"Madam Bovary": analysis of the work. "Madame Bovary" story of creation The creative history of the novel Madame Bovary
"Madam Bovary" is a novel by Gustave Flaubert, first published in 1856. Considered one of the masterpieces of world literature.
"Madam Bovary" history of creation
The idea for the novel was submitted to Flaubert in 1851. He had just read the first version of another of his works, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, to his friends and was criticized by them. In this regard, one of the writer's friends, Maxime du Can, editor of La Revue de Paris, suggested that he get rid of the poetic and stilted style. To do this, du Kang advised choosing a realistic and even everyday story related to life events. ordinary people, contemporary Flaubert French philistines. The plot itself was suggested to the writer by another friend, Louis Bouillet (the novel is dedicated to him), who reminded Flaubert of the events associated with the Delamare family.
Eugene Delamare studied surgery under Flaubert's father, Achilles Cleofas. Possessing no talents, he was able to take the place of a doctor only in a remote French province, where he married a widow, a woman older than him. After the death of his wife, he met a young girl named Delphine Couturier, who later became his second wife. The romantic nature of Delphine could not bear, however, the boredom of the provincial philistine life. She began to spend her husband's money on expensive outfits, and then cheat on him with numerous lovers. The husband was warned about the possible infidelity of his wife, but he did not believe it. At the age of 27, entangled in debt and losing attention from men, she committed suicide. After the death of Delphine, the truth about her debts and details of betrayal were revealed to her husband. He could not bear it and a year later he also died.
Flaubert was familiar with this story - his mother was in contact with the Delamare family. He seized on the idea of a novel, studied the life of the prototype, and in the same year set to work, which, however, turned out to be excruciatingly difficult. Flaubert wrote the novel for almost five years, sometimes spending whole weeks and even months on individual episodes. This was written evidence of the writer himself. Thus, in January 1853, he wrote to Louise Colet:
I spent five days on one page...
In another letter, he actually complains:
I struggle with every offer, but it just doesn't add up. What a heavy oar is my pen!
Already in the process of work, Flaubert continued to collect material. He himself read novels that Emma Bovary liked to read, studied the symptoms and consequences of arsenic poisoning. It is widely known that he himself felt bad, describing the scene of the poisoning of the heroine. This is how he recalled it:
When I described the scene of the poisoning of Emma Bovary, I tasted the arsenic so clearly and felt so truly poisoned that I suffered two attacks of nausea, quite real, one after the other, and vomited the whole dinner out of my stomach.
In the course of the work, Flaubert repeatedly redid his work. The manuscript of the novel, which is currently kept in the municipal library of Rouen, is 1788 corrected and transcribed pages. The final version, stored there, contains only 487 pages.
The almost complete identity of the story of Delphine Delamare and the story of Emma Bovary described by Flaubert gave reason to believe that the book describes real story. However, Flaubert categorically denied this, even arguing that Madame Bovary had no prototype. He once declared: "Madame Bovary is me!" Nevertheless, now on the grave of Delphine Delamare, in addition to her name, there is an inscription "Madame Bovary".
The history of the creation of the novel "Madam Bovary" by G. Flaubert
Introduction
Gustave Flaubert was one of those French artists who, in their assessment of modernity, did not share the positivist faith in the renewing social role of science and technology. This rejection of Flaubert's basic pathos of the positivist doctrine places him in a very special place in the development of French literature the second half of the century and serves as a serious argument against literary tendencies to present Flaubert as a forerunner of naturalism. The writer does not deny science as such, moreover, it seems to him that much of the scientific approach to the phenomenon can and should pass into art. But unlike the positivists, he does not agree to absolutize the role of science in the life of society and consider it as a kind of substitute for religion and social beliefs. Not accepting the positivist biologism of naturalists and a number of their other aesthetic positions, Flaubert remains true to the traditions of realism, however, realism in his work appears in a new quality and is characterized by a number of achievements and certain losses compared to the first half of the 19th century.
Flaubert's uncompromising denial of the modern world order is combined with a passionate belief in art, which seems to the writer the only area human activity not yet infected with the vulgarity and mercantilism of bourgeois relations. In Flaubert's concept, true art is created by the chosen ones, it replaces religion and science and is the highest manifestation of the human spirit. "... Art is the only thing that is true and good in life!" He kept this conviction to the end of his days. In this attitude to art, the writer is not alone: it is characteristic of the spiritual life of France in the second half of the 19th century.
Flaubert devoted his whole life to serving art. Creativity is a constant subject of his thoughts, one of the main topics of his extensive correspondence. In one of his letters to George Sand (April 1876), he wrote: “I remember how my heart was beating, what a strong pleasure I felt, contemplating one of the walls of the Acropolis, a completely bare wall ... I asked myself if the book could not, regardless of its content, have the same effect? Is there not in the exact selection of material, in the rarity of the constituent parts, in the purely external gloss, in the general harmony, is there not some essential property here, a kind of divine power, something eternal as a principle?
Such reflections are in many ways connected with the cult of "pure art" that was widespread in France during those years and to which Flaubert was not alien in a certain way. After all, it was not by chance that he said that he dreamed of creating a work of nothing, which would be held only by style. In the tireless search for the perfection of form, in the exhausting and endless work on style, there was a source of Flaubert's strengths and weaknesses. His search for new artistic techniques, his conviction that there is only one and only way of narration that is adequate to the idea expressed, led to whole line artistic discoveries. Flaubert's reflections on substantive form, on the interdependence of Idea and Style, enriched the theory and practice of realism. At the same time, the focus on formal searches, the hope that salvation from the hated reality can be found in "pure art", limited Flaubert's horizons, and this could not but affect his work. However, worship of form was never absolutized by him; dooming himself to painful work on the word, he never turned this work into an end in itself, but subordinated it to the highest task - to express the deep content of the spiritual and public life of his era.
This problem is brilliantly solved in the novel Madame Bovary (magazine publication - 1856, separate edition - 1857). In the previous work of Flaubert, a kind of preparation is carried out, the search for forms and solutions, the definition of a range of problems, which one way or another he will invariably address later.
In this work, we will turn to the history of the creation of the novel, identify the ideological concept of this work, and also consider the biography of the writer himself.
1. Biography of G. Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert (12.XII.1821, Rouen - 8.V.1880, Croisset) was born into a doctor's family. Flaubert's house was not interested in literature and art. From an early age future writer was taught to value practical knowledge.
Flaubert's youth was spent in the provinces of the 30s and 40s, later recreated in his works. In 1840 he entered the Faculty of Law in Paris, but dropped out of the university due to illness. In 1844, his father, the chief physician of the Rouen hospital, bought the small estate of Croisset, not far from Rouen, and the future writer settled here. Most of his life, not rich in outward events, passed in Croisset.
Flaubert's first stories, Memoirs of a Madman and November, are examples of the traditional French romanticism, a departure from which occurred in the mid-40s, when the first version of the novel "Education of the Senses" (1843-1845) was written.
Already in his teenage years, Flaubert identified for himself the main vice of the existing society - the world oppressed the young man with its inexpressible vulgarity. Flaubert found respite from universal vulgarity in romantic literature. Subsequently, Flaubert became disillusioned with the ideals of romanticism. According to him, the writer should draw inspiration not from adventurous stories from the historical past, but from everyday life. Romantic literature associated the unusual with past times, it was opposed by modernity, the main quality of which (in comparison with the romantic past) was everyday life.
By the beginning of the forties, Flaubert's system of views on the world, man and art was formed at its core. From Spinoza, Flaubert borrows the idea of the fatal interdependence of all objects and phenomena. Flaubert finds confirmation of this idea in the writings of the 18th-century Italian historian Vico. According to Vico, progressive development is alien to society - the main events of social life are repeated, and the spiritual life of mankind and the scientific and technological achievements of different centuries rhyme with each other. Flaubert comes to the conclusion that the idea of the progressive development of society is untenable. The task of man is to develop his spiritual world, the only value given by nature. Any attempts to reorganize the existing world seem absurd to him. An attempt to achieve happiness in life is also meaningless - a person is doomed to suffering, carrying the contradictions of an imperfect world. Flaubert fulfills his dream of living away from society, doing science and creativity. He conducts research in the field of history, medicine, archeology, philosophy. In science, he seeks inspiration for his work. He called the muses of modernity history and natural science. In writing each book, Flaubert used natural science experience. So, to write a small, unfinished novel "Bouvard and Pécuchet", according to him, he read 1500 volumes, and for "Salambo" - more than five thousand. Although Flaubert revered Beauty as the main thing in art, the idea of "pure art" was not accepted by him. The task of artistic creativity is to understand and explain a person, his place in the world.
Flaubert assigned a special place to the author. According to his views, the author in the work should not be noticeable. The author should not edify the reader, he should provide illustrative examples from the life of a person and society, so that the reader can draw conclusions on his own. Didacticism is a disadvantage of literature, visualization is its advantage. The elimination of the author from the work in the traditional sense should give the image greater objectivity. “The writer distorts reality when he wants to bring it to a conclusion. The desire to draw conclusions at all costs is one of the most pernicious and most insane manias of mankind, ”wrote Flaubert. Therefore, in the works of this writer, we will not find a single indication of the author's attitude to the characters and their actions. This was new to literature. Whether we read Stendhal and Balzac, even more so in Dickens and Thackeray, the author is always present next to the characters. He not only explains their actions, but also openly expresses his attitude - sympathetic, ironic, angry. Flaubert does not consider himself entitled, describing life, to go into any kind of value judgments. “A novelist has no right to speak his mind… Does God ever speak his mind?” The writer is likened to the Creator of all things. At the same time, Flaubert looks pessimistically at a man who is overcome by the pride of understanding: “Will you become angry at the hooves of a donkey or at the jaw of any other animal? Show them, make a stuffed animal out of them, put them in alcohol and that's it. But to evaluate them - no. And who are we ourselves, worthless toads?
In the second half of the 19th century, special attention began to be paid to the problem of literary style. It is noteworthy that French rhetoric readers do not include fragments of the works of Balzac and Stendhal, since they are imperfect in a stylistic sense. It is known that Stendhal noted, but did not correct, the stylistically weak points of his books. Balzac, who usually wrote in a hurry, allowed outrageous, from the standpoint of the twentieth century, lacunae. Hugo said that besides him, only Flaubert and Gauthier own the literary style. Flaubert himself, admiring Balzac, said: “What kind of writer would Balzac be if he could write! But that was all he needed.” In fact, the history of modern literary style in France begins with Flaubert. His literary heritage incomparably less next to the volumes of Balzac, Hugo, Stendhal. But Flaubert worked on each of his books for years. The novel "Madam Bovary" - small in volume - was written daily for five years (1850-1856). In 1858, Flaubert traveled to Algeria and Tunisia, collecting materials for the historical novel Salambo. In 1869 he completed the second version of the novel "Education of the Senses", and in 1874 - a philosophical dramatic poem in prose "The Temptation of St. Anthony". He also wrote various novels and stories, diaries, letters.
Flaubert died in Croisset on May 8, 1880. Already 30 years after his death, in 1910, the Lexicon of Common Truths saw the light - a satirical presentation of the main positions of the bourgeois worldview.
The importance of Flaubert and his influence on French and world literature great. The continuer of the realistic traditions of O. Balzac, a close friend of I.S. Turgenev, he brought up a galaxy of talented writers, some, for example G. Maupassant, he directly taught the craft of writing.
2. The novel Madame Bovary
.1 Work on the novel
In the autumn of 1851, Flaubert creates the first plot development of the future novel Madame Bovary. Work on the novel took more than four and a half years. These were years of relentless, almost painful labor, when Flaubert reworked and polished line after line many times.
Subtitle, given to the novel, - "Provincial manners" - immediately seems to include it in the classical tradition of French literature of the first half of the 19th century. Nevertheless, Flaubert's Tost and Yonville differ decisively from Stendhal's Verrieres and Balzac's province. "Madame Bovary" is a study of modernity, carried out by means of art, moreover, with the help of methods close to those of the natural sciences. It is noteworthy that Flaubert himself called his work anatomical, and his contemporaries compared his pen with a scalpel; the famous caricature of Lemo, depicting how Flaubert examines the heart of his heroine, impaled on the edge of a knife, is also indicative.
While working on the novel, Flaubert noticed in his letters that he had to write in gray on gray. In fact, the picture of the bourgeois world, drawn by him, is overwhelming in its hopelessness: Balzac wrote that this world is in the hands of the financial aristocracy; that in this world there is nothing capable of resisting bourgeois thinking, no one spoke before Flaubert. "I think for the first time readers will get a book that mocks both the heroine and the hero," Flaubert wrote of his novel.
2.2 ideological concept novel
The second stage of development French realism of the 19th century (50-70s) is associated with the name of Flaubert. The first work that reflected the worldview and aesthetic principles of the mature Flaubert was Madame Bovary (1856).
Enormous creative difficulties confronted him: first of all, they consisted in the extreme triviality of the collision, in the vulgarity of the characters, in the endless ordinariness of the plot, quite capable of fitting in a few newspaper lines of the mixture section. Every now and then Flaubert lets out cries of despair in his letters:
“Last week I killed five days on one page… Bovary is killing me. In a whole week I made only three pages, and besides, I am far from being delighted with them ... "Bovary" does not budge: only two pages in a week !!! Really, sometimes, out of desperation, I would punch myself in the face! This book is killing me ... The difficulties of doing it are such that at times I lose my head.
And one more thing: “... what I am now writing runs the risk of turning into Paul de Kock if I do not put here a deeply literary form. But how to ensure that the vulgar dialogue is well written? Writers who invest themselves, their feelings, their personal experience, easy to operate. Well, if you strive "so that the book does not contain a single movement of the author, not a single one of his own reflections", if "you need to be ready at any moment to get into the shoes of people deeply antipathetic to me", if "you need to think for others in such a way, as they themselves would think, and make them speak…”.
But at the same time, what great satisfaction this hard labor brings!
“It doesn’t matter if it’s bad or good, but what a miracle it is to write, not to be yourself anymore, but to be in the world that you create. Today, for example, I was both man and woman, lover and mistress; On an autumn afternoon I rode through the woods among the yellowed leaves. And I was the horses, and the leaves, and the wind, and the words that lovers uttered, and the crimson sun, from which their eyes, full of love, squinted.
Thus, in cruel creative torment and in the delight of creative accomplishment, Flaubert's masterpiece was created, thus a work arose that was to become "written reality" and which became a major milestone in the development of the realistic novel.
2.3 Image of the province
The image of the province in the novel, echoing the best of Balzac's creations, convinces of the ruthlessness and pessimism of Flaubert's realism. Everything bears the stamp of refinement and squalor: not a single bright or strong personality. This is a world where money is personified by the cunning and predatory Leray, the church is personified by the limited and miserable father Bournisien, who cares least of all about the souls of his flock, the intelligentsia is personified by the stupid and ignorant Charles Bovary.
Before us is revealed the hopelessly dull, endlessly boring life of a provincial outback - Norman towns and villages, where a half-educated doctor practices - a kind man. Charles Bovary. His life is without events, without movement, like a stagnant swamp, filled with a string of identical, innumerable days that bring nothing. “Every day at the same hour, a teacher in a black silk cap opened his shutters, and a village guard in a blouse and with a saber passed. In the morning and in the evening, three in a row, post horses crossed the street - they went to the pond to drink. From time to time the bell rattled on the door of the tavern, and in windy weather copper basins gnashed on iron bars, replacing the signboard at the barbershop. That's all. Moreover, he walked along the street - from the city hall to the church and back - a hairdresser waiting for clients. This is how life flows in Toast. And so it flows in Yonville, with its church, the notary's house, the Golden Lion inn, and Mr. Home's pharmacy. “There is nothing else to see in Yonville. The street (the only one) as long as the flight of a rifle bullet has several more shops and ends at a bend in the road ...
The opposition of Paris and the provinces, the understanding of this opposition as a problem of modern French society was proposed by Balzac. Balzac divided France into "two parts, Paris and the provinces". In the province, according to Balzac, there is still spiritual purity, morality, traditional morality. In Paris, the human soul is destroyed. Flaubert believed that the whole of France was provincial. It is no coincidence that the image of Paris does not appear in Madame Bovary. The only road leading from Yonville is to Rouen, a large provincial town outside of which life is inconceivable. The barber soars in dreams to unrealizable - to open a hairdressing salon in Rouen. The barber's dream does not extend beyond Rouen - the capital is not present in the minds of Flaubert's heroes. Provinciality is a quality of the soul inherent in a person, regardless of origin.
In one of his letters, Flaubert wrote: “For me, Bovary was a book in which I set myself a certain task. Everything I love is missing.” In another case, he formulates the task as follows: "to convey vulgarity accurately and at the same time simply." Flaubert decided to take close to scientific research vulgarity. This task dictated a change in the traditional form of the novel. The main component of the novel structure in the 19th century was the plot. Constantly changing the existing, already written text, editing it, ruthlessly blacking out the written pages, Flaubert devotes less than a third of the text to the actual plot. He allocates 260 pages for the exposition, 120 for the main action, and 60 pages for the denouement. A huge exposition turns out to be necessary in order for the reader to see the prerequisites that doom the heroine to suffering and death. The romantic upbringing that Emma receives in a monastery, cut off from life, throws her into the thrall of illusions. She dreams of a different, non-existent life. Emma will enter the dream world at a ball in Vaubiessard. But everything that strikes Emma's imagination - secular manners, maraschino ice cream, a love note dropped as if by accident - is still the same vulgarity, but the vulgarity of a different social circle. Vulgarity - a companion of provinciality - gets used to every person of our time.
Against this background deployed sad story hobbies and disappointments, longings and heart troubles, sins and cruel atonement of the heroine - pathetic and touching, sinful and forever close to the readers of Emma Bovary. Much has been written about the suffering of a woman in the grip of a bourgeois marriage, about adultery in French literature before Flaubert. The heroines of George Sand, in their impulse to freedom of feeling, challenged the tyranny of her husband, behind which stood the laws of society and the commandments of religion. Balzac depicted unfaithful wives, endowed with indomitable passions, like Madame de Resto, or a deep understanding of the merciless logic of selfishness, like the Duchess de Beauseant.
2.4 Image of Emma and Charles
Ideological meaning novel calculation with romantic illusions. The wife of an ordinary provincial doctor (paramedic), Emma Bovary, suffocating in the philistine environment of a Norman town, tries, contrary to her position, to behave like an aristocrat or the heroine of a novel and, entangled in adultery and debts, commits suicide. The writer masterfully shows both the vulgarity of the provincial petty-bourgeois environment (the ideologist of which is the talker - the "progressive" pharmacist Ome), and the untrue, far-fetched form that the mystical hopes and high ideals of Emma receive, in her own way rebelling against this environment.
The dreamy and sentimental provincial, who did not intellectually surpass her insignificant husband, differs from him in one essential feature. She is always unhappy. Always waiting for something, always striving for something that is beyond the infinitely wretched reality of her life. But this is the deep and hopeless drama of personality in the philistine world - this "something" turns out to be a miserable mirage, and the more desperately poor Madame Bovary chases after it, the deeper she gets bogged down in vulgarity. For this, Flaubert introduced the image of Charles Bovary into his work. His world is a world of triumphant stupidity that tenaciously holds a person: it not only owns his real being and everyday life, but infinitely vulgarizes his very dream.
Emma had read novels in the boarding school in which “there was nothing but love, lovers, mistresses, haunted ladies falling unconscious in secluded arbors, postmen who are killed at all stations, horses driven on every page, dark forests, heartfelt confusion, oaths, sobs, tears and kisses, shuttles at moonlight, nightingales in the groves, cavaliers, brave as lions and meek as lambs, virtuous beyond all possibility, always beautifully dressed and crying like urns,” Flaubert seems to have collected here all the clichés of gallant and sensitive literature. Such was the “education of feelings” of the heroine.
But after a noisy village wedding, like a fair, her life flowed depressingly monotonous, side by side with a narrow-minded, good-natured, adoring husband, devoid of any spiritual needs and so strikingly unlike the heroes from books. “Charles’ conversations were flat, like a street panel, common places stretched in a string into them in their usual outfits ...” In addition, “he could neither swim, nor fencing, nor shoot a pistol ... He taught nothing, knew nothing, nothing didn't want to."
Charles is really pathetic and ridiculous in his absolute earthiness, complacency and mediocrity. He causes pity, as opposed to his wife. And here Flaubert, who so hated all exaltation and pretentious sensibility both in life and in literature, is completely merciless.
In the image of Charles, a typical inhabitant of Yonzil, Flaubert fully expressed his hatred for the bourgeois. There are no villains among them, no manic misers in the spirit of Balzac's heroes.
But the Flaubert bourgeois is perhaps more terrible than the Balzac ones. It is more terrible because of its routine, its indestructible stupidity, automatism and poverty of its spiritual life. Here everything sincere and pure languishes and perishes. There is no place left in life for poor Charles. His: selfless feeling and suffering distinguish him from among his kind.
During the years of work on the novel, Flaubert wrote his "Lexicon of Common Truths" - a mockery of generally accepted bourgeois ideas. “I want,” he wrote about the intention of this evil book, that whoever reads it should be afraid to open his mouth for fear of uttering exactly any phrase that is here.
This clarifies the socio-political meaning of the work: in the eyes of the great realist, the vegetative existence of the Yonville inhabitants not only marks the triumph of vulgarity over all living and human things, but also sums up a peculiar result. historical development bourgeois France.
The complete dominance of the bourgeoisie, established during the years of the July Monarchy and strengthened under the Second Empire, seemed to him eternal, hopeless. Despising the kingdom of shopkeepers and the dirty fuss of bourgeois politicians, Flaubert did not trust the people either, he was afraid of the historical amateur performance of the masses, he was skeptical about the ideas of a just social order: did the revolution of 1848 lead to the vile regime of the empire - he naively argues. In this is the final main reason his spiritual drama: the son of an era.
That is why he liked to emphasize that the bourgeois for him is a universal concept. “The bourgeois is an animal that understands nothing in the human soul,” he wrote.
2.5 Love in the novel
The subject of Flaubert's research is the problem of love. The researcher of his work B.G. Reizov writes about the suffering of the heroine, their understanding in the novel: “This is a real romantic longing, in various options cultivated by the writers of the beginning of the century, the dream of the “blue flower”, changing its objects, but psychologically still the same. However, in "Madame Bovary" this longing turns out not to be the author's personal experience, but the subject of social research and a characteristic of modernity. Emma rises above the other characters in the novel by the strength of the fact that her claims to life are immeasurably greater than theirs (Flaubert himself said that we judge the spiritual height of a person by his desires, just as we judge the height of a cathedral by a bell tower). But over time, everything spiritual leaves Emma's love - Emma no longer sees the difference between the words "love" and "have a lover." It is no coincidence that both lovers of Emma - Rodolphe and Leon - are a parody, one - of the romantic hero of the Byronic type, the other - of Werther. Flaubert sees harm in romantic ideas - one cannot look for an ideal where it cannot be.
2.6 Novel ending
Singling out Emma Bovary from that wretched, soulless environment in which she constantly finds herself - first on her father's farm, then in her husband's house in Toast and Yonville, the author even seems to sympathize with her: after all, Emma is not like the others. The originality of Emma lies in the fact that she cannot come to terms with the vulgarity of the environment, the squalor of which Flaubert has shown with such convincing force. Emma is tormented by longing, the reasons for which no one can understand (the scene with the priest Burnisien is remarkable in this respect). This is a real romantic longing, so characteristic of the works of French writers of the first half of the century. She serves as an excuse for the heroine in the eyes of her creator. But the tragedy of Emma Bovary lies in the fact that, while rebelling against the world of the inhabitants, she is at the same time an integral part of it, its offspring, merges with it. Emma's tastes, ideas about life and ideals are generated by the same vulgar bourgeois environment. With the scrupulousness of a naturalist, applying his method of objective narration, Flaubert fixes the smallest details, which define inner world Emma, traces all the stages of her education of feelings.
A well-known researcher of Flaubert's work A. Thibode noted that Emma lives in captivity of a "double illusion" - time and place. She believes that the time she has to live must certainly be better than that that has been lived. She longs for and can love only what is outside her world: she marries Charles only because she wants to leave her father's farm; after marrying him, she dreams of what is outside of her family life, therefore, unable to love not only her husband, but also her daughter.
For a poorly educated wife of a provincial doctor, whose spiritual needs are shaped by monastic upbringing and reading, there are two unattainable ideals - outwardly beautiful life and sublime all-consuming love. With merciless irony, sometimes tinged with sadness, Flaubert shows Emma's attempts to decorate and "ennoble" her life, her search for unearthly love. The heroine's dreams magical lands And fairy princes perceived as a parody of epigone romantic novels. But it is important that the search for such love turns into the same mediocrity and vulgarity: both Emma's lovers have nothing to do with what they appear in her imagination. However, their idealization is the only possible way for her to somehow justify herself, although she vaguely understands that it is not so much these men, who are very far from the ideal images that have arisen in her exalted imagination, that are dear to her, but the feeling of love cultivated by her, because for her love is the only possible way of existence. In this tragic inconsistency of Emma's character - in her passionate anti-bourgeoisness, inevitably clothed in the most bourgeois form - Flaubert's view of the world, full of boundless skepticism, is reflected. At the same time, the analysis spiritual world and consciousness modern man is inextricably linked in the novel with social analysis, and the mechanism modern society investigated by the author with great precision and depth, making him related to Balzac. Quite in the spirit of the creator " human comedy» Flaubert shows how love in a bourgeois society is inseparable from material problems: Emma's passion leads her to squandering, and squandering leads to death. Even Emma's death, like her whole life, is "played out" twice in the novel: first a romantic impulse, then an unsightly reality. After receiving a farewell letter from Rodolphe, Emma decides to commit suicide, but then refuses to do so. The real death sentence for Emma is the letter-bill of the usurer Leray. Rodolphe pushed Emma onto the path leading to death, Leray ruined her. The dream of unearthly love is inextricably linked in Emma's imagination with a craving for luxury, which is why in her life "lofty" impulses coexist so easily with bills and promissory notes, withholding accounts and misappropriating Charles's miserable fees. In this sense, Emma is the flesh of the flesh of the society that is disgusting to her.
Flaubert famously said, "Madame Bovary is me." The writer himself has repeatedly said that he belongs to the generation of old romantics, but his path led to overcoming romantic illusions, to uncompromising hard truthfulness in understanding and portraying life. In the image of Emma Bovary, both the degenerate romantic literature and the degraded to the level of the bourgeois are exposed. romantic hero. At the same time, this closeness of the author to his heroine also determines the compassion that breaks through, despite all the notorious objectivity of Flaubert. Subsequently, the term “bovarism” became widespread in French literary criticism, denoting an illusory, distorted idea of a person about himself and his place in the world. This term suffers from a certain abstractness; undoubtedly, Flaubert associates his heroine both with a certain environment and with a clearly defined historical moment. At the same time, there is no doubt that Emma's tragedy goes beyond the framework of a specific plot and acquires a broad universal significance.
The symbol of the degeneration of bourgeois society is the image of the pharmacist Ome - a merciless satire on bourgeois liberalism and superficially optimistic theories of scientific progress. This is an image of the triumphant and all-conquering vulgarity so hated by Flaubert. No wonder the novel about the fate of Emma Bovary ends with a few phrases about the success of the pharmacist, who "recently received the Order of the Legion of Honor." This ending is significant: Flaubert sought to show a holistic picture of modern life in its most typical manifestations and trends. Responding to one of the readers of Madame Bovary, Flaubert emphasized that everything in the novel is pure fiction and there are no specific hints in it. “If I actually had them,” Flaubert explains, “then in my portraits there would be little similarity, since I would have in mind certain personalities, while I, on the contrary, sought to reproduce the types.”
flobert bovary province love
2.7 Flaubert's innovation
Flaubert believed that not every thought can be expressed in speech. Hence - Flaubert's innovations in the field of literary style. If in the first half of the 19th century the thought of a character was expressed with the help of an internal monologue built according to the laws of logic, then Flaubert uses improperly direct speech. With the help of improperly direct speech, the author manages to convey not only the content of the hero’s thoughts, but also his state - confusion, absent-mindedness, apathy. From improperly direct speech, widely introduced into literary practice by Flaubert, grows the "stream of consciousness" of modernism. Flaubert himself called his manner of working with text "subconscious poetics".
Flaubert's novel aroused the delight of both the reading public and French writers. Flaubert's book was prosecuted for immorality, which Flaubert won. At the trial, he and his lawyer read chapters from the novel (almost a third of the text!) and fragments of well-intentioned literature that struck even the prosecutor, who sat silent, with their vulgarity. The novel entered the treasury of world literature and is still considered the greatest achievement of thought and creativity.
Conclusion
Gustave Flaubert is one of the three great realists of France, whose work determined the main development of its literature in the 19th century. and had a decisive influence on the development of the French novel of the XIX-XX centuries.
Flaubert clearly represented his historical place in the history of French literature. Admiring Balzac, his deep understanding of his era, Flaubert perceptively noted that the great novelist died at that historical moment when the society that he knew so well began to decline. “Something has gone with Louis Philippe that will never return,” Flaubert wrote to Louis Bouillet upon learning of Balzac’s death. “Now we need different music.”
The feeling that he lives in a different world than Balzac, in a world that requires a different position from the artist, a different attitude to the material, is inherent in Flaubert to the highest degree. In one of the letters, he dropped such a phrase, fundamentally important for understanding his work: "The reaction of 1848 dug an abyss between the two Frances."
This abyss separates Flaubert from Stendhal and Balzac. Such a statement does not mean at all that Flaubert denied what his great predecessors had done. It can even be said that the type of novel he created embodied many of the achievements of French realism in the first half of the century. But at the same time, Flaubert's concept of art, like his works themselves, could only have arisen in France, which survived the tragedy of 1848.
The complexity and dramatic inconsistency of the new stage in the development of the country's spiritual life received its fullest expression in Flaubert's prose and the poetry of Baudelaire and other "accursed" poets of that time.
Flaubert's works with inexorable consistency and artistic power express the writer's rejection of the world of bourgeois France, and in this he remains true to the social pathos of the novels of Stendhal and Balzac. But, observing the refinement and degeneration of that society, the formation and consolidation of which was described by the realists of the first half of the century, Flaubert, in contrast to them, turns out to be alien to the pathos of assertion. Everything that he sees around him inspires him with the thought of the insignificance, stupidity, squalor of the world, where the prosperous bourgeois dominates. Modernity is conceived by him as the final stage of development, and the inability to see the future becomes feature his conception of the historical process. And when, seeking to save himself from the pitiful mercantilism and lack of spirituality of modern society, Flaubert plunges into the past, then his sharpened insight finds vile intrigues, religious fanaticism and spiritual poverty. Thus, his attitude to modernity also colors his perception of past eras.
In the development of French realism, Flaubert's work is just as milestone, as well as the work of Balzac and Stendhal. Both Flaubert's innovative artistic discoveries and the losses that marked his work in comparison with the works of his great predecessors are extremely characteristic of a new stage in the development of Western European realism that began in the second half of the 19th century.
Bibliography
1.Flaubert G. Madame Bovary // Collection. op. in 3 volumes. - M., 1983. - T. 1.
2.Bakhmutsky. On space and time in French realistic novel XIX V. // All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Proceedings of VGIK. - Issue. 4. - M., 1972. - S. 43-66.
.Valerie P. The Temptation of (Saint) Flaubert // Valerie P. On Art. - M., 1993. - S. 391-398.
.Ivashchenko A.F. Gustave Flaubert. From the history of romanticism in France. - M., 1955
.Morua A. Literary portraits. - M., 1970. - S. 175-190.
.Puzikov. Ideological and artistic views Flaubert // Puzikov. Five portraits. - M., 1972. - S. 68-124.
.Reizov B.G. Creativity Flaubert - M. Enlightenment, 1965
.Reizov B.G. French historical novel 19th century. - M., 1977
.Sainte-Beuve C. "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert // Sainte-Bev. literary portraits. - M., 1970. - S. 448-465.
.Flaubert G. About literature, art, writing work. Letters. Articles. In 2 volumes - M., 1984.
.Frans A. Gustave Flaubert // Frans A. Sobr. op. in 8 volumes - M., 1960. - T. 8. - S. 92-100.
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The young physician Charles Bovary first saw Emma Rouault when he was called to the farm of her father, who had broken his leg. Emma wore a blue woolen dress with three frills. Her hair was black, smoothly parted in the front, her cheeks were rosy, her big black eyes looked straight and open. By this time, Charles was already married to an ugly and quarrelsome widow, whom his mother betrothed to him because of a dowry. Papa Rouault's fracture was mild, but Charles continued to go to the farm. jealous wife found out that Mademoiselle Rouault studied at the Ursulines, that she “dances, knows geography, draws, embroiders and strums on the piano. No, this is too much! She harassed her husband with reproaches.
However, Charles's wife soon died unexpectedly. And after a while he married Emma. The mother-in-law reacted coldly to the new daughter-in-law. Emma became Madame Bovary and moved into the house of Charles in the town of Toast. She turned out to be an excellent hostess. Charles idolized his wife. "The whole world was closed for him within the silky girth of her dresses." When, after work, he sat at the threshold of the house in shoes embroidered by Emma, he felt at the height of bliss. Emma, unlike him, was full of confusion. Before the wedding, she believed that “that wondrous feeling that she still imagined in the form of a bird of paradise finally flew to her,” but happiness did not come, and she decided that she was mistaken. In the monastery, she became addicted to reading novels, she wanted, like her favorite heroines, to live in an old castle and wait for a faithful knight. She grew up with a dream of strong and beautiful passions, and the reality in the outback was so prosaic! Charles was devoted to her, kind and hardworking, but there was not even a hint of heroism in him. His speech "was flat, like a panel along which other people's thoughts in their everyday clothes stretched in a string. He taught nothing, knew nothing, did not desire anything."
One day something unusual invaded her life. Bovary received an invitation to a ball in the family castle of the Marquis, to whom Charles successfully removed an abscess in his throat. Magnificent halls, noble guests, exquisite dishes, the smell of flowers, fine linen and truffles - in this atmosphere Emma experienced acute bliss. She was especially aroused by the fact that in the midst of the secular crowd she distinguished the currents of forbidden connections and reprehensible pleasures. She waltzed with a real viscount, who then left for Paris itself! Her satin shoes, after dancing, turned yellow from the waxed parquet. “The same thing happened to her heart as to the shoes: from touching with luxury, something indelible remained on it ...” No matter how much Emma hoped for a new invitation, it did not follow. Now life in Toast was completely disgusting to her. "The future seemed to her a dark corridor, resting against a tightly locked door." Longing took the form of an illness, Emma was tormented by asthma attacks, palpitations, she developed a dry cough, apathy was replaced by agitation. Alarmed, Charles explained her condition by the climate and began to look for a new place.
In the spring, the Bovarys moved to the town of Yonville near Rouen. Emma was already expecting a baby by then.
It was a land where "the speech is devoid of character, and the landscape is original." At the same hour, the wretched stagecoach "Swallow" stopped on the central square, and its coachman handed out bundles of purchases to the residents. At the same time, the whole city was making jam, stocking up for a year ahead. Everyone knew everything and gossiped about everything and everyone. Bovary were introduced into the local society. He included the pharmacist Mr. Ome, whose face "expressed nothing but narcissism," the cloth merchant Mr. Leray, as well as a priest, a policeman, an innkeeper, a notary, and several other persons. Against this background, twenty-year-old assistant notary Leon Dupuy stood out - blond, with curled eyelashes, timid and shy. He loved to read, painted watercolors and strummed the piano with one finger. Emma Bovary struck his imagination. From the first conversation they felt in each other a kindred spirit. Both loved to talk about the sublime and suffered from loneliness and boredom.
Emma wanted a son, but a girl was born. She called her Bertha - this name she heard at the ball at the Marquis. The girl was found a nurse. Life went on. Papa Rouault sent them a turkey in the spring. Sometimes the mother-in-law visited, reproaching the daughter-in-law for extravagance. Only the company of Leon, with whom Emma often met at parties at the pharmacist, brightened up her loneliness. The young man was already passionately in love with her, but did not know how to explain himself. "Emma seemed to him so virtuous, so impregnable, that he no longer had a glimmer of hope." He did not suspect that Emma, in her heart, also passionately dreams of him. Finally, the assistant notary went to Paris to continue his education. After his departure, Emma fell into black melancholy and despair. She was torn apart by bitterness and regret about the failed happiness. In order to somehow unwind, she bought new clothes in Leray's shop. She had used his services before. Leray was a clever, flattering and feline cunning person. He had long guessed Emma's passion for beautiful things and willingly offered her purchases on credit, sending either cuts, then lace, then carpets, then scarves. Gradually, Emma found herself in considerable debt with the shopkeeper, which her husband did not suspect.
One day, the landowner Rodolphe Boulanger came to see Charles. He himself was healthy as an ox, and he brought his servant for examination. Emma immediately liked him. Unlike the timid Leon, the thirty-four-year-old bachelor Rodolphe was experienced in dealing with women and self-confident. He found his way to Emma's heart with vague complaints of loneliness and misunderstanding. After a while, she became his mistress. It happened on horseback, which Rodolphe suggested - as a means to improve Madame Bovary's failing health. Emma gave herself to Rodolphe in the forest hut, limply, "hiding her face, all in tears." However, then passion flared up in her, and intoxicatingly bold dates became the meaning of her life. She attributed to the tanned, strong Rodolphe the heroic features of her imaginary ideal. She demanded an oath from him eternal love and self-sacrifice. Her feeling needed a romantic frame. She filled the wing where they met at night with vases of flowers. She made expensive gifts to Rodolphe, which she bought everything from the same Lera secretly from her husband.
The more Emma became attached, the more Rodolphe cooled towards her. She touched him, the anemone, with her purity and innocence. But most of all he valued his own peace. The connection with Emma could damage his reputation. And she acted too recklessly. And Rodolphe increasingly made comments to her about this. He once missed three dates in a row. Emma's pride was hurt. “She even thought: why does she hate Charles so much and isn’t it better to try to love him after all? But Charles did not appreciate this return of the former feeling, her sacrificial impulse was broken, it plunged her into complete confusion, and then the pharmacist turned up and accidentally added fuel to the fire.
The apothecary Ome was listed in Yonville as a champion of progress. He followed the new trends and even published in the newspaper "Rouen Light". This time he was seized by the idea of performing a newfangled operation in Yonville, which he read about in a laudatory article. With this idea, Aumé turned on Charles, persuading him and Emma that they did not risk anything. They also chose a victim - a groom who had a congenital curvature of the foot. A whole conspiracy formed around the unfortunate, and in the end he surrendered. After the operation, an excited Emma met Charles on the threshold and threw herself on his neck. In the evening, the couple were busy making plans. And five days later the groom began to die. He got gangrene. I had to urgently call a "local celebrity" - a doctor who called everyone dumbasses and cut off the sick leg to the knee. Charles was in despair, and Emma burned with shame. The heart-rending cries of the poor groom were heard by the whole city. She was once again convinced that her husband was mediocrity and insignificance. That evening, she met with Rodolphe, "and from a hot kiss, all their annoyance melted like a snowball."
She began to dream of leaving forever with Rodolphe, and finally started talking about it seriously - after a quarrel with her mother-in-law, who came to visit. She so insisted, so pleaded, that Rodolphe retreated and gave his word to fulfill her request. A plan was made. Emma was getting ready to run away. She secretly ordered a raincoat, suitcases and various little things for the journey from Lera. But a blow awaited her: on the eve of her departure, Rodolphe changed his mind about taking on such a burden. He was determined to break with Emma and sent her a farewell letter in a basket of apricots. In it, he also announced that he was leaving for a while.
For forty-three days, Charles did not leave Emma, who had inflammation of the brain. It only got better in the spring. Now Emma was indifferent to everything in the world. She became interested in charity work and turned to God. Nothing seemed to revive her. At that time, the famous tenor was touring in Rouen. And Charles, on the advice of the pharmacist, decided to take his wife to the theater.
Emma listened to the opera "Lucia de Lamermour", forgetting everything. The experiences of the heroine seemed to her similar to her torments. She remembered her own wedding. “Oh, if at that time, when her beauty had not yet lost its original freshness, when the dirt of married life had not yet stuck to her, when she had not yet been disappointed in forbidden love, someone would give her his big, faithful heart, then virtue, tenderness, desire, and a sense of duty would merge in her into one, and from the height of such happiness she would no longer fall. And during the intermission, an unexpected meeting with Leon awaited her. Now he was practicing in Rouen. They did not see each other for three years and forgot each other. Leon was no longer the former timid young man. "He decided it was time to get together with this woman," convinced Madame Bovary to stay another day to listen to Lagardie again. Charles warmly supported him and left for Yonville alone.
Again Emma was loved, again she mercilessly deceived her husband and littered with money. Every Thursday she went to Rouen, where she allegedly took music lessons, and she herself met with Leon at the hotel. Now she acted like a sophisticated woman, and Leon was entirely in her power. Meanwhile, the cunning Leray began to persistently remind about debts. Signed bills accumulated a huge amount. Bovary was threatened with an inventory of property. The horror of such an outcome was unimaginable. Emma rushed to Leon, but her lover was cowardly and cowardly. It already scared him enough that Emma came to his office too often. And he didn't help her. Neither the notary, nor the tax inspector, she also did not find sympathy. Then it dawned on her - Rodolphe! After all, he returned to his estate long ago. And he is rich. But her former hero, at first pleasantly surprised by her appearance, coldly declared: “I don’t have that kind of money, madam.”
Emma left him, feeling like she was going crazy. With difficulty, she made her way to the pharmacy, crept upstairs, where poisons were stored, found a jar of arsenic and immediately swallowed the powder ...
She died a few days later in terrible agony. Charles could not believe in her death. He was completely broke and heartbroken. The final blow was for him that he found the letters of Rodolphe and Leon. Downcast, overgrown, untidy, he wandered along the paths and wept uncontrollably. Soon he, too, died, right on the bench in the garden, clutching a lock of Emma's hair in his hand. Little Bertha was taken up first by Charles's mother, and after her death, by an elderly aunt. Papa Rouault was paralyzed. Berta had no money left, and she was forced to go to a spinning mill.
Leon soon after the death of Emma successfully married. Leray opened a new store. The pharmacist received the Order of the Legion of Honor, which he had long dreamed of. All of them have been very successful.
retold
To be frank, then write an article about the novel French writer Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary" difficult. Of course, you can use a bunch of reviews from eminent critics. But I thought that it would be much more correct to write my own thoughts.
But first, a little history.
« Madame Bovary was published in 1856. This novel instantly brought Flaubert world fame and big trouble. He was sued for moral defamation. Fortunately, the trial ended in an acquittal. Immediately after the court decision, the novel was published as a separate publication.
In 2007, a survey was conducted among contemporary writers. In their opinion, two novels can be attributed to the masterpieces of the world: firstly, “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy and, secondly, novel « Madame Bovary» Gustave Flaubert.
Why is this work so amazing?
It is believed that the special advantage of the novel is style. There is not a single superfluous word in the novel. Over some lines, Flaubert sat for a whole week, trying to hone and select only the right phrases. However, I personally do not presume to judge the excess or insufficiency of words. I judge a book by my perception, by the origin of thoughts, by the mood that appears in my soul.
This is what I will write about.
I just want to say that the novel Madame Bovary ideal for those who wish to explore the life of the townspeople of the 19th century. Flaubert describes ordinary provincial life in great detail. Lovers of subtle psychology will also be completely satisfied. Flaubert was able to convey almost every emotion main character novel. Explain every step. Throughout the reading, I was amazed by such deep knowledge of the sensitive female soul. Also, this novel will be extremely useful for romantic people who see something beautiful in death and therefore make disgusting suicide plans. In the novel, the author described in great detail the scene of agony after taking a lethal dose of arsenic. This moment in the novel is so heavy, and described so plausibly, that I had no other feelings other than disgust. Who flies in the clouds, considering the poisoning romantic, read chapter 8 part 3 of this novel.
I don't know how Flaubert felt about Emma Bovary; to Madame Bovary, the wife of Charles, a mediocre rural doctor, but my attitude changed throughout the whole novel. At the beginning, I felt sorry for the charming dreamer who was mistaken in her feelings and hopes. And who among us hasn't made mistakes in our youth? And what could Emma see while studying in a monastery, and then living in the countryside? How was she to know that the usual attraction to a man and love are somewhat different things? Having read novels about passionate love, like any woman of all times and peoples, she wanted the same adoration, romance and love! The marital status of a woman does not play absolutely no role! A woman just wants to be a woman, loved and desired.
Emma expected happiness from marriage. But, unfortunately, her husband was just an ordinary rural doctor who left in the morning to his patients and returned only in the evening. He did not support her attempts to somehow diversify their lives. He did not understand the romantic impulses of a young woman who tried to act out a date in the garden, read poetry, and so on. The young wife was unbearably bored. Emma was suffocated by the routine. I felt infinitely sorry for her. Apparently, the husband did not really understand what did not suit Emma, since he truly loved his wife and was only happy that she was there. It seemed to him that it should be enough for her just to enjoy his presence. Emma's misfortune was precisely that she did not love her husband and her hopes for the best were not justified.
How often do we see disappointed people in life. Although from the outside, a person seems to have everything and he needs to rejoice and thank God. On the example of Madame Bovary, you can see how the process of withering happiness in the soul of a person takes place.
Charles felt that his wife needed at least some change. He took advantage of the invitation and took Emma to the ball, where everything breathed luxury. The difference between the real fairy tale at the ball and everyday life shocked Emma. Returning home, Madame Bovary threw a tantrum, which gradually rolled into a deep depression. Charles decided that the change of residence would benefit his wife. But he was wrong to think so. Since Emma was choked not by the air of the village where they lived, but by the lack of diversity of life.
Arriving in the provincial town of Yonville-l'Abbey, Emma realized with horror that everyday life had overtaken her. All the entertainment that could be in the opinion of the main character is adultery. And although I have a negative attitude towards entertainment of this kind, I still sympathized with the main character of the novel. I didn't blame her.
Condemnation came later, when Emma began to show whims and selfishness, some kind of reckless carelessness and readiness to betray her faithful husband at any moment. Yes, she did not love Charles, considered him mediocre and empty. However, by that time they had a daughter, Berta. And this circumstance alone, in my opinion, should have somehow forced Emma to reconsider her desires and whims. Even in our depraved 21st century, I believe that children should not pay the bills of immoral parents! If only in Russia there was a Moral Code, according to which it would be possible to protect the interests of the family and children, then perhaps a lot would change. In the novel, the events took place in the 19th century, where views on adultery were much tougher. And if only Emma had been caught by the hand with her lover, then not only Madame Bovary herself would be an outcast in society, but also her little innocent Bertha. However, although Emma compromised herself, there was no evidence of her infidelity. Yes, but this circumstance did not change the tragic end.
The further I read the novel, the more seriously my indignation grew. The description of the endless dullness of provincial society, some kind of monotony of life, the hypocrisy and indifference of people, the growing hopelessness of the financial situation into which Madame Bovary fell due to her gullibility and addiction to expensive things - all this put pressure on me. Reading became difficult.
It is said that when Gustave Flaubert wrote novel « Madame Bovary“He was very ill more than once. And during detailed description scenes of arsenic poisoning, Flaubert even threw up twice. Well, although I didn’t feel sick, I experienced a feeling of horror and disgust for death, for the indifference of society, for selfishness ... I experienced in full.
There is a scene in the novel where Charles, yielding to the persuasion mainly of his wife and the pharmacist, Mr. Ome, decides to have a groom's foot operation. Emma dreamed of how her Charles would become famous after such an experiment. But, as often happens in life, everything turned out to be a sad result - the groom developed gangrene and his leg had to be amputated. Instead of the confessions of the townspeople, Charles received shame, remorse and guilt. It seemed to me that Emma, so sensitive and impulsive, like no one else would feel and understand what her faithful husband was experiencing. Moreover, she herself was no less guilty of what happened. After all, she so diligently incited him to this experience! But I was wrong about Emma. She not only did not sympathize with her husband, but very harshly pushed him away from her, accusing him of mediocrity. Here I felt sorry for Charles. He courageously endured the shame and did not blame anyone for anything.
What resented me the most about Emma? For some strange reason, she completely forgot about her daughter. Dreaming of escaping with her lover Rodolphe, she lost sight of her young daughter Berta. She could stay the night with her lover Leon, without even thinking about her husband's anxiety and the fact that her little daughter could not fall asleep without her mother. Emma made expensive gifts at the beginning to her first lover Rodolphe, and after parting from him and starting Leon, the last one. At the same time, Bertha, in a deplorable financial situation, had to start saving money for education. For some reason, Emma rented an expensive hotel room for meetings with Leon and generally littered with money, while her own daughter was poorly dressed. But what is absolutely terrible is Emma's sudden decision to poison herself. Why did the question never arise in her charming head: “But what about Bertha?” It was far from decent for Emma to ask for a power of attorney from her husband and secretly mortgage a house with a land plot, which Charles inherited from his deceased father.
I guess I have a purely feminine view of Flaubert's novel. Emma really looks like a bird, as the author often calls her in the novel, and fascinates with her unusualness, spontaneity and impulsiveness. But all this delights at the beginning of the novel. In the end, when poor Bertha remains an orphan and practically a beggar due to her mother's unbridled passions, when poor Bertha is forced to go to work in a factory ... all the charm of Madame Bovary crumbles to dust and leaves a heavy residue in her soul.
Who knows if this story would have had a different ending if Emma had been married to another man?
Today, one thing is known - Madame Bovary has a prototype. Flaubert very carefully studied the biography of Delphine Couturier, who committed suicide in her blooming 27 years due to debts. Her husband was a rural doctor and endlessly trusted his wife, not believing the truthful rumors about her connections on the side.
In conclusion, I would like to say that novel « Madame Bovary' is in no way suitable for idle reading. Emotionally heavy and causes a sea of tears. The novel seems to be taken as a whole separate piece from life itself, it is so real. People are described naturally. Therefore, in this work there are no positive or negative characters. There are many disputes between science and religion. At the same time, the opinion of the author himself cannot be understood.
Based on the novel, many films have been made in different languages of the world.
Charles Bovary is a young doctor. When Emma Rouault's father broke his leg, he had to go to their farm. Emma stepped out in a blue wool dress with three frills. Her brown hair, black eyes and direct gaze struck Charles. But Bovary by this time was already married to an ugly and quarrelsome widow, whom his mother betrothed to him because of a dowry. Papa Rouault did not suffer much and quickly recovered. But Charles continued to go to the farm. Bovary's wife began to get jealous. After all, she became aware that Mademoiselle Rouault studied at the monastery of the Ursulines. And there they teach dancing, geography, drawing, embroidery and playing the piano. The jealous wife began to harass her husband with reproaches.
But Charles did not have to endure this for long. His wife died unexpectedly. The time of mourning passed, and Charles was able to marry Emma. So Emma became Madame Bovary. She moved to Charles's house in the town of Toast. The mother-in-law treated the new daughter-in-law coldly, although new wife Charles was a wonderful hostess. Charles loved his wife very much, the whole world for him closed on her. Emma embroidered shoes for her husband, and he was happy with this proof of love.
Everything seemed to be fine. Yes, only Emma's soul was in turmoil. Her ideas about feelings and about life in general were too sublime. Before the wedding, she believed that she was one of the few who could be happy. Dissatisfaction with life tormented her. Emma decided she was wrong. While studying at the monastery, the girl read many novels. The image of the heroine, who lives in an ancient castle and is waiting for a faithful knight, has become an ideal for her. She believed that life should consist of strong and beautiful passions. In reality, everything was too "prosaic". Yes, Charles was kind and devoted. He worked hard and took care of his wife. But Madame Bovary wanted something "romantic" and heroic. Emma knew that her husband was quite content with existence and wished to achieve nothing more in life.
What Madame Bovary was waiting for did happen: she saw a truly romantic setting. The couple received an invitation to a ball in the family castle of the Marquis, to whom Charles successfully removed an abscess in his throat. The atmosphere in the castle gave Emma a lot of pleasure: a magnificent setting, distinguished guests, fine dining, the smell of flowers ... Madame Bovary realized that this is how she would like to live.
In the spring, the Bovarys moved to the town of Yonville near Rouen. Emma was already expecting a baby by then.
This place was very boring and monotonous. At the same hour, the wretched stagecoach "Swallow" stopped in the central square, and its coachman handed out bundles of purchases to the residents. The inhabitants knew each other and everything about each other.
The Bovary family needed to get acquainted with the local society. Their new friends were the narcissistic pharmacist Mr. Ome, the cloth merchant Mr. Leray, the priest, the policeman, the innkeeper, the notary, and several other people. These people were nothing special - ordinary inhabitants.
But Emma saw a kindred nature in the twenty-year-old assistant notary, Léon Dupuis. It was a blond, shy young man. He loved to read, draw and "play" the piano with one finger. Emma Bovary and Leon Dupuis quickly saw in each other salvation from loneliness and boredom, because both were very fond of talking about “high things”.
Emma soon had a girl, although Madame Bovary wanted a son. The baby was named Bertha. Emma remembered this name at the Marquis's ball. The girl was found a nurse. Life went on. Every spring, Papa Rouault sent the family a turkey. When the mother-in-law came to visit Bovary, each time she reproached her daughter-in-law for extravagance. Emma continued to feel like a stranger in this environment. Only Leon, whom she met at parties at the pharmacist, brought new colors to her life. Leon was secretly in love with Emma. And for a long time already. But he didn't dare to confess. Indeed, in his eyes, Emma was impregnable, one that could never cheat on her husband. In fact, Emma was also drawn to young man and even dreamed about it. Soon Leon went to Paris to continue his education. Emma was very worried. She began to think that she had missed her happiness, which could still enter her life.
Once, the landowner Rodolphe Boulanger came to see Charles to inspect his servant. Rodolphe was a thirty-four-year-old experienced bachelor, a favorite of women. Besides, he was sure of himself. Therefore, when Boulanger realized that he needed to win Emma, he immediately went on the attack. He wasn't as shy as Leon. The path to Emma's heart was found quickly. Rodolphe only needed to complain to the woman about loneliness and misunderstanding on the part of others.
Boulanger then invited Emma for a ride. There, in a forest hut, Emma gave herself to Rodolphe. Her face was in tears - remorse or happiness? Passion flared in Emma's heart. Dating Boulanger became the meaning of her life, because Emma had never behaved so boldly before. She made expensive gifts to Rodolphe, which she bought from the merchant Leray. Emma's husband didn't know about anything.
Emma became very attached to her lover. Rodolphe saw this and began to cool down. Emma, of course, was dear to Boulanger. She was so pure and innocent. But even more Rodolphe valued his own peace. And the connection with Emma could disturb this peace. After all, exposure would damage the reputation of the landowner. And Emma behaved absolutely desperately.
Trouble came to the house of Bovary. The apothecary Ome read in some article about a newfangled operation. He was overwhelmed by the desire to take her to Yonville. Ome immediately went to Charles. He began to convince him and Emma that Charles should definitely have an operation, especially since no one risks anything. In the end, Charles agreed. The patient was a groom with a congenital curvature of the foot. The operation has been completed. Emma was very worried. And when she saw her husband, she threw herself on his neck. In the evening, husband and wife made bright plans. And five days later the groom began to die due to gangrene. I had to urgently call a local doctor. He cut off the patient's leg to the knee - there was no other way out, since the operation was performed incorrectly. Charles was in despair. Emma was simply ashamed of her husband. The idea was strengthened in her head that Charles was mediocrity and insignificance, who would not achieve anything in life. That evening she met with Rodolphe. Emma immediately forgot about all the problems.
Once the mother-in-law again came to visit Charles. Emma had a fight with her. Since Madame Bovary had long dreamed of leaving forever with Rodolphe, she decided to talk about it seriously. There was a conversation. Emma insisted, even begged. Rodolphe had to give his word to fulfill her request. But on the eve of his departure, Rodolphe changed his mind. He decided to break up with Emma. In order not to waste his nerves on an unnecessary conversation, Boulanger sent a farewell letter to Emma with a notice of his departure.
After some time, weakened by experiences, Emma fell ill. She got brain inflammation. Faithful Charles did not leave his wife for forty-three days. By spring, the woman was on the mend. But indifference settled in her soul. Nothing interested Emma. She decided to do charity work and turn to God. Life has become even more dreary and mundane than before.
But then Charles became aware that a famous tenor had arrived in Rouen. Bovary decided to take his wife to the theater to somehow entertain her. The opera "Lucia and Lamermour" was on at the theatre. Emma perked up, because the experiences of the heroine seemed to be related to her. During the intermission, something happened that Emma did not even expect. She met Leon at the theater. Now he worked in Rouen.
Three years have passed since he left. Leon is completely different. Not a trace of his former timidity remained. He decided to be with Emma. To do this, Leon convinced Madame Bovary to stay one more day in Rouen. Charles was only too happy about it. He left alone for Yonville.
Emma again began to deceive her husband, again began to overspend money. Every Thursday she met Leon in Rouen. Emma told her husband that she was taking music lessons. Now she behaved in a completely different way than with Rodolphe, because she already had experience in such matters. Leon obeyed Emma in everything. Everything would be fine, but only the merchant Leray began to demand money for what Emma borrowed. Signed bills accumulated a huge amount. If Madame Bovary does not hand over the money, her property may be described. Emma decided to seek help from Leon, but he could not do anything. In addition, the young man was too cowardly. Then Bovary rushed to Rodolphe, who by that time had already returned to his estate. Rodolphe was rich enough to help Emma, but he didn't.
The last hope of saving Emma was destroyed. Then Madame Bovary went to the pharmacy, crept upstairs, found a jar of arsenic and poisoned herself.
She died a few days later in terrible agony. Charles took her death hard. In addition, he was completely ruined. Yes, I also found letters from Rodolphe and Leon. He realized that he had been betrayed. Charles stopped taking care of himself completely. He wandered around the house and wept uncontrollably. Soon he also died. It happened right on a bench in the garden. Little Berta was given to Charles's mother. When she died, the girl was taken by an elderly aunt. Papa Rouault was paralyzed. Berta grew up, she had no inheritance left, and the poor thing went to work in a spinning mill.
And for those who surrounded Bovary in Yonville, everything turned out fine. Leon soon after the death of Emma successfully married. Leray opened a new store. The pharmacist's dream of the Order of the Legion of Honor came true.
