Zola, the representative writer of nineteenth-century naturalism, considered Flaubert to be the "father of naturalism"; the French "New Novel" school in the 20th century called him the "originator". Flaubert, who had a high literary achievement, never married in his life and lived a solitary life, but he had five emotional experiences, and his interaction with these women also gave him a deep understanding of the romantic feelings and emotional appeals of his women. His initial influence on romantic fantasies stemmed from a storytelling maid, Yuli. And "Madame Bovary" is Flaubert's interpretation of "romanticism" through Emma.
The novel depicts a petty-bourgeois woman, the romantic and enthusiastic Emma, who is dissatisfied with her husband and dissatisfied with a mediocre life, who first flirts with Levon in pursuit of an elegant and romantic life, then mixes with Rodolphe and Leon, and finally commits suicide by poisoning herself because she is in debt to provide for her lover. Emma's death stems from her deep-rooted "romanticism", and I will analyze Emma's childish "romanticism" from her exquisite egoism, fantasies of feelings, and aesthetic judgments.
"Madame Bovary" tells the story of a woman named Emma, who although she came from a peasant family, she was educated by the monks in the monastery since childhood, not only learned embroidery, but also played the piano, drew, and had a fanatical pursuit of romance novels. Charles Bovary fell in love with Emma at first sight, and he was seduced by Emma's beauty.
Her expression was also happy for a while, she opened her eyes, her eyes were pure and immaculate, and then she lowered her eyes, looking pitiful, and her mind was wandering.
From here, we can see two characteristics of Emma: the first feature is that she is beautiful and cute, beautiful and eager; the second feature is that she loves fantasies, thinks quickly, and goes quickly. This also fully shows a young and beautiful and a little fancy fantasy and longing. Emma's romantic qualities of fantasy and nihilism also set the stage for her future tragedies.
Emma's tragedy gradually became apparent after her marriage to Charles, and she discovered a reality that she could not accept: she had thought she loved Charles, but after marriage she did not feel the happiness of love. None of the "happiness, unsentimental, fanaticism" she wanted never appeared.
Thus it can also be seen that Emma is an extremely self-conscious person who values her personal feelings, and for her the world she can perceive is all. And this became even more intense after she attended the ball and developed a crush on the baron.
Sometimes she likes to express some incredible opinions, others praise, she prefers to blame, others hate, she prefers to show appreciation. She hated the women she had seen, who were thicker in waists and more manners than she was, but they were duchesses, and she longed for a life of red and greenery, for a masquerade ball, for informal joy and for joy that brought her madness that she had never experienced before.
And from this passage, it can be seen that the natural romantic Emma has three potential egoisms and unbridled willfulness:
(1) Singing the opposite tone. This can be seen from her love of expressing different opinions, but she opposes everything that others agree with, and she takes it for granted that others do not approve of it. On the surface, this psychology seems to be a kind of rebellion, but from a deep analysis, it is Emma's resistance and resistance to the imbalance between fantasy and reality. In other words, if Emma can't change from reality, then use her willpower to pretend that everything exists according to her imagination.
(2) Comparison heart. Ever since Emma attended the high-society ball, she had developed a serious psychological imbalance, and she was superior to the duchesses in terms of beauty and conversation and temperament. This caused her to feel a sense of resentment, she was so beautiful, romantic, pure but did not have a handsome, personable husband, nor did she have a romantic, flashy and glittering life, which made Emma feel bitter and desperate, which was also caused by Emma's vanity after often comparing herself with others.
(3) Hunting heart. Emma always had a fanatical pursuit of novelty, such as a fresh and exciting life, a lustful sneak, and a desire to live a life that had never experienced an alternative. It can also be seen from here that Emma's "danger factor", her romance and feelings, and selfishness make her dare to do anything that obeys her heart and wishes.
Emma's exquisite egoism was not only experienced in these three areas, but also in her angry fainting after learning that she had given birth to her daughter. According to normal understanding, a woman should be full of joy when she has a child, but Emma has always wanted to have a son because she wants to raise him to be the "perfect man" she imagines. So when she learned of having a daughter, her "perfect man" fantasies were shattered once again.
It is based on Emma's paranoia and selfishness about the "perfect" life in the illusion that has led to the tragedy of her life, she is passionate, romantic, amorous, love fantasy, only dominated by her own emotions and lust, and finally the debt is desperate, and she has to choose to commit suicide.
She was used to a quiet life, and now she longed for some ups and downs. She loves the rioting sea, and she likes the flowers and plants that dot the ruins of broken walls. She seeks excitement, not beauty, so she must be able to detect personal interest in things, otherwise she will abandon them all.
This is still in the girlhood Emma's expectations for a better life and the yearning for a different life, she hates mediocrity, hates the step-by-step life, she wants a more exciting, more emotional life. This also fully illustrates that Emma of Girls' Generation is a crazy romantic girl who dares to take risks, dares to think and dare to do.
Emma, who married Charles, was extremely disappointed, and the husband she expected was not as good as Charles. The image of her longing husband should be: wearing a large black velvet tuxedo, soft leather boots on her feet, wearing a hat on her head, and gloves on her hands. But the real husband Charles is: the conversation is dull and dull, he can't swim, can't fencing, can't shoot, he will only ask questions and don't know.
This is also the trigger for Emma to become bored with her husband shortly after marriage, which on the surface seems to be caused by the difference in personalities and hobbies between the two, but in fact, Emma's inner fantasy is destroyed by reality. Emma also tried to maintain the love between her and Charles, and we can see in this description:
Before the moonlit flower, she whispered the passionate verses she had memorized before, and sang lamentations in a chanting tone. But after singing, she thought that she lacked passion as always, and Charles remained indifferent to her, not loving her more. Charles's love for her was just a habit, such as kissing her regularly, no different from other habits, all expected.
Emma is not satisfied with Charles's performance, and Charles only cares for her in life, obeys her, and gives All the money she earns to Emma's full responsibility. Charles seems to be the perfect good man at home in the eyes of most women: not only can earn money, but also has a single feeling, knows how to hurt his wife, and is always proud and proud of his wife. It's just that Emma doesn't want a quiet life and a stable life in this world, and the love she wants to have to tremble with lightning and thunder, to be enough to make people lose their minds, to be crazy and confused in thrilling love.
This creates a contradiction between ideal and reality, and reality proves that Emma's crazy and naïve imaginary love does not exist. Therefore, this sadness of not being able to ask for it can only make Emma hate the Shire even more. She hated the way his two thick lips trembled, hated the silly look on Charles's face, and even the clothes he wore and his back made Emma look bad.
And these irritations brought Emma a certain perverted pleasure, and she looked at Charles's more pale face, more gentle weariness dismissive, while fantasizing about the ambiguity between Leon and her. She often fantasized about kissing her lover and lamenting the unfairness of fate.
From this, we can also see a cruel truth: Emma exerts her full body tenderness and sweetness for her fantasy lover, both passionate, romantic and active, while she ignores and mocks her husband who is always with her. There is not only Emma's fantasy of feelings, but also the desire for the flesh, or the misery in the illusory world of feelings that she has sketched.
If the ambiguity with her lover makes Emma increasingly lost in her feelings, then the "secret affair" with Rodolph directly makes her directly embark on the road of incense and jade damage.
She was still a little dizzy, and seemed to see the trees, the roads, the ravines, rodolphs, and felt his tight embrace, and the swaying of the leaves, the swaying of the rush. When she saw herself in the mirror, she was surprised. She had never found her eyes so big, so dark, so deep, as if she had taken some panacea that had made her more beautiful.
This was her first "secret affair", and she never stopped until finally Rodolph got tired of her, and she found a young man, Leon, to make up for the lack of feelings. These emotional experiences not only allow Emma to experience the joy of love and the enthusiasm for lovers, but also make the original desperate feelings in her heart begin to shine in her heart, and the so-called mediocrity seems to leave her.
Emma's feelings, both the woman's innocent feelings, but also the simple and passionate fascination with love, and the reasons that lead to the tragedy of her life are nothing more than: excessive fantasies about love, intoxication and madness about love, unrealistic enthusiasm for romance, and intolerable plain life.
To some extent, flaubert wrote Emma in Madame Bovary, but also explained his understanding of "romanticism" and realized romanticism.
In "Reading is a Refuge to Carry", Maugham once gave the evaluation of "Madame Bovary" in "Reading is a Refuge", giving this evaluation: it is a model of "objective art", the story structure and main characters of the work are derived from real events in life, and the description of the story scenery and the perception of the characters are also derived from the feelings of the parties. This is because Flaubert himself is the embodiment of romanticism, and Emma is only the representative of his romantic characters, but Emma's romanticism can only go to vulgarity and disillusionment after repeated requests, and finally can only return to reality. We can see the connection between Emma Romanticism and the return to reality from the following three aesthetic analysis:
(1) Emma's tragedy is a victim of vulgar romanticism. In the nineteenth century, bourgeoisism grew, and its potential for greed, narrow-mindedness, vulgarity, and conservatism was revealed, and European literature continued to make aesthetic judgments about bourgeoisie. For example, Flaubert's Emma, she is not only vulgar, ignorant, greedy, and vain, but also constantly pursues a life of high society. Her tragedy stems from the pursuit of romanticism, and the factors that tempt her are born of greed, selfishness, self-interest, and pleasure in the love of Bourgeois. These are in line with her romantic character, and even more in line with the decaying and degenerate social atmosphere of Nineteenth-century French capitalist society.
(2) The birth of Emma's character reflects the intersection of Flaubert's aesthetic judgment of romanticism and realism. Flaubert's Emma is romantic by nature, but confuses the noble with the vulgar. Flaubert, on the other hand, had this opinion about emma as a character: "Emma, it is me." From this sentence, we can also see that Flaubert is also gradually dissecting what is wrong with Emma's romance? At the same time, it is also a reflection and cleansing of self-romantic feelings. This can be seen from Emma's journey from fantasy love to reality's ambiguity and stealing, and it is also Emma's step-by-step intersection from inner fantasy to real life until final death.
(3) From the aesthetic judgment, it is related to Emma's passion for erosion romance novels. Emma's crazy and obsessive romance novel is full of fetishism and gold worship, and it constantly uses romantic tones to paralyze women's independent thoughts. Emma, on the other hand, lacks aesthetic skills and does not know how to distance herself from the people and things in the book. When Emma is incapable of keeping a distance from these illusory characters, she is easily brainwashed and controlled by the reading. This is also in line with the current state of education for French women in the nineteenth century.
From the satire and symbolism of the novel: Flaubert will be Emma's lifelong fantasy of love and romance, and finally return to reality in the form of death, all tragedies are nothing more than the fruit of his own sowing. In other words, if it cannot be kept in tune with the times, then dissatisfaction can only be expressed in a more extreme way. This also has something in common in Flaubert's other book, "The Temptation of St. Anthony", that is, the heroines are living in a romantic fantasy, tired of ordinary life, and cannot tolerate the ordinariness and inaction of their husbands, so once they have the opportunity to experience happiness, they will chase without remorse and guilt, but there is a sense of "revenge" happiness.
This is also the opposition and contradiction between romanticism and real life. Therefore, after Flaubert's Madame Bovary, vigilance against romantic naivety has become one of the important characteristics of modern literature, and "novels after Flaubert" have also become synonymous with modern novels.
Emma's life was a life of simplicity and enthusiasm, a life of ignorance and absurdity. From a peasant girl, to Charles's wife, to the baron's dance partner, to her lover and Rodolph's mistress, and finally desperate, poisoned and committed suicide, it can be said that her life is also a process of romantic dream disillusionment.
If Emma's marriage is the source of her life's misfortune, then her spiritual or spiritual infidelity is an extension of this misfortune. In other words, if her steadfast pursuit of "romanticism" has plunged herself into misfortune, then her depravity is a question and irony of her "romanticism".
Therefore, emma's tragedy lies not in her mediocre husband, nor in the lover's desperation, but in everyone's escape from reality and the excessive pursuit of romanticism.
Flaubert once said, "Emma must die in that time." "Because Emma's identity and thoughts are incompatible with the real environment. The tragedy that triggered Emma came not only from the social reality of the time, but also from the failed education of the monastery, and even more from the social atmosphere of masculinism and materialistic pleasures at that time. Emma's death is also a metaphor for the end of false "romanticism".
At the same time, "Madame Bovary" also tells us a truth: if a woman's happiness is only pinned on love and obtained from dependence on men, then this romantic fantasy will not only bring a more confused life, but also lose itself in fantasy. Throughout her life, women have to rely on self-worth to achieve the true "romantic" ideal.