There is a feminine side to his masculinity, that is, and this passage shows that Emma has an equal share in this dichotomy. Hours after she is back at home, after Charles has left her alone in the house to attend to something, Emma shuts herself in her room to contemplate her experience and her joy. It is here that the realization of her own feminine power, and the active and "masculine" side that it possess, comes fully and explicitly to light: "when she looked in the mirror, she was startled by her own face. Never had she had eyes so large, so black, so mysterious. Something subtle, transfiguring, was surging through her" (150). The blackness and mysteriousness associated with her face through the narrator's description of her thoughts is highly symbolic of the feminine receptiveness, while the force "surging through her" is more evocative of masculine entrance and movement. The fact that this...
It is her awakening to her own sexuality and feminine power in this scene, then, that ultimately and directly leads to her downfall. It is impossible to tell, however, whether or not her own feminine power would have proved so destructive had the restrictions of masculinity, as evidenced through imagery and the real-world politics and issues of Flaubert's world and the world in Madame Bovary, not been as present or as aggressive a force.
Madame Bovary The male who conquers and protects his territory, the representative a whole social class: the bourgeoisie, the predator and the opportunist, this is how the pharmacist of Yonville, Homais, one of the most despicable characters in Flaubert's novel, Mme Bovary, can be described in short. As the best suited character for a battle between classes, Homais triumphs over everything. With Homais, Flaubert succeeded to create the essence of what his
In service to this "religion," she is expected to offer her entire self. Ultimately, although unintentionally, she quite literally gives her life in this servitude. In The Awakening, religion also plays an important role in the female self-concept. Adele for example specifically refers to the Bible when attempting to convince Edna of the merits of self-sacrifice for husband and children. However, it is also true that Adele has no concept
Denied marriage, the only other societal option is suicide. Society is the agent of her demise, not Lilly: "her life is not unpleasant until a chain of events destroys her with the thoroughness and indifference of a meat grinder." Goetz, Thomas H. "Flaubert, Gustave." World Book Online Reference Center. 2006. [1 Oct 2006] http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar200180. Biographical overview, provides insight into Flaubert's role as a uniquely realistic writer, thus stressing Emma's economic and moral
"(Flaubert, 235) Her spleen seems to spring from an almost metaphysic lassitude with life. Emma is never satisfied, and for her, as Flaubert puts it, no pleasure was good enough, there was always something missing. If Emma cannot kiss her lovers without wishing for a greater delight, it is obvious that she cannot cling to anything real, but only to the ideal dreams. She desperately tries to find a responsible for
The whole of the sequence leads one to believe that Charles is so daft that he would put his own life, not only his reputation on the line if Emma believed that it should be so. Charles from this point forward in the work becomes a piteous example of a spineless fool, and Emma likes him even less for it and therefore becomes even more distant. When Emma begins her
Flaubert's novel also presents an overwhelming dissatisfaction over the French bourgeoisie at that time through the eyes and in the person of Emma. She only reflects the aspirations of her time for refinement and sophistication of the higher social classes where she desires to belong. Those of her class do not have the wealth and nobility of those in higher levels. Those above are materialistic, indulgent and wasteful without discrimination.
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