An interesting article. Thank you.
I read Madame Bovary years ago but it wasn’t until I read a very different novel, Stoner by John Edward Williams, that I felt I understood Bovary.
The eponymous Stoner is a poor country boy with a love of Classics who eventually becomes an academic at a mid-western university at the beginning of the twentieth century. His life is unremarkable, drab and ultimately futile. He’s embroiled in academic fights he can’t win, his marriage is a failure, and his honor prevents him seizing what appears to be his one chance at happiness. The author used a bland style, almost reportage, that perfectly complemented the reality of Stoner’s life.
So what’s the theme of Stoner? It appears to be the value of work, of finding a purpose that resonates with your values and abilities. The only constant in Stoner is his dedication to his scholarship and teaching even though his personal life is falling apart. He came from a generation when access to college was limited and so an education was viewed as valuable (quite different from today). He was never a great scholar but he was committed.
Emma Bovary never has a purpose. She’s bored but doesn’t seem to look for a cure to her boredom except through dreaming of the glamorous city life. Eventually she has an affair with a sophisticated lover and that too proves disappointing. She never finds (or perhaps never looks) for that center within herself from which fulfillment might be achieved, instead hoping to find fulfillment in someone else.
I say find fulfillment within yourself and your labors, enjoy the work and effort, just don’t expect the world to take much notice.
Maaud Miller, Greenleaf Whittier: The young man, to later become the wealthy Judge with a stern and dull wife, met a lovely young farm girl wile walking, and they sat and talked and both were smitten, and he tore himself away rode on, never to see her again – and so all their lives both thought back to that moment, – one of the most famous lines from a poem – and one I feel over so many of my past moments…..
“Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, “Ah, that I were free again!
“Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”
She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, “It might have been.”
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!
Thank you, TO, excellent article. It’s a long time since I read Madame Bovary. You have inspired me to pick it up again. Realism as a literary style is often looked down upon. But the best works of realism cloak, as you describe, the desires and passions that transcend the ‘real’ world and take into an altogether different world.
rick stubbs
2 years ago
Very timely because I have just reread Flaubert and his bio. The personal reflection on his writing and life offered here rings true and is beautifully rendered. Please write something similar on ‘A Sentimental Education’ his last novel. I think Huysmans remarked that after this novel was published realism was over because Flaubert had taken it as far as it could ever go. This did not stop Zola from banging on but maybe it should have..
the opera where Madam Bovary sets down her track to destruction – a Scottish Opera of sort of a Jacobean Romeo and Juliet, only where she hates him and stabs him after the wedding….
Art has definitely declined pretty totally now days…..
Alan Jackson
2 years ago
Reading this essay reminds me of the justice of D.H. Lawrence’s criticism of Flaubert. He adduces him in speaking of the “the will of the writer to be greater than and undisputed lord over the stuff he writes” and Flaubert “stood away from life as from a leprosy”
Vanessa Dylyn
2 years ago
Lovely piece by the author. I studied Madame Bovary in university and remain very attached to the novel. Please note the spelling for Louis Bouilhet, who was not only Flaubert’s best friend but his photograph resembles Flaubert so much that he has been mistaken for his immortal friend.
Su Mac
2 years ago
Hmmm..making me think, I like it! I still always recall mostly the description of the country wedding feast with jugs of yellow custard on the table, but that is because I am a greedy soul.
An interesting article. Thank you.
I read Madame Bovary years ago but it wasn’t until I read a very different novel, Stoner by John Edward Williams, that I felt I understood Bovary.
The eponymous Stoner is a poor country boy with a love of Classics who eventually becomes an academic at a mid-western university at the beginning of the twentieth century. His life is unremarkable, drab and ultimately futile. He’s embroiled in academic fights he can’t win, his marriage is a failure, and his honor prevents him seizing what appears to be his one chance at happiness. The author used a bland style, almost reportage, that perfectly complemented the reality of Stoner’s life.
So what’s the theme of Stoner? It appears to be the value of work, of finding a purpose that resonates with your values and abilities. The only constant in Stoner is his dedication to his scholarship and teaching even though his personal life is falling apart. He came from a generation when access to college was limited and so an education was viewed as valuable (quite different from today). He was never a great scholar but he was committed.
Emma Bovary never has a purpose. She’s bored but doesn’t seem to look for a cure to her boredom except through dreaming of the glamorous city life. Eventually she has an affair with a sophisticated lover and that too proves disappointing. She never finds (or perhaps never looks) for that center within herself from which fulfillment might be achieved, instead hoping to find fulfillment in someone else.
I say find fulfillment within yourself and your labors, enjoy the work and effort, just don’t expect the world to take much notice.
Maaud Miller, Greenleaf Whittier: The young man, to later become the wealthy Judge with a stern and dull wife, met a lovely young farm girl wile walking, and they sat and talked and both were smitten, and he tore himself away rode on, never to see her again – and so all their lives both thought back to that moment, – one of the most famous lines from a poem – and one I feel over so many of my past moments…..
“Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
“Ah, that I were free again!
“Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, “It might have been.”
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
Wonderful insightful comment
Thank you, TO, excellent article. It’s a long time since I read Madame Bovary. You have inspired me to pick it up again. Realism as a literary style is often looked down upon. But the best works of realism cloak, as you describe, the desires and passions that transcend the ‘real’ world and take into an altogether different world.
Very timely because I have just reread Flaubert and his bio. The personal reflection on his writing and life offered here rings true and is beautifully rendered. Please write something similar on ‘A Sentimental Education’ his last novel. I think Huysmans remarked that after this novel was published realism was over because Flaubert had taken it as far as it could ever go. This did not stop Zola from banging on but maybe it should have..
Zola ‘banging on’
And the old BBC Madam Bovary 4 part series is on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFak__cHoE
Which is a mine full of good stuff….
And The Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92jiitUEahg
the opera where Madam Bovary sets down her track to destruction – a Scottish Opera of sort of a Jacobean Romeo and Juliet, only where she hates him and stabs him after the wedding….
Art has definitely declined pretty totally now days…..
Reading this essay reminds me of the justice of D.H. Lawrence’s criticism of Flaubert. He adduces him in speaking of the “the will of the writer to be greater than and undisputed lord over the stuff he writes” and Flaubert “stood away from life as from a leprosy”
Lovely piece by the author. I studied Madame Bovary in university and remain very attached to the novel. Please note the spelling for Louis Bouilhet, who was not only Flaubert’s best friend but his photograph resembles Flaubert so much that he has been mistaken for his immortal friend.
Hmmm..making me think, I like it! I still always recall mostly the description of the country wedding feast with jugs of yellow custard on the table, but that is because I am a greedy soul.