Madame Bovary: A Romance Novel

Would you perceive this novel as a romance novel or as a big picture of art portrayed by Flaubert? It is no doubt that people will have their own thought about this question. According to Valerie Paterson, a novel is generally considered a romance fiction if a love story is central to the plot; the main idea of the story is must be that two people who are in love must struggle through obstacles to their having a relationship. In Madame Bovary, Flaubert is describing the danger of art’s emotional appeal through the character named Emma, by narrating how her desire in searching for true love based on the romance novels has caused her own death.

Emma’s Character

Flaubert highlights that Emma has a misconception about her relationship with Charles since the beginning of her marriage. This has caused her expectation towards a love to change by which true love is more than just getting married to someone. “And Emma tried to find out just what was meant, in life, by the words bliss, passion, and intoxication, which had seemed so beautiful to her in books” (30).

The text above is written right after the wedding, the author stresses that Emma is having a high expectation in her married life. Her discontent, later on, leads to the beginning of her problem. She never sees Charles as someone or somebody who can fit her dream. Despite all Charles’ doing in fulfilling his part as a husband to her, she just already sees Charles not more than a poor doctor in a small town.

Get quality help now

Marrie pro writer

Verified

Proficient in: Madame Bovary

5 (204)

“ She followed all my directions. It was really easy to contact her and respond very fast as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Even though on the contrary, Charles sees Emma through his eyes as everything in his life to be devoted to. He is being loyal to her because Emma is already a perfect wife to him whom he loves so much. In consequence, she starts to find someone else who can comfort her as for how she perceives a real love through the romantic novel that she read. Thus, we conclude that Emma’ perception towards love has changed due to her a low satisfaction in her marriage with Charles.

As we further delve into the novel, Flaubert exposes that Emma’s idle life seems to affect her own happiness which could be noticed by people who surrounds her including her own husband, Charles. Flaubert writes, Do you know what your wife needs? Mere Bovary went on. “She needs to be forced to work, to work with her hands! If she was obliged to earn her living, like so many others, she wouldn’t be having these vapors – they come from all the ideas she stuffs her head with, and her idle life (110). Flaubert repeats the words “to work” in order to emphasize that employment is the only solution to Emma’s problem. In particular, I agree that a busy life could get someone away from part of the problem as we do not have tremendous time to spend on wondering and thinking about things which just matter lot less than the main course in our daily life. To be more specific, Emma’s time should be focused on her child development despite chasing her worthless imaginary love life. In addition, the word “stuff” used in the text instead of “fill” shows that Emma’s mind is full of the problem that she created by herself, until no more space left for positivity to enter her mind. Hence, the novel clearly shows how Emma is ruining her own happiness that she already has by diverting herself from her role as a mother to her daughter and a wife to Charles.

Part II and Part III

Later on, Part II and Part III of the novel feed on Emma’ imagination of a true love story as she delights her love with Leon, a perfect character of her dream; however, in fact, contributes to her own death. According to Emma, Leon is like a prince who comes to save her from her misery living with Charles. She is blinded by her own desire to achieve true love until she ignores the fact that her emotion and health is greatly damaged by Leon present. This is supported from the text, “She had moods in which she could easily be provoked into extravagant behavior.” Plus, Flaubert also describes how she looks very pale and even once spat blood (109). Questioning her behavior, is there not a single lesson that she learned from her reading of those romantic novels? How could a legal marriage is easily ruined by the third person who is just a stranger at first? How can she believe in someone else is able to give her a perfect love in her life? Based on my knowledge, the romantic novel focuses on the intimate and loyal relationship between two people under any circumstances until only death can do them part. She is now has gone far from reality, she turns out to be someone who intoxicated herself to a man other than her husband. It is supported from the text, “she would lean down to him [Leon] and murmur, as though breathless with intoxication” (235). Her wrong path in searching for her true love leads the readers to lose some respect and sympathy towards her. To sum up, she has damaged herself by letting her guard down for a man, who in her belief could bring her the real happiness that she dreamt of, by which, later on, has caused the big impact towards her suicide.

Approaching the end of the novel, readers are surprised by the dramatic death of Emma, described in details by Flaubert as a way out for her from a problematic love life. She executes her suicide without anyone’s knowledge including her husband, separating herself from the living. Flaubert writes, “She would no longer be suffering now” (208), indicating that she thinks death is a solution to her problem. Her suicide is a selfish action where she does not think about her daughter’s future without a mother to live on. Her outrageous suicide can only be explained logically not because of the debt, but it is derived by her lunatic thought to get away from all the problems that she caused by being intoxicated with men other than Charles. In the later text, “And Emma burst into laughter, horrible, frantic, despairing laughter, thinking she saw the hideous face of the poor wretch looming like terror itself in the darkness of eternity” (290), Flaubert focuses on her laughter by describing them in three adjectives. For instance, “horrible”, “frantic” and “despairing” accurately describing her spoiled life before her dramatic death. In contrast, Flaubert describes plainly about Charles death where he writes shortly, “He fell to the ground. He was dead.”. Charles life is just plain and dull without any complicated plot. By observing this contradiction, it is no doubt that Flaubert is trying to focus on art and literature instead of a typical romance novel which usually has a happy ending that makes people gone crazy chasing a wonderful love story similar to the novel.

In conclusion, Madame Bovary is not merely a romance novel which ends happily but as an art expressed by Flaubert in a sense to give lessons to the readers. It is not a surprise regarding Flaubert’s choice as it aims to expose and educate the readers on the dangers of art when it is taken wrongly by certain individuals. There is a chance that the cause of Emma’ death by the debt becomes an argument among the readers. The debt itself is the consequences of Emma’ choices by which she gives expensive things to her lover in order to achieve the perfect relationship. As a reader, we should learn that art can dangerously affect someone’s life if interpreted in a wrong direction. Therefore, we have to be smarter in perceiving art to make the world a wonderful place to live in.

Structural Paragraphs

In Madame Bovary, Flaubert is describing the danger of art’s emotional appeal through the character named Emma, by narrating how her desire in searching for true love based on the romance novels has caused her own death. Flaubert highlights that Emma has a misconception about her relationship with Charles since the beginning of her marriage. This has caused her expectation towards a love to change by which true love is more than just getting married to someone. As we further delve into the novel, Flaubert exposes that Emma’s idle life seems to affect her own happiness which could be noticed by people who surrounds her including her own husband, Charles. Later on, Part II and Part III of the novel feed on Emma’ imagination of a true love story as she delights her love with Leon, a perfect character of her dream; however, in fact, contributes to her own death. Approaching the end of the novel, readers are surprised by the dramatic death of Emma, described in details by Flaubert as a way out for her from a problematic love life. In conclusion, Madame Bovary is not merely a romance novel which ends happily but as an art expressed by Flaubert in a sense to give lessons to the readers. It is not a surprise regarding Flaubert’s choice as it aims to expose and educate the readers on the dangers of art when it is taken wrongly by certain individuals.