Harry Levin
Gustave Flaubert, so it is said, to have two sides, a romantic side, and a realistic side. Flaubert wants to encompass both sides in his literature. He dedicated the novel to a former medical student of his fathers because what happened to him is what happened to Charles and he was heart felt. Apparently, Flaubert was an admirer of Don Quixote because of the “fusion of illusion and reality”. He wanted to have an impact on the women but he did not know how their minds work and at that time, no male could ever get through to the women. It seems as if Bovary is now part of the everyday word such as Emma’s self-delusion, is now an epidemic of the modern mind’s weakness to “conceive ourselves otherwise than as we are”. Otherwise, to even simply daydream is to Bovarize but how do we know if the daydream is egotistical like Emma. Who would think that to take the dreariest setting, the prettiest characters, and the most common to would make a masterpiece? All of theses symbols: the knife, the silly cap, cigar case, all encompassed who Charles really was, a lowly doctor with no individuality. The way Flaubert included the “small, ignoble Venice” of the river in Rouen and the pimples on his first wife’s face was like “ the budding of spring” made the scene more interesting making his style more impressive and ideal. The way Emma sees Charles as the dorky village doctor, and how the children say as unromantic, clearly shows the lack of respect the she has for him, his entire life is devoted to her. To show that even cared he forgave her lover saying that it was destiny that choose its path. The way Flaubert embraced Charles and his affection to his daughter Berthe has included a bit of himself and his care for his motherless niece. The way that Emma took account of Rodolphe’s aid in fulfilling her sexual pleasures that she got the ideas of reading from the novels she took it for granted and wanted him to run away with her without her daughter. All of the men her life play an opposite role, Charles as the caring affectionate one, Rodolphe as the lust driven man, and Leon as the younger, stingy man. It was quite interesting that Flaubert’s intentions were not with sex but religious mortality and to link sex with religion.
Erich Auerbach
Emma is upset living in Tostes it presents the climax of the novel. She wants to live as she did when she was in school, the dancing, the parties, and the glamour. Now she feels as if her like is just as her husband, boring. This is the reason why Flaubert interpreted her on the cover as bored, lonely, drab, and sad. Emma becomes ill and Charles must take care of her and he links that the climate is to suitable for her. One day while they are eating, Charles looks pale and ghastly, almost the feeling that Emma has. The house has a cold feeling; it is not of her taste, no tablecloth, ordinary food, and a dull room. Emma’s though are as she feels the light that brightens her from within. Emma obviously does not know how Charles feels about him, only if she would let hi caress her, she s would feel less dreary. Flaubert connects himself with the characters in numerous ways, such as Charles and his compassion towards his towards his daughter. Emma wants are quite vague: an opulent life, and love. Emma and Charles are quite different form each other that instead of making each other a whole they remain as two lonely people. As Emma meets her lovers, things get rougher between the two; Charles tends to sleep outside because Emma does not want to sleep with him and Charles is inclined to stay at he neighbors for a very long time. Emma does not like her neighbors other then Leon because they resemble the middle class and she wants a lavish lifestyle. The sense of realism in the novel is quite confusing. The love between Charles and Emma is like the love for an arranged marriage couple. The need to cheat on Charles is not realistic back then but now it is very common.
Victor Brombert
Flaubert compares both Emma and Charles such as the wealthy and the rich. Their behavior towards each other is an aide memoir to the present day divorce. To see you won father seduce your wife would be horrible, but Charles does not notice that. He only thinks that his father is just getting to know his wife. The truth is that his father is attracted to the young, pure, innocent daughter in law. Charles is so dismal to even think that it was faith that killed her and Rodolphe was her lover. Flaubert spends an entire chapter on Emma and her education. The convent was a religious center where the scandalous novels were smuggled in. The female images in the novels were the resemblance of a female Quixote. These images would become dreams and sooner they became expectations that she had for Charles. Charles is like a book where you can predict what is going to happen next. Water is very symbolic to Charles. When he fist meets Emma, snow was melting on the tree bark, at dinnertime the walls would be “sweating”, when his first wife dies the grief was like river where it kept on flowing, and when the moved to Rouen there was a little Venice. Emma is connected to the windows, which symbolize the image of release. When she is at the convent, the windows are left ajar, every morning it became a habit to open the window and breathe the fresh air. When she was frustrated she would slam the door and then open the window to calm her nerves, she would also see Leon and Rodolphe from the window. As she longs to travel, each time she meets her lover she makes it as is she is traveling. When she is pregnant, she wishes her child is a boy so he is a free man to travel the promising lands.
Martin Turnell
Flaubert was influenced by the Romantic moment, which confused people, making a dream into reality and man into nature. The writers had moments of insight but heir work shows a progression away form psychological realism. It would get lost in all the word and images. Taking in the beauty of nature is a Romanic movement; it has no emotion to the characters. Flaubert though translates these emotions into visual images that correspond nature. Emma’s tragedy lies in her inability to adapt herself to the normal world. The violent actions that follow are an attempt to lash up the feeling that he wants to experience and what life has refused to give him.
Jean Paul Sartre
Flaubert conceived his ideas by having a clear mind and letting them come to him. Since childhood, Flaubert would look for stupidity and he would listen very carefully to the speech without considering the activity or the intentions of the speaker. Flaubert is not imitating a bourgeois because he is one. Nobody sees the commonplaces because people use them to communicate with others; they are a way to establish contact. Flaubert wants to take all the stupidity in the world and become a scapegoat in order to save other people from it and lose himself in it. Flaubert would fight back but not directly, like when he made a quote in the Dictionary of Received Ideas. Flaubert does not have a religion unlike Homais because it goes against the laws of physics. There is a war betweens science and faith with Flaubert.
Gerard Genette
Flaubert must have spent a lot of time on one page to show the differences between the two characters, Emma and Charles, because Emma looks through the stained window out to the pasture while Charles looks straight out to the pasture. Emma is very quiet with her men, when she and Charles say good-bye before their marriage, with Rodolphe and Leon in Rouen. Sartre called this “the great petrifying gaze of things”, when the narrative would fall quiet. When the characters stop talking they tune into the world and their dreams. Nowhere does Flaubert give a real theory of his methods, which remain a mystery, even to him.
