Imagery style is majorly applied in artistic work, which aids in a better understanding of what the writer communicates to their audience, who are the readers of their work. However, there are times when the imagery applied in artistic works adversely influences the readers of such works to unpleasant societal norms prompting what Plato in the Republic called watering and feeding of passion at the expense of reality. The warning by Plato is justified by Gustave Flaubert in his novel, Madame Bovary, whose character Emma chasses a wild dream of a romanticized world existent in the fictionist works she read, prompting her to be dissatisfied by her boring life with her husband Charles Bovary and their daughter Berthe. In the story, Emma is depicted as unsatisfied with her life’s reality. Instead, she chases a wild goose of the other good life can offer, right from her birth wish of a son to her unsuccessful romance with her husband Charles, prompting her to engage in adultery with Rodolphe and Leon fueled by the stories she read, which eventually causes her death” watering and feeding” her desires at the expense of reality as discussed in this essay.
Flaubert depicts the hardships women at the time of Madame Bovary went through due to societal funding. Women were to do domestic chores like washing and cleaning and to be submissive to their husbands. They are depicted to have been treated more or less like slaves in society until the woman’s impression of Madam Bovary, who had their desires, wishes, and dreams they wanted in life. Due to this reason, Emma desired to sire a boy strong and dark whom she would name Georges, influenced by the stories she read(Sumarsono, Irwan,184). She wanted a boy due to the strong intuition that men were free, and they could explore greater pleasures and passions, fulfilling their humane desires as compared to women at the time, a reason which perhaps made her feel sorry for her daughter Berthe when she gave birth to her. This thought of men’s superiority based on romantic and pleasure shows the considerable influence of fiction in Emma’s psychological development attributes. Her worries about societal unfairness and lack of joy in life by virtue of being a woman since passion and desires were non-existent seem to have clouded her individual judgment of things for them. The naming of her daughter further shows this. She topples on her dissatisfaction with giving birth to a daughter instead of a boy when she names her daughter ‘Berthe,’ which is almost similar to the word birth which is utterly careless and inconsiderate. Although she did not get her desired wish of a baby boy, she ought to have given her daughter a proper name.
In addition to psychological attributes, Flaubert depicts how Emma’s long dreams and desires of having a perfect man lead to her dissatisfaction with the monotonous nature of Charles Bovary, who she is married. In the novel, Charles, a medical practitioner, marries Emma, who becomes unsatisfied with his boring and low-class lifestyle after some time. She was annoyed with him for not measuring up to her expectations of her man of dreams. Charles is described as having a boring life without any knowledge of how to swim, handle a gun, or even fence, and he was never aggressive to know any of the things not relating to her desires (Sumarsono, Irwan, 186). Flaubert describes that Emma wanted to explore and find the meaning of life through the bliss, passion, and intoxication she had read in her books since her marriage lacked love and happiness. Emma’s desires for a perfect man are illustrated as illusive addiction to works of fiction, leading to her being insatiable. Unlike in many romantic scenes where couples go through hardships together for a happy ending, Emma’s case was different since she reevaluated her decision right after her marriage and started regretting it right away, which indicates to readers of the novel her persistent feeling of being unsatisfied. These insatiable desires are usually a precipitate to adulterous decisions in marriage, as Emma falls into the same trap.
Emma eventually falls into the trap of insatiable consequences where she has a series of affairs while still married to Charles with Rodolphe and Leon (Sumarsono, Irwan,192). In her affair with Rodolphe, she is attracted to him because of his charming nature, only to end up getting hurt since he only wanted a sexual affair with her, and he walked out of her life. Since she is the only man who can relate to her own personal experiences, she finds her perfect man in Leon. They both fit in the romanticized thoughts of love. However, Leon gets tired of Emma’s high expectations pressuring him to be the man she fantasizes about in her mind. Fraudulent describes her hate towards Leon due to his soft, weak nature and greed hence becoming unfit for heroism from her. The experience with Leon shows the high level of insatiability in Emma’s desires in her mind, yet she had a perfect man in Leon but failed. This scenario is relatable to the reading audience evoking feelings of pity for Emma and her insatiable desire. Additionally, ladies especially can relate to Emma’s predicament in a personal way since most have encountered such a situation of a perfect man in mind who does not exist in reality.
The dangerous dark desire for a perfect man leads to the eventual death of Emma. She succumbs to arsenic poisoning after she fails to guarantee a loan to Rodolphe since she had been in debt. The reality of Rodolphe’s intentions hit her when he refuses to lend her money because of the debt she had as she had been using Charles’s money to maintain their fantasized romantic life while with Leon. The sudden turn of events could have been avoided if she had approached Charles with the problem that appears in the novel to be genuinely in love with his wife. Infect, during her funeral, he prepares a beautiful exotic send-off, which she did not deserve, just to have a glimpse of her for the last time, as described in the lifting of the veil during the funeral(Sumarsono, Irwan,194). The ending part shows Flaubert’s motive of illustrating how dangerous unreal insatiable desires cause destruction in the normal setup of families and society leaving the pain behind to those affected. Charles serves as an embodiment of such pain left behind by his dear wife Emma, alongside the debts she had accumulated.
Consequently, Madame Bovary‘s story is one which Plato described as “watering and feeding” of unreal desires than reality from the case of right from her daughter’s birth, her unhappy marriage to her affairs with Leon and Rodolphe, which eventually cost her life. Hence, it is important to substantiate between reality and fiction to make more informed decisions that are factual and relatable to avoid similar Emma case scenarios in life. As Plato warned, literature articles can, at times, fuel unreal emotion in the e-readers prompting unreal desires and actions, hence the need for objectivity in reading and applying what has been written.
Work Cited
Sumarsono, Irwan. “THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF EMMA BOVARY IN GUSTAVE FALUBERT’ S MADAME BOVARY.” Lingua 15.2 (2019): 180-194.
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