Love in Madame Bovary - Essay Example

Love in Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert, the of great novel Madame Bovary, uses different characters to portraying the main theme of love. The characters that the author used include Charles Bovary Emma Bovary, Leon Dupuis, Rodoplphe Boulanger, Monsieurs Homais and Lhereux. The author chose the northern province of France as his setting with main events revolving around Rouen town found in Normandy. To start with, Charles Bovary who is one of the main characters is portrayed to originate from a humble beginning but fought against all odds to a second rate medical degree. He later became an officier de santé at his native town. Brief descriptions of this character reveal that he married a rich widow who was a choice of his mother; his wife’s name was Heloise Dubuc. The author used this character so that he can point out that love is not just about feelings but sacrifices (Manning 74). Furthermore, it can be argued that cathexis is the genesis of love. In supporting this claim, we learn that Charles fell in love with another woman by the name Emma; she was the daughter of Charles’s patient who broke his leg. Charles met her during one of his visits as he was attending to his patient broken leg where he instantly fell in love with her. At this time, Emma was a young beautiful woman who was living in fantasy because she thought that life was like the fictions romantic novel she was reading. Therefore, she was yearning to find a man who will take care of her just like the love stories she was reading. Therefore, when Charles came knocking she gladly agreed to have romantic relationship with him even though Charles was a married man. Charles actually loved her and was ready to sacrifice his marriage just to be with her, which is a proof that love is not just a feeling but sacrifices. When his wife discovered about their unlawful romantic relationship, disagreement ensued and Charles had to stop only to rekindle it immediately after Heloise’s death. Charles and Emma courted and later married after successfully seeking consent from Emma’s father (Flaubert 76). From the character of Charles, it is possible to argue that love is just about cathexis. This is because; the love between Charles and Emma started with a mere cathexis. Charles love for Emma began with attraction because of Emma’s beauty; however, he later developed real love for her. The marriage between Charles and Emma indicates that falling in love is just a temporary escape from loneliness. This is because, in most of the cases, romantic love fades away leaving the parties involved to be lonely again. We learn that Emma soon after their marriage became tired of the marriage life to a point that she became disillusioned with life; consequently, she was dull and listless (Flaubert 177-89). Because of this, Charles became worried and decided to salvage the situation by changing the environment. As a result, they relocated to market town, which was larger than their initial place of residence. The couples gave birth to a baby girl whom they named Berthe. Charles thought that with the coming of Berthe, Emma would have a renewed hope in life. This was quite unlikely because Emma actually become disappointed with motherhood as well as her marriage with Charles. Consequently, Emma initiated a relationship with Leon Dupuis and became infatuated with him. Leon was a law student, since she was a married woman, Emma could not confess publicly her love for Leon. However, they related in secret where Emma pretended to be a devoted wife and mother. Leon became tired of this arrangement and decided to relocate to Paris leaving Emma heart broken. From this, we learn that when love has faded it is very difficult to recapture it, regardless of the efforts Charles made; he could not recapture his wife love for him. He went as far as changing environment and giving her a daughter, all these could not make his wife to love him because she jumped into romantic relationship soon after meeting Leon without taking into consideration that she is a married woman (Flaubert 301). This is also a prove that with love, an individual can put everything that matters in line simply to be with those they love. The theme of love in this novel proves that the myth of romantic love is just dreadful lie because those involved in it tend to lie to their partners. In the first place, Charles lied to his first wife Heloise when he ventured into romantic relationship with Emma. Secondly, Emma pretended to be a devoted wife and mother yet she had unlawful romantic relationship with Leon behind her husband’s back (Flaubert 277). This is in the contrary with the expectations of the marriage life that dictates that the couples should live happily and love one another in pain and happiness. When Emma was just about to get over the departure of her lover Leon, the two reunited again when Emma together with her husband Charles attended an opera show in the nearby town, Rouen. Luckily enough, Leon attended and the two rekindled their old love flame. The events that followed were constant meeting between the two lovebirds in one of the rooms in the same hotel. At that time, Leon had finalized his law training and was practicing within the city. To facilitate her weekly meeting with Leon, Emma pretended to be taking piano lessons; therefore, Charles had no otherwise but let her travel to the city on a weekly basis. As the common saying goes, not all that glitters are gold; Emma soon realized that Leone never had any love for her because she was degraded to the level of mistress. Emma could not believe that this was happening to her and could not accept to go down without a fight. Therefore, Emma decided to live beyond her means by acquiring expensive and luxury items on credit from the craft merchant by the name Lheureux. She did this with the hope that she would recapture Leon’s lost love. Unfortunately, this never happened because at that point Leon had become tired of her to a point that she had nothing to do with her (Flaubert 435). The novel Madame Bovary intentionally portrayed all of the romantic relationship negatively just to prove that true love never exists. However if it exists, then the one who actually love truly always suffers because of it. This is evident because nearly all the characters who actually had true love ended up suffering because the love itself. A good example is Emma; she truly loved Leon to a point of sacrificing herself and her family. In the other hand, Leon never had any love for her; however, he was only exploiting her sexually. This was evident when he turned her mistress and declined to assist her at time of need when she desperately needed money to settle her debts. When she could not take any more of it, she committed suicide by drinking arsenic substance that made her to die a very painful and agonistic death (Flaubert 498). Charles also suffered the same fate; his love for Emma made him to suffer great deal. He underwent psychological trauma upon realizing that Emma was cheating on him. The hallmark of it all was when he discovered the love letters of Leon and Rodolphe after the death of his wife. He despaired and lost control of himself, he stopped working and started drinking uncontrollably, and he sold the few items he had and the remaining ones were auctioned to settle Lheureux debt. In the end died miserably leaving behind their daughter to languish in poverty. Thought relatives took her to live with her, Berthe ended up working at the local mills at a tender age. From this novel, the author has used the theme of love to prove that what goes comes around. Charles cheated on his first wife with Emma only to suffer the same fate afterwards. This is because later on we find that Emma after marrying him started cheating on Charles with Leon and Rodolphe. In the other hand, Emma after having romantic relationship outside marriage with both Leon and Rodolphe, they both dump her at the time when she needed them most. Coincidentally, both of them ended up suffering the same fate because all of them died miserably. In conclusion, love as portrayed in the novel Madame Bovary is the source of all miseries. All the characters that suffer in this novel can trace love as the reason contributing to their sufferings. Starting from Heloise to Charles and finally to Emma, all of them are victims of love. Secondly, romantics love never last, therefore, it is right to say that dopamine always fades that pave way for raising of the serotonin levels (Morrison 146). This is because the entire romantic loves featured in this novel had short life span, which ended up in sufferings for those involved in it. Finally, the author was successful in pointing out that romantic love does not exist because it is just an emotional feeling that cannot withstand the test of time. Work cited Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Ed. digital. ed. Buenos Aires: Ambrosía, 2002. Print. Manning, Michael. Cathexis. New York: Amerotica, 1997. Print. Morrison, Toni. Love. New York: Knopf :, 2003. Print. Read More