Madame Bovary Response

To me, Emma Bovary came off as more of an ignoramus than a hopeless romantic. One cannot relieve a person from suffering the consequences of adultery simply because she had a naïve view of the world. In my opinion, Madame Bovary is presented as a cliché example of a woman who uses her good looks to get her way; exactly the type of woman that would fall into depression simply because the world ended up being different than the way she perceived it to be. I don’t fully understand how people can sympathize with a grown woman who has the maturity and personality of a little child.

I do believe that Flaubert’s novel could have been more significant given a slightly more relatable and likeable character. Many readers, myself included, wind up disliking Emma Bovary to the point that we immediately blame her for any incident that occurs, and end up never seeing it through her point of view.

To be frank, Emma flusters me and--for lack of a better word--pisses me off. I mean, I'm enjoying the book and I understand where Emma is coming from. I'm generally the type of reader who puts herself into the character's shoes while having my own opinion. I can see how she becomes so easily bored with her life after the extravagant party she attends. To me, she is the typical, oblivious, and inconsiderate female role. She cares about no one but herself and her own happiness. She reminds me of Madame Loisel from The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant and Nora Helmer from A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. All of these, including Madame Bovary, were written during the 1800's. All of these women were styled to fit the average woman who desires and dreams of the best life.

Literature aside, Emma choices were exactly that; her own choices. She could have had a merely happy life with her hard working husband and her young daughter, but she decided to undermine the value of family and satisfied her needs instead. Her attitude towards life, is negative and spoiled. It seems as if nothing will ever be enough for Emma. She gets bored way too quickly. Her bad decisions cause her to kill herself. I often wonder of her daughter, Berthe. What does her life end up life? I mean, she practically gorws up in a cotton mill. Does she ever learn of her mother's poor decisions? Is she the same woman subconsciously?

Over all, I enjoyed reading this novel more than anything else. This brought out my idea of sociology. Relationships and human to human interaction and such. I enjoyed the scandalous adventure.

There's Something About Bovary

Whilst reading Madame Bovary, I found myself enthralled with the concept of the powerlessness of women throughout the text. Simply looking at Emma’s strong desire to have a male child rather than a girl, it is strange to me to think that she truly wishes and hopes that she gives birth to a boy. We can clearly see her life being affected again and again by the men that surround her, may it be for better or worse.

I am just very interested in what Flaubert is trying to accomplish by showcasing her lack of power but then ultimately requiring her to claim responsibility for her actions. She chooses to be unfaithful to her husband; it is not forced upon her. She ultimately makes the immoral decision, which also leads to her suicide. She has to use sexuality in order to end her life and gain access to the poison.

I’m not sure how I ultimately felt about the novel, mostly because of this concept of the powerlessness of women. Looking at other classic novels, I find Emma to be one of the weakest female characters and ultimately one of the most flawed. Of course, I can enjoy it, but I also can’t see why Flaubert would claim to be Madame Bovary. Why would you want to be her? She’s ultimately incredibly trapped.

Madame Bovary and Bourgeois Society

I found Madame Bovary to be incredibly relevant to our examination of authors and their dissatisfaction with bourgeois society. Emma Bovary becomes wrapped up in the idea of material wealth and the aristocratic way of life that Marx criticized. Marx stated that “in bourgeois society…the living person is dependent and has no individuality” (The Marx-Engels Reader 485). After Madame Bovary gets a taste of the opulence of aristocratic life, she becomes obsessed with the idea of living well. In this sense, Emma Bovary becomes a slave to the money she owes due to extravagant spending. In the end, Madame Bovary must meet her fate and dies— transforming into a symbol for the possible effects of the opulence of bourgeois society. Flaubert famously states “Madame Bovary, c’est moi”, proving that every man, even himself, is an object, rather than a subject, in bourgeois society. Man is dominated by money in this society, rather than the other way around. After Emma’s death, Rodolphe apologizes to Charles for having an affair with Charles’ wife. Charles merely states that “fate willed it this way” (Bovary 275). This statement provides as a comment on the inevitability of negative consequences within a bourgeois society. Flaubert shows that Emma Bovary, and everyone in general, cannot escape the bourgeois society that has been put in place. Madame Bovary, c’est moi, too.

Madame Bovary, c'-most-definately-est-not moi

I must say that I, too, did not find Madame Bovary to be a relatable character. While the novel itself I admire for its ability to balance the banality of bourgeois culture with an elegant and consistently appealing writing style, I found Emma Bovary to be nothing more than a spoiled brat lost in a world she's not ready to fully understand. 'Bourgeois culture', or at least the kind Emma desires/lives, seems more of a last-ditch illusion created to escape the boredom and small-minded life that Emma treats with such hostility. But throughout the whole novel, Emma's desire for escape is so self-centered, and so ignorant, that I cannot even begin to understand her worldview. "#whitegirlproblems with a dash of first-world-problems.com" much? (Sorry, I had to).

What surprised me (or, to better describe it, amused me) most about the novel was how relevant it is to today's outlook on economy and means of living. How much can we distance ourselves from the life Emma Bovary leads when we use credit cards to pay off credit cards, take multiple mortgages out on houses, and become so entangled in debt that it becomes a national crisis? If anything, we're right where Emma is...or was...but with a slightly better moral compass. Or at least we seem to think we have a better moral compass. Flaubert's critical vision of bourgeois culture seems spot on. The only difference is that now everyone's (hyperbole) living it, just at different levels.

Regardless, as much as I despise Emma Bovary, I do think that Flaubert's work would have no purpose if she was a strictly-likable character, with no room for argument. I'm interested to see how the class discussion pans out with regards to the opinion of Madame Bovary.

I, for one, did not care much for Madame Bovary. Although there certainly were some nougats of sociological implication to be had at the agricultural fair and dispersed throughout the novel, the vast majority of the work failed to appeal to me both academically and emotionally. Our protagonist, Emma, is a difficult character to address. While I can see the appeal of her independent spirit and pseudo-feminist ideas, Emma represents a vile woman to me. She is a woman whose deceit and endless debt collecting causes her to get sick, go relatively mad, and eventually kill herself. Good riddance.

That being said, I would have definitely preferred Oliver Twist for our novel. Dickens is much more capable with the pen than Flaubert, and undoubtedly included much more material regarding industrialization and castes within Oliver Twist than Madame Bovary can ever hope to provide given its earlier publication. Additionally, the castes within Oliver Twist are much more akin to today's industrial class struggle than the noble/rural dichotomy found in Bovary. Essentially, Madame Bovary is an additional degree of separation removed from today when compared to Oliver Twist. It's considerably harder to relate to Bovary's characters, and overall I was not completely satisfied with the choice in novel.

Note: I understand this was due last night, but life has been very hectic with my job and doing all the reading for my classes and working on my papers.

The Frick Collection

http://www.frick.org/

I mentioned this mansion of the old robber baron- called, among other things, “the most hated man in America,” and one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time."

Here is the wikipedia description of his role in the 1892 Homestead Strike:

Frick and Carnegie's partnership was strained over actions taken in response to the Homestead Steel Strike, an 1892 labor strike at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company, called by the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers Union.[5] At Homestead, striking workers, some of whom were armed, had locked the company staff out of the factory and surrounded it with pickets. Frick was known for his anti-union policy and as negotiations were still taking place, he ordered the construction of a solid board fence topped with barbed wire around mill property. The workers dubbed the newly fortified mill "Fort Frick." With the mill ringed by striking workers, Pinkerton agents planned to access the plant grounds from the river. Three hundred Pinkerton detectives[5] assembled on the Davis Island Dam on the Ohio River about five miles (8 km) below Pittsburgh at 10:30 p.m. on the night of July 5, 1892. They were given Winchester rifles, placed on two specially-equipped barges and towed upriver with the object of removing the workers by force. Upon landing, the resulting confrontation resulted in a large mêlée between workers and Pinkerton detectives. Several men were killed, nine workers among them,[5] and the riot was ultimately quelled only by the intervention of 8,000 armed state militia. Among working-class Americans, Frick's actions against the strikers were condemned as excessive, and he soon became a target of even more union organizers. Because of this strike, some people think he is depicted as the "rich man" in Maxo Vanka's murals in St. Nicholas Croatian Church, but the The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka (which works to preserve the artwork) says it depicts Andrew Mellon.[7]

He was also almost assassinated by Alexander Berkman, the anarchist, in retaliation for the dead in the strike, but survived- earning Berkman 14 years in prison.

The house/museum itself is one of the nicer attractions of New York, I think.