madame bovary (flaubert)

Madame Bovary. A name everyone knows. It stands for something, represents some kind of idea of womanhood, but what exactly? Reading Flaubert’s first and most famous novel, one is struck by the almost (but perhaps not quite) misogynist treatment of the protagonist. She is married off to someone she soon she realises she doesn’t love. She’s seduced by a miserable rake, who ditches her when she demands to be taken seriously. She treats her husband appallingly. She racks up huge debts, allowing herself to be manipulated by the local tradesman. She has another affair with a younger man which is clearly destined to end badly, and does. Her debts bring ruin to her family. She’s a half-hearted mother, at best. She commits suicide rather than face up to the consequences of her actions. She drives her husband to an early grave and her orphaned daughter to a miserable fate. She is venal, selfish, capricious, unfaithful, in all senses of the word. Yet her name is venerated and she is held in mystical esteem. How to explain this paradox? How to rationalise the author’s near misogyny with his creation of an iconic female heroine? In the end, this must come down to the potency of naturalism. Because, no matter what you think of Emma Bovary, she feels like a completely convincing, authentic character. And of course, her flaws, manifold as they are, are elemental in this authenticity. Great fictional characters are, as the books tell us, flawed characters, servants of their whims, their desires. Emma Bovary might the most perfect example of this thesis and what might be termed, clumsily, the paradox of idealisation.