" Intricacies of bourgeois life as portrayed in 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert "

  

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is an enduring work of realism that uses sophisticated narrative techniques and complex characterization to accurately depict a nuanced portrayal of provincial bourgeois life in 19th century Europe.

Flaubert said, "I want to write a novel about nothing." Instead he created a masterpiece, combining a finely tuned realism with an ironic portrait of romanticism.

Madame Bovary delves into the intricacies of bourgeois life, a subject matter that is often found in the literature of realism. Emma’s disappointments stem in great part from her dissatisfaction with the world of the French bourgeoisie. She aspires to be part of the aristocracy. the novel embraces ‘human’ themes such as love, destroyed illusions, the boredom of provincial life and adultery.

This might seem unlikely, not least because the story of a bored French housewife seduced into conspicuous consumption and extramarital affairs by unrealistic expectations of love, romance and purchasing power promulgated by popular culture would seem an ironic choice for women who epitomise precisely this ethos.

The new middle classes were reorienting society around a sexual dichotomy in order to reproduce themselves, which in turn engendered new hierarchies of public and private, state and family, men and women. Sex became the outer limit of democracy, as a generation of revolutionaries gave way to a triumphant and complacent petit bourgeoisie. 

The novel as a literary form matured alongside this increasingly prosperous class with leisure time for reading, but in the mid-19th century, the genre of realism took a scalpel to its hypocrisies, the contradictions of middle-class sexuality foremost among them. 

 Flaubert uses a variety of techniques to show how language is often an inadequate medium for expressing emotions and ideas. The characters’ frequent inability to communicate with each other is emblematic of the fact that words do not perfectly describe what they signify. 

Charles just expects her to be a wife. A woman to manage his household. A woman to uplift him and give him confidence to keep trying to better himself. He is successful in a dull and conservative way, and whenever he tries to raise himself up further, perhaps in an attempt to win the respect of his pretty wife, he is met with utter failure. 

There is nothing romantic about Charles . He is steady and completely devoted to her. Whenever he tries to express grand passions, somehow these attempts lack the ability to ignite the flames of desire or evoke the effervescent emotions that her novels tell her are the indications of true love.

 The inadequacy of speech is something Emma will encounter again and again as she tries to make her distress known to the priest or to express her love to Rodolphe. It is also present when Charles reads the letter from Rodolphe and misinterprets it as a note of platonic affection

 As we will see later, literary texts with ‘realistic’ topics, and characters that people can identify with are essential in order to be fully drawn into a fictional world. This theme reflects a rising social trend of the latter part of the 19th century and Flaubert uses Emma’s disgust of the middle class life to express his own frustration of this class in the contemporary France of his time. 

The character of Emma can be described as rather complex and believable. The author masterly shows how her character develops through the novel and emphasizes her personal traits that remain static at the same time.

 Although the character of Emma takes the most important place in the novel, the character of her husband Charles is also important for uncovering the main idea of the work. Rudolph, Emma’s lover and Lheureux, the local shop-keeper who swindled her, are the antagonists of the novel.

Flaubert highlights Emma's lack of power in order to give the reader some sympathy for her plight as a woman in the 19th century. Even though Emma makes mistakes of her own, she is still trapped in a life she finds miserable due to her inability to create a life on her own. 

 In terms of characterization, Emma Bovary herself is arepresentation of the historical situation for women at the time. At the time when the novel is set,various feminist developments had occurred in France but essentially nothing had changed, especially for provincial women like Emma. Emma’s circumstances, and the dissatisfaction she feels with such a constrained life, is one realistically representative of many women at the time.

Moreover, Emma’s ennui and restlessness is something even modern readers can relate to. Even though Emma is depicted as a character with romantic notions, her portrayal itself is neverromanticized or idealized.

The tragedy of Emma's life is beyond her capacity to control, as a woman in 19th-century France. She had little recourse for getting out of a loveless marriage and no way to support herself or find freedom on her own. In this light, society turns her into a tragic heroine.

But sadly, she is also an illusion for Rodolphe Boulanger and Léon Dupuis, since they never get to know the real Emma beyond the fantastical and the physical. 

Emma is described as an individual who is part of a larger society, and the influences of culture and class are present everywhere in the novel. Flaubert describes vividly small-town life, with its idle gossiping and petty activities, as a backdrop to the lives of the Bovarys. 

It is an accurate portrayal of the local milieu and its values. The novel charts the way middle class life, with its moral conservatism, rough manners, and unsophisticated taste, makes people imprisoned and suffocated within its confines.

Flaubert  also sustains this realism by using symbolism only rarely in his prose, and even when hedoes use metaphors, they are taken from everyday, ordinary life instead of being sweeping and abstract. For example, Charles’s mother, when she feels slighted and left out by Charles’s new marriage to Emma, is described to be “like a ruined man gazing through the windows at people dining in his old home.”

Such metaphors, grounded as they are in reality, and combined withthe specific details which give texture to the world of the novel, make the events in the novelrealistic and plausible.

Eventually Emma becomes bored and disillusioned with every relationship she has, once reality sets in. Charles, on the other hand, is simple, steadfast, and devoted. His head is not in the clouds, and he does not offer grand gestures, but his love for Emma is expressed in his unwavering devotion to and belief in her.

Madame Bovary a classic, a modern tragedy where a soul is doomed because she appreciates and battles against all that comes her way. Despite her limitations in life and as a product of her time, Emma has an unbridled passion and ends pursuing her fantasies. 

Novel ends condemning her. Nevertheless, Emma Bovary is brave in her irresponsible choices because it brings her closer to the happiness she wants, even if doing so she is able to attain only a glimpse of her dreams. Even if for that she had to die. And she died so that other women could strive for a more compassionate fate.