Madame Bovary: Analysis of Fate and Fulfillment - Essay Example

It is set in mid-19th century .The scene opens in a school in Rouen where Charles comes as a newcomer. His mother pushes him hard and he finally joins the medical school where he qualifies with great difficulty. His mother decides that he should practice in a small country town called Tostes. She finds him a wife –a widow much older than himself and rich. But she makes his life miserable with her constant nagging and unfounded suspicions. Charles comes in contact with a girl Emma Rouault. Her father old Rouault had a broken leg and Charles had been called to his bedside.

Emma was charming, genteel and well mannered. But Charles’s wife was jealous. Later to his blessing she dies and the way is clear for Charles to marry Emma. Charles was extremely happy because Emma was more to him than he could ever hope for. But Emma is soon bored Even in the first peaceful days of the honeymoon, Emma senses a vague disappointment. She has yet to discover: bliss”, “passion”, and intoxication. . Her frustration makes her ill and this together with her pregnancy make Charles move to Yonville, where he sets up a new practice.

The Bovarys are now in the company of Homais , a vulgar druggist and his boarder ,a clerk named Leon Dupis. Later she wishes for an affair with Leon but he has left for Paris. Then she attracts the attention of Rodolphe Boulanger. She becomes mistress to him. For him the affair is only a diversion but Emma succumbs to it passionately. Thus Emma is a sentimental heroine, a pitiful creature who dreams futile of escaping from the life that has become a prison to her. She repeats “Oh why in Heavens name did I ever get married”.

The visit to La Vaubyessard was a turning point in Emma’s life. The visit shatters Emma’s married life forever. She is longing to go Paris.”And so Paris in Emma’s eyes, gleamed vaster than the ocean , and was bathed in an atmosphere of rose and gold …People of ambassadorial rank walked on polished floors …..” .” Along the row of seated woman ,painted fans were fluttering, bouquets half concealed smiling faces, and gold stopper perfume bottles were being turned in half opened hands “ It was all that Emma is yearning for the lavishness and luxury .

“She wished she could die; and she wished she could live in Paris”. Emma is presented as character doomed to disillusionment Antony Tholby has pointed out that “In Madam Bovary the crux of the actions lies in the contrast between Emma’s sentimental illusions and the plain facts of reality.”Leo Bersani called Emma “a portrait of pathology of boredom” The place lends a touch of reality to her fictional world, and in order to emulate that kind of life she plunges herself and her family deep into debts. She