She carries on affairs, one with a wealthy man, another with a clerk whom she felt she had a connection with and could speak on higher brow subjects, regardless of the accuracy. She throws her wedding bouquet into the fire to symbolize the end of her marriage, just before she becomes pregnant. In a flight of romantic fancy, Emma consistently chooses a course of action she believes to hold the greatest passion and intrigue. Many critics feel that Flaubert sympathizes with Emma’s frustrations, which are blamed on the meanness of bourgeois society, and I think that they are not entirely wrong in sensing that it is not only Emma but also Flaubert who is a thwarted romantic.” (22)įlaubert’s friends obviously share the narratorial attitudes about the frivolity and uselessness of romanticism.

“The primary object of Flaubert’s satire is Emma’s romanticism, which is shown to be foolish, derivative, and destructive. This is interesting, because as Paris notes: It has become a commentary on his own work. As such, this commentary about Emma’s romanticism becomes much more than a commentary about a realist author against the romantic novel. In fact, his work at times becomes so romantic that his friends jeered him and demanded he write something real (Chang). It is worthwhile to note though that Flaubert’s early work is stereotypical romantic literature. She is only concerned with her image, as she openly admits that she continues “out of vanity” to appear the mourning heroine. She let herself meander along the Lamartine, listened to harps on lakes, to all the songs of dying swans…She soon grew tired but wouldn’t admit it, continued from habit first, then out of vanity, and at last was surprised to feel herself consoled, and with no more sadness at heart than wrinkles on her brow ( Bovary 34).Įmma is in fact pleased at herself for the quality of her mourning, emotions that run only as deep as her skin, as evidenced by the comment about the wrinkles on her brow. When her mother died she cried much the first few days…Emma was pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the rare ideal of delicate lives, never attained by mediocre hearts. Emma spends all of her childhood reading romantic novels and, from a young age has a very definite image of the way the world is supposed to work: It is at once playing up the romantic form but is also condescending and critical about those who read it. One point of conversion between Flaubert’s life and this novel is the attitude the novel takes towards Romanticism.

Flaubert madame bovary