Madame Bovary a classic a modern tragedy where a soul is doomed because she appreciates and battles against all that comes her way Despite her limitations in life and as a product of her time Emma has an unbridled passion and ends pursuing her fantasies That ends condemning her Nevertheless Emma Bovary is brave in her irresponsible choices because it brings her closer to the happiness she wants even if doing so she is able to attain only a glimpse of her dreams Even if for that she had to die And she died so that other women could strive for a compassionate fate