#每天一起读书 #
Read today: Flaubert's Madame Bovary
The theme of this article: from the conflict between romanticism and realism, a brief discussion of Emma's marital tragedy
Illustration: Stills from the movie Madame Bovary
01.
Flaubert's Madame Bovary is the main story of a married woman who is lost in marriage.
Although the heroine Emma is a peasant daughter, she is highly educated, and the romance in her bones is incompatible with the ordinary life of real life. So after marrying the village doctor Mr. Bovary, she had two extramarital relationships, all of which ended in vain.
Her lovers had never been half sincere about her, and she had been living in self-righteous fantasies. Being the wife of a countryman, but trying to live the life of a noblewoman, this is Emma's greatest sorrow.
She paralyzed herself, pretended to live in the upper class, and as a result, in the process of getting along with her lover, she was saddled with a high amount of debt, and finally she was unable to repay it, and was forced to commit suicide by taking poison.
Emma's main problem is that she never really realized the meaning of marriage, and she has been living in self-righteous fantasies. But romanticism and real life are essentially in conflict.
From this point of view, the tragedy of her life is almost inevitable.
Emma's final suicide by poison brings us a revelation far beyond the conflict between love and marriage. When unrealistic romanticism meets the real life of chai rice oil and salt, if it is not well balanced, it is bound to make people doubt the meaning of life.
Once people are too idealistic, they will go to an extreme, and finally lose themselves, with almost no suspense.
Why is it that Emma will betray the marriage and have signs before marriage?
Because the romance and illusion in her bones are doomed to not be able to merge with the blandness of marriage, she cannot stand the blandness of day after day, she lives in her own world, others can't get in, and she can't get out.
02.
When a peasant girl puts on the clothes of a princess, she mistakenly thinks that she is really a princess, leaves her real self behind, and paralyzes herself to live like a princess, which is the key to Emma's tragic life.
Before the outbreak of the French Revolution, only the daughters of nobles could go to monasteries to study, but some ordinary families believed that as long as they found a way to send their daughters, their daughters would become noble ladies.
In the monastery, the daughters would learn their speech, manners, manners, etc., so that they would be reborn and become true aristocrats.
Balzac once mentioned in "Marriage Physiology" that the daughters of ordinary people enter the monastery are harmful: "Many girls have nothing to do in the monastery, claustrophobic fences stimulate imagination, some girls, addicted to fantasy, some exaggerate the happiness of marriage, no longer have a clear understanding of themselves." ”
Emma is a prime example.
Ordinary girls entered the monastery, and they could not be reborn and became aristocrats in a short period of time.
Because the ideological level is not up to standard, it is easy to expect too much expectation of marriage, just like Emma's mind, full of unrealistic romanticism. So much so that after she married the country doctor, Mr. Bovary, she never felt any happiness.
When they got married, Emma wanted to light a torch and get married in the middle of the night. Neither her father nor her husband understood why she thought the same thing, but she did.
Although Emma was a peasant girl, she was educated in the nobility, and on the surface she was no different from every peasant girl, but in reality, no one was like her.
And this point just laid a hidden danger for the future, the husband does not understand her, she will inevitably go outside the marriage to find someone who really understands her.
03.
Emma's husband, Mr. Bovary, was a pragmatic man who was traditional, well respected, and well-suited to living a down-to-earth life. But he was just too honest to make Emma feel that her married life was boring, so that she cheated later.
Emma loved to read, liked to draw, liked music, liked everything about high society, but her husband Bovary was just a rural man who had never seen anything in the world.
He is down-to-earth and conscientious, and can give Emma a stable life, but this kind of stability is not what Emma wants.
Flaubert wrote in the book: "She loves the sea only the terrifying waves of the sea, loves the grass only loves the grass born between the ruins, and anything that cannot directly help her to vent her feelings will be regarded as useless and abandoned." Because of her multi-sensory nature, far above her artistic hobbies, she is looking for emotions, not landscapes. ”
But her husband Bovary did not understand this at all. They live together, but it is as if they are in two worlds, and the closer they live, the more distant they are spiritually.
Emma never lived in the real world, but in her own fantasy world, so later she had two lovers, until she was lost step by step and embarked on a road of no return.
Although Emma married Bovary and became Madame Bovary, she was never satisfied with living in the countryside and being a countryman's wife. She and her husband did not have any common language, and often felt like a bird locked in an old dragon, lying by the window, fantasizing about the outside world, hoping that one day she could leave.
She wanted her husband to take her to see the outside world, but he said, "I'm just a village doctor, not everyone can be rich." ”
Monsieur Bovary seeks stability, he just wants to live a down-to-earth life, while Emma pursues romance, she wants to be a noble lady of the upper class, she wants to leave the little village that is not known.
Two people have diametrically opposed three views, which is the biggest hidden danger in marriage, because there is no common language, and the pursuit is completely different, so they do not feel a sense of happiness.
Either argue all day, or have one side and betray the other.
Unfortunately, Emma chose the latter, and she had two lovers. But these two lovers abandoned her one after another, and her hopes were once again dashed.
Emma is a person who puts love first, and her pursuit is the legendary love in the novel, but this kind of love, if it will not be in marriage, it will not be outside marriage.
When she was with her first lover, she asked her to elope more than once, but the other party never really touched her heart, but it was just playing, so she was directly abandoned.
The second lover was even more so, because Emma frequently went to him, affecting his reputation and work, and he told Emma directly: "You are married, you should be realistic." ”
Emma is in a desperate situation, and in the end, she has no choice but to choose to end her life.
The yearning for love is a complex that everyone will have, but blind yearning will make a person go to extremes. Especially after marriage, the more fantasies you have, the easier it is to get lost.
One is because there is no true love outside of marriage. The second reason is that once some things are done, there is no way to go back.
Emma and her husband, Mr. Bovary, have never really been in the same heart, and it can be said that the two people live in completely different worlds.
Emma was typical of Romanticism, while her husband Bovary was a realist. The conflict between two people is the conflict between ideals and reality, so no matter what you do or say, it seems out of place.
Many people envied Emma and felt that she married an honest person and had a stable life.
But this kind of stability was never what Emma really wanted. No one understood her, no one, so when she finally went to church to find the godfather, even the godfather said, "You are now full and clothed, what is not satisfied?" ”
Yeah, what's not to like about her?
Her greatest dissatisfaction lies precisely in the fact that the romanticism in her bones has left her completely detached from reality, so that she is completely lost.
04.
Reality is like a mountain, but Emma is romantic. When idealism and realism clash, it is precisely when the contradiction intensifies.
She could not bear to live such an extraordinary life with her husband, Mr. Bovary, and could not find true comfort in her lover outside of marriage.
In addition, she has been constantly crediting, pretending to live in high society, so that she owes a lot of debt, and finally desperate, chooses to commit suicide.
Her vanity comes from an escape from reality, her blind yearning for love, and from unrealistic fantasies. Emma's tragedy is the tragedy of romanticism and reality.
What kind of woman is destined to betray marriage? Reality is like a mountain, and their romance is like a cloud.
Before marriage, Emma and Mr. Bovary were not from the same world, and from this point of view, Emma's later betrayal of the marriage had long been a sign, but Mr. Bovary never understood her, never understood.
People who are not of the world, it is better not to get married.
Otherwise, either you will be able to do it in your lifetime, or you will drift away and go to divorce.
end
Today's Topic:
What do you think is the main picture of a woman's extramarital affair?
Leave a comment to talk about your point of view.