After subscribing to the Parisian magazines, “she devoured every single word”. The more connections she is able to make with Paris, the less association she has with Charles. “Even at the table, she had her book with her, and she would be turning the pages, while Charles was eating and talking to her”. Once again she physically rejects Charles. She uses the Viscount as her link from the pages of the magazines to Parisian society. The Viscount made that life, seem almost obtainable;” She wanted equally to die and to live in Paris”. “She yearned to travel or to go back to living in the convent.” Once again, Emma is revealed by Flaubert as being mellow dramatic. The convent was where Emma was able to imagine a life filled with glamour. In the convent, she could dream of the future.
Emma spends her days in Yonville comparing what she has, against what she wants. She compares the small town she lives in with Paris. Emma imagines there is a “world of trailing gowns, of high mystery, of anguish cloaked under a smile...extravagant as kings, they were, full of idealistic ambitions and wild enthusiasms”. Instead she has “the boring countryside” and “the imbecile petits bourgeois”. Unlike the Viscount’s servant, her servant had a “smock that was full of holes” and who “wore no stockings inside his shabby slippers”. Flaubert cleverly emphasises the discrepancy between Emma’s lifestyle and the Viscount’s in this paragraph allowing the reader to understand Emma’s motivation.
Flaubert uses vivid detail throughout this passage. His descriptions are dense in the images they portray. Flaubert presents Emma as a woman who dreams and imagines effortlessly. She thinks of “the sighing in the moonlight, the one embracing, the tears flowing down on to the hands of the one forsaken, all the fevers of the flesh and the tender anguish of loving...” Through Emma’s thoughts, he describes the concert of her dreams, “in a short-sleeved velvet gown, on an Érard piano, running her fingers over the ivory keys, and feel, like a breeze, murmurs of ecstasy circling around about her...” These descriptions give the reader further understanding and help us imagine the situation. These descriptions elicit contradictory feelings in the reader. On the one hand, Emma is condemned for her foul dreaming. On the other, she is to be pitied for her predicament.
Towards the end of the passage, Emma becomes a completely hopeless and desperate woman trying to escape her life. Giving up her piano practice, she thinks “What was the point? Who would be listening? ...completely pointless!” Flaubert cleverly writes the paragraph using a strong authorial voice expressing Emma’s ideas.
Flaubert uses strong imagery in which he describes Emma like a “shipwrecked sailor”. “...every morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would happen that day, and she listened to every sound, jumping to her feet, surprised when nothing came; then, as day came to its end, with an ever greater sadness, she was longing for the morrow”. As though she is lost in the sea of Yonville, Emma is waiting for someone to save her from her dissatisfying and unfulfilled life. Flaubert also uses colloquial expressions to emphasise the ironic nature of his comments on Charles. “...and for pulling teeth he had a devil of a grip”, “Eventually, to stay in the swim, he took out a subscription to La Ruche médicale, a new journal”, “And sometimes she told him about what she had reading...or some little tale about the upper crust”. As well as colloquial expressions, Flaubert uses metaphors. “It was Paris, rippling like the ocean”, “It was like a sprinkling of gold-dust along the narrow track of his life”. These colloquial expressions and metaphors create better understanding for readers.
This passage from Madame Bovary truly reveals the contradictions which exist between Emma and Charles. Emma’s fantasies and dreams are which are juxtaposed against Charles’ reality. The true thoughts and feelings of Emma’s depressing lifestyle are expressed through Flaubert’s detailed description and his imagery.
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