Madam Bovari Food

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Flaubert uses a Realist narrative style to critique and satirise the class system in France during the nineteenth Century. This can be seen in his descriptions of food and the manner in which it is eaten in the La Vaubyessard Ball and Emma and Charles’ wedding feast whereby the vast contrast of the quality of food and refinement of the attendees implicitly reveal the social status of the characters.

The lavish food at the Ball is presented in a ridiculous fashion suggesting that the Bourgeoisie are trying too hard to show off their wealth. On the other hand, Emma and Charles’ rural celebration is full of good quality food yet its excessive description outweighs the quality of the produce. Ultimately the motif of food and eating is used to reveal the bourgeois taste of the characters in Madame Bovary and the pretensions that social class brings with it.

As a member of the educated elite, Flaubert found the moral conservatism, rough manners, and unsophisticated taste of this new class appalling. In addition to criticizing the middle class, Flaubert’s novel also reacted against Romanticism. When Flaubert began writing, a new school called Realism had started challenging Romantic idealism with ideas that focused on the harsh realities of life. His description of food at the Ball emphasises how gaudily materialistic the tastes of the Bourgeoisie are yet Emma’s annoyance with the superabundance of food at her wedding feast and her provincial heritage mirrors Flaubert’s disgust for the middle class.

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Social Class In Madame Bovary

Charles Bovary is perceived by the reader to be a simplistic, unrefined character bringing down Emma’s standards deficient in sophistication. His atrocious table manners can be distinguished right from the beginning of Emma and Charles’ relationship together during dinner. As Charles slurps and drops food form his plate Emma tries her hardest to ignore and “she had her book with her, and she would be turning the pages, while Charles was eating and talking”(54).

Lilian Furst-in her article “The role of food in Madame Bovary” claims that “Charles is consistently characterised in relation to food”-from his table manners to his gluttony, “we see a man so bereft of imagination that he translates all the pleasures of life into the satisfaction of the palate”[1] To an extent I agree with Furst as Charles’ oafishness is made clear and his lack of imagination leads to his disregard for social class unlike Emma’s attitude towards the concept. However Charles does not channel all of his happiness into eating, he is obliged to eat what his wife prepares for him and cannot complain. In fact he translates all the pleasures of life into loving and caring for Emma.

Emma’s flirtatious behaviour is illustrated by licking of her glass whilst conversing with Charles. She offers him a drink, only pouring a drop for herself and “as it was almost empty, she had to drink it from below; the tip of her tongue, from between perfect teeth, licked delicately over the bottom of the glass” (21). Her ostentatious way of drinking on her first meeting with Charles implies her physical desires that cannot be fulfilled because of her provincial way of life. Licking the bottom of a glass is an animalistic action, certainly not an act of refinement on Emma’s part suggesting that she is no classier than the average French farm girl. Nevertheless her licking of the glass has the opposite effect on Charles who does find her alluring once again highlighting his disregard for social class yet in relation to Furst’s claim, he proves that he does have an imagination and is attracted by Emma’s seductive demeanour.

The wedding scene that takes up almost all of Chapter IV is a classic example of what makes Flaubert a realist. Emma’s prejudiced eyes intensify Flaubert’s realist attention to detail. The feast at the start is described by using quantities, for example “six dishes”, “three legs of mutton” and “four chitterlings”. Flaubert is merely listing item after item, making the reader wonder how forty-three guests could finish all this food.

Lilian Furst describes Emma’s wedding feast as “the customary country beano”, a vulgar spread that is contrasted with the elegant banquet at La Vaubyessard, where the menu and presentation signify the refinement and elegance that Emma longs for, as opposed to the life that she actually lives.” The adjective ‘customary’ italicizes the impression that this wedding is a typical provincial wedding, standard to the normal traditions of the inhabitants. Here realism contrasts sharply with romanticism as the emphasis on Emma’s high expectations is ironically juxtaposed by her provincial heritage.

The meat mentioned is good quality food; Charles spent most of his savings to ensure that the food would be very satisfying yet its elaboration adds a grotesque element to the feast. In addition, Flaubert only mentions in passing or in brief the contents of the table; instead he concentrates on the vast amounts of food prepared. To reflect the self-satisfied nature of the nineteenth-century Bourgeoisie, Madame Bovary makes repeated references to numbers, which accentuate the idea of quantity over quality. “On it stood four sirloins, a casserole of veal, a fine roast of sucking pig” (27) create an image of ampleness, a more visual portrayal.

Veal is quite a rich meat, and a roast of sucking pig is usually prepared for special occasions so evidently Charles went out of his way to please Emma by providing her with the best he could afford. Flaubert even goes so far to describe the roast as ‘fine’, which conveys that the food isn’t of as low a standard as Emma assumes. However the large amount of it makes Emma more stifled by the banality of provincial life. Latter on the feast is described in taste as “succulent” and in appearance as if it had an “elaborate confection”. Flaubert could be making a direct attack at the Bourgeoisie, as they seem to base their reasoning on appearances failing to pay attention to pivotal details.

The La Vaubyessard ball demonstrates a higher class of people and therefore a presumed better conduct. The supple table that lies before Emma contrasts largely to the table she sat at during her wedding feast. The banquet is full of exotic fruits and delicious meats, “Red lobster claws hung over the rims of platters, magnificent fruits reposed on layers of moss in openwork baskets”(44) connoting extreme wealth, to the extent Emma isn’t used to. Here Flaubert has not mentioned quantities, instead he focuses on the quality of the foods using adjectives such as ‘magnificent’ to raise its prestige. The presentation is also highly pompous as if to say the food is only to be looked at and admired, not to be eaten.

Emma often seeks satisfaction in materialistic things and the table conjured up by Flaubert seems to offer just that, “Candles flaming in the sconces shone taller on the rounded silver dish covers”(44). Colour and artistic effect govern the presentation of the food, indicating that the creative hand of an artist has moulded it. Flaubert personifies the fruits as if they’re worth more than the people from the province, “quail lay in plumage”. Quail is extremely rare and expensive along with many of these other foods, the highest class in France. During the meal Emma “noticed that several of the ladies had not put their gloves inside their glasses”(45). In the 19th Century, it was customary for a middle-class woman to put her gloves in her wine glass, to indicate abstinence from drinking wine that evening. Emma found such discipline shocking especially after witnessing many of the guests at her wedding feast getting drunk on rum or cider.

A.S Byatt states “The nineteenth century novel, however much it criticizes the bourgeoisie, is a bourgeois form that grew up with the prosperous middle classes who had time for reading, and were interested in precise discriminations of social relations and moral and immoral behaviour”[2] I agree that those reading the novel at the time were mostly middle-class Frenchmen and the difference in both social relations can only clearly be distinguished to a non-biased reader. Flaubert’s annoyance with the Bourgeoisie was effectively expressed to the Bourgeoisie reading the novel, and he made very clear his frustration with their unnecessary indulgences, specifically food.

The quantity of food in Madame Bovary is so large and how it is eaten often reveals important character traits closely informing the reader of one’s social class. Clearly, food has been used as a symbol of wealth yet also a satire of social class system. From the realist picture of multitudes of meat at a country wedding to the fine food consumed at the grand dinner at La Vaubyessard, Emma’s disgust with her social class reflects Flaubert’s hatred for the middle class and his satirical descriptions of both occasions signify the vast difference between the Bourgeoisie and provincial people.