Inability of Women

Min Hua Ma

Ms. Curlee

IB World Literature 1

20 April 2009

The Impotence of Women in: Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Madame Bovary

Throughout history women were always bounded to certain roles in society. Women were expected to bare children, cook, clean, and be faithful to their husbands, even if they didn’t wish to. To show how women are affected by society, the books Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Madame Bovary by Gabriel Marquez and Gustave Flaubert uses situational drama along with setting to reveal how Angela and Emma are controlled and depicted by society because of their gender and as a result it causes them to be powerless and thwarted when they try to live the lives they want.

In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Marquez describes how Mrs. Vicario raised her daughters to be perfect, in spite of the fact it makes her daughters suffer. The Vicario family lives in a small and traditional town where only the men were the ones that held property, worked, and were the head of the household, while the women were the typical loyal housewives. The daughters were raised and taught differently from the sons. Mrs. Vicario taught her daughters, “how to do screen embroidery , sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash, iron…she was thought there were no better reared daughters, ‘They’re perfect, any man will be happy with them because they’ve been raised to suffer’” (Marquez 31). As a traditional mother in a Colombian culture, Mrs. Vicario devoted herself to teach her daughters to be the perfect wives for any man because this society has certain roles for women and men. The path of being taught how to “sew and wash,” was an imminent for Angela because she is a daughter. By using this situation about how Ms, Vicario reared her daughters to be perfect, Marquez shows how the traditions in society forced Angela put her duty to obey the culture before her own thoughts or desires because she was “raised to suffer.” This situation uses Mrs. Vicario to describe how the culture stipulates Angela to follow a certain lifestyle and not her own. Angela was born to abide by societal norms, and this causes her to be thwarted in life since she isn’t allowed any other route than her fate other than the one she is presented with.

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In addition, Marquez In Chronicle of a Death Foretold explains how the Vicario family plays role in choosing Angela’s future husband, despite Angela’s lack of feelings for him. Because the town the Vicarios live in is small and they themselves don’t have a lot of money, finding a man for Angela was a challenge. When Bayardo came to town, everyone was enchanted by him. Angela remembers, “Bayardo …hadn’t even tried to court her, but had bewitched the family with his charm. Angela never forgot the horror of the night on which her parents…imposed on her the obligation to marry a man whom she had never seen” (Marquez 34-35). In this situation, Angela is introduced to her family’s decision of marrying the captivating man, Bayardo. In this situation, Angela describes this event as “The horror of the night,” which shows that Angela is shocked by the idea of how easy a man could marry her as long as the family was satisfied. By charming the family instead of Angela herself, Bayardo was able to reveal how society depicts the astonishing power of men and money compared to true love and this also shows how daughters in this culture are like tools to pass on to the highest and most enthralling bidding man, and in this case, Bayardo was the most appealing to receive Angela’s hand in marriage. Marquez in this situation describes how the authorization of culture and Angela’s family is so great that it shows how powerless Angela is in having a say in her future husband, although this marriage will change her life forever.

Likewise in Madame Bovary, Flaubert uses the situation where Emma desires a son to show how women are restricted and men are liberated to many opportunities. Emma is a middle classed woman living in France during the 1850’s, and during this time, women were supposed to be obedient housewives with limited rights. After being tired of being a limited woman during her pregnancy, “she wanted a son…this idea of having a male child was a promise of compensation for all her past frustrations. A man is free…a woman is continually thwarted, inert, complaint…she struggles against her physical weakness and legal subjection” (Flaubert 84). In this situation, Flaubert uses the setting of the mid 1800’s to show how the societal norms causes Emma to be frustrated of who she is because she was already born restricted in life, which makes her desire a son. Emma describes that having a son is ‘a promise of compensation for all her past frustrations,’ this confirms what Emma always wanted in life; being free to roam without worry, but instead, her gender forces her to be suppressed and bounded to what she is given in life and not what she has worked for. Also by saying she is frustrated, it shows that the life she is living is not something she wants, but rather something she is given and can never escape. By having her child to be a boy, it promises her child the one aspect in life she could only dream of having: freedom. She describes that having a daughter, will cause her to enforce the societal “subjection” to her own daughter. This illustrates that no matter what Emma does, she will always be controlled by society and can never be able to taste the same freedom as men can. And by only having a boy will be enough to reimburse her powerless and subjected life.

Furthermore, Flaubert in Madame Bovary uses a letter from Rodolphe to tell how Emma is powerless from the consequences of men’s heartless actions. Emma’s fairytale in life caused her be very happy in her life and as her dream of a Cinderella story soon became reality, she escaped her boring and limited life. Everything seemed to be perfect, but Rodolphe wasn’t as affectionate towards Emma as she was to him. Rodolphe only played on Emma for sensual pleasures. When Emma decides to elope with Rodolphe, he decides to stop their affair and writes her a letter farewell. Once Emma received the letter she:

“Reread the letter with sheers of anger, but the more she tried to concentrate on it, the more confused she became…her heart was pounding like a sledgehammer furiously, irregularly, constantly accelerating…hoping that the earth would crumble” (Flaubert 191).

In this situation, Flaubert uses the situational drama to demonstrate how superior men are compared to women because they are able to have the luxury of seduction and rebellious acts while women were left to suffer the aftermaths of such acts. This situation shows how Emma is infuriated by the idea that her life-saving prince was leaving her. She loved him with all her heart, but in end was left deserted back into her plain, disgusted, and obedient life she was given because of the society. Emma felt confused because she thought she was important to him as he was to her, but sadly Emma was only a game that Rodolphe played and won. She thought of Rodolphe as her one and only, but when she received this letter, she described her heart “was pounding like a sledgehammer furiously,” this metaphor shows how Emma felt anger and deceit, but Emma still couldn’t lash out or rebel. There wasn’t anything for her to do, but mope and be “infuriated” because she is a woman living in society where men and women didn’t have the same rights. Emma is powerless in trying to live a fairytale life, and the consequences of her affair with Rodolphe cause her to grief and, hate her bounded obedient and powerless life even more.

In the end, the societal norms in the books Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Madame Bovary, explains how the characters Angela’s and Emma’s lives are encircled to be powerless because of their gender. Angela and Emma both try to live life as they desire to, but they end up living a life they do not wish to have because of the societies they live in. Angela is forced to be taught specific household work and into an arranged marriage, despite of her pleas. Emma is strained to desire a boy as her child in order to escape her limits in society, but is heart broken by her dreamy lover. Together these books put out the message to the reader of how the roles of women have changed from the past to now. And it shows how our rights shouldn’t be something to be taken for granted because without the new modern laws, women today would not have the same and equal opportunities as men have.

Word count: 1,495