Emma's Masculinity in Madame Bovary Essay

She realises her role as the wife of Martin Guerre, “she understood her position in the household, [a] part of [the] structure.” However, once Martin defects from the manor, she is subservient to the condemnation she receives from Monsier Guerre anger that “[his] son should become a thief is [his] greatest shame.” Bertrande’s plight mirrors the issue of a woman’s place in society and challenging the ideology of a restricted homemaker role with a lack of control over life choices and education. Lewis considers the strength needed in order to defy the constraints society places one into and the potential a woman has to independence. Lewis teaches her readers the tenacity one must have in adversity, disregarding the restrictions placed upon a person’s gender.

The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.

Though at first glance, Emma appears to be a generic romantic novel about virtue and ladyhood, Austen actually challenges what the meaning of “ladyhood” is to the reader. We view Emma’s follies, trials, and triumphs through the eyes of the omnipotent narrator who first describes Emma as a stereotypical, wealthy young lady who is “handsome, clever…with…a happy disposition” (1). Through the use of irony, Austen employs a series of situations in which Emma, a “lady” of high standing within her community, challenges conventional thinking of what it means to be a young woman in the early nineteenth century, particularly her ideas concerning marriage and

According to Jacques Ranciere, Emma’s death was a verdict made by Gustave Flaubert because she was unable to distinguish the practical-mindedness and sentimentality of art, which was the lifestyle she had chosen to live. “Art means distinction to her, it means a certain lifestyle. Art has to permeate all the aspects of existence” (Ranciere 238-239). Emma had sought after the church and religion throughout this novel in seeking spiritual enlightenment. However, the self-integration of religious art and literature in Emma’s life had caused her to condone the benefits she could have received of religion and of the church. “With a mind that was practical in pursuit of its enthusiasms, that had loved the church for its flowers, music for the words of its sentimental songs, and literature for its power to stir the emotions, she rebelled against the mysteries of faith” (Flaubert 36). Emma was unable to discern that her sentimental view on religious arts substituted her spirituality; the inability to separately define the two elements resulted in her downfall and death.

“This contradiction between imagined autonomy and legal negation is the contradiction that romantic love denies and the marriage plot suspends. And even though it does not appear in this precise form in Emma, I want to argue that this paradox – and the contradiction it foreshadows – constitutes the ideological tension the novel is trying to manage and the terms in which plot complications are engendered and resolved. Let me explain a little more fully what I mean” (401).

In Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, it is difficult to know what to think of Monsieur Binet and his lathe. His constant devotion to such an unrewarding pursuit would seem to act as the bourgeois backdrop to Emma Bovary’s quest for eternal passion and excitement, a polar opposite with which Emma can stand in sharp contrast. However, it turns out that Binet and his lathe have more in common with Emma and her rampant desires than what would first appear obvious. Binet’s lathe still serves as a background with which to compare Emma’s quest for love and riches, but instead of acting as a complete antithesis to everything she does, the lathe is meant to be subtly different

The envisioned physical appearance of Berthe affects how readers interpret Charles and Emma’s characters. Flaubert includes Charles’ dreams to contrast with that of Emma’s. Clearly, Charles’ does not place importance on physical appearance. Instead, he simplistically imagines his daughter resembling his wife. Flaubert includes Charles’ dreams to contrast with that of Emma. Emma would never dream of her daughter wearing a straw hat; in fact, she never truly professes any interest in her daughter’s future. If she did, she would have imagined a luxurious life for her child. Charles, however, finds satisfaction in the simplicities of life. Flaubert manages to draw more consideration and pity for Charles and his modesty with the help of Berthe’s

This image and atmosphere of mundane imperfection is a far cry from what Emma expects after reading the romantic novels she smuggled in at the convent. From those foppish texts she gathers the impression that ladies such as she should be “lolling on carriages” or “dreaming on sofas,” or perhaps embracing some dashing “young man in a short cloak” (Flaubert 32). Yet such is not the reality in which she lives.

Emma Woodhouse, who begins the novel "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition" (Austen 1), suffers from a dangerous propensity to play matchmaker, diving into other’s lives, for what she believes is their own good. Despite this, she is a sympathetic character. Her matchmaking leads only to near-disasters and her expressions of remorse following these mistakes are sincere and resolute. Jane Austen's Emma concerns the social milieu of a sympathetic, but flawed young woman whose self-delusion regarding her flaws is gradually erased through a series of comic and ironic events.

"[Later] Rodolphe is shown to be a coarse provincial Don Juan, attracted only by Emma's physical charms" (Roe 40). When Emma learned she was just one in a long line of conquests, she was devastated, emotionally and physically. Her later affair with Leon filled a void in her life, but as she herself noted, it was not enough. "No matter! She was not happy-she never had been...nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it...the sweetest kisses left...only the unattainable desire for a greater delight" (Flaubert 200). As one critic noted, "...the shattering of her Romantic ideals...[caused her to carry] to the second amour fewer illusions...that Leon had grown tired [still] filled her with bitterness..." (Green 233). The affair with Leon involved many trips to Rouen, and it is interesting to note that "...the outings to Rouen lose their charm as her love for Leon turns to disgust" (Turnell 106). Her affair with Leon ended when it became stagnant, although she was in no less pain than before.

Flaubert illustrates both cramped and wide settings to symbolize Emma's freedom or lack thereof as a result of her gullibility. This imagery allows Flaubert to successfully demonstrate the oppressive forces in Emma's life through metaphor. Flaubert reveals Emma's inability to achieve satisfaction in

Her relationship with the wealthy, charming Rodolphe Boulanger is a diversion from tedious country life as well as an intentional subversion of the establishment of marriage and an attempt to undermine her husband’s authority. After her first conjugal transgression, Emma distinctly feels “the satisfaction of revenge” and “savoured [sic] it without remorse, without anxiety, without worry” (161). Though her husband Charles is guiltless of cruelty or vice he is representative of a patriarchy that is entirely neglectful of the emotional, psychological, and intellectual needs of women and assertive of its superiority and power. She is expected to fulfill the duties of a simple-minded, submissive, and sexless creature who is devoted to the comfort of her family and upkeep of the home. By pursuing a sexual relationship with Rodolphe, Emma invalidates the authority of the prohibitive government institution over her actions and demands autonomy in the face of a banal provincial life.

The food served was not as grand as the dishes that would be present at a high-class banquet; however, it was still sophisticated enough that the food was relatively unavailable for the lower class to be able to afford. This allows for the Bovary’s to have an air of aristocracy that masked their middle class reality. Moreover, although living comfortably, the actions of those in the middle class are still considered very basic; many of the bourgeoisie had lackluster table manners. Frustrated with Charles’ eating habits, Emma describes him “to be getting coarser in his ways;... after meals, he used to suck his teeth; eating his soup, he made a gurgling noise with every mouthful” (58). Such behaviour would be unheard of in the higher class, but to Emma, this was her unfavourable reality. Through this portrayal, she reveals her dissatisfaction with the behaviour of her own middle-class lifestyle. Furthermore, Emma’s constant sophisticated desires are incomprehensible by the rest of the middle class as the elder Madame Bovary “found her style too grand for her situation” (40). Emma views herself more as an aristocrat than a bourgeoisie, hence attempting to boast her seemingly more refined characteristics. Hoping to escape the mundane middle class, the bourgeoisie pine after the luxurious life of an aristocrat.

In eighteenth century which feminist in social status was not popular by that time, author can only through literature to express her thought and discontented about society. Jane Austen’s Emma advocates a concept about the equality of men and women. Also satirizes women would depend on marriage in exchange to make a living or money in that era. By the effect of society bourgeois, Emma has little self-arrogant. She is a middle class that everyone could admire, “Young, pretty, rich and clever”, she has whatever she needs. She disdains to have friends with lower levels. However, she is soon reach satisfaction with matchmaking for her friend. Story characterizes a distorted society images and the superiority of higher class status. It

This essay will analyse the relationship between Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley in the text Emma from a feminist perspective. The relationship in general contains two different personalities. Emma is one who believes that she can create the ‘perfect couple’, which gives her the belief of ‘knowing everything’. George Knightley is more of a moral compass for Emma, and he usually displays his approval and disapproval of her actions. Before the relationship is examined; it would be insightful to reflect on the social context that the text is set in like the system of patriarchy, and the expectation of women from certain wealthy families.