THE FAILURE AND DISILLUSION OF EMMA BOVARY IN HER FRANTIC SEARCH FOR IDEALISTIC LOVE IN GUSTAVE FLAUBERT’S NOVEL “MADAME BOVARY”

A literary work had been created a long time ago before someone found the essence, values and meaning of literature. Moreover, literature works also offer knowledge and profound understanding about human being, world and life. Literary work is suitable to describe the typical aspects or events in reality, including politics, economics, cultures or psychology. Some literary works reveal social problem and offer the reader moral message. Today every fact in our lives is invaded by many immoral flares. Most of us do not realize that when the morals of society are upset, the family is the one who suffers. Dishonesty, unloyalty and adultery become the cause of discordant marriage. Unfortunately, this phenomenon had been increasing from time to time. That kind of phenomenon can be seen in Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), a French writer was considered by many to be the father of realistic fiction. He was born as the son of prosperous doctor on December 12th 1821 in Rouen, Normandy. Flaubert attended the prestigious College Royal in Rouen, where he received a solid education in literary work. As 2 a young man he was a passionate reader of the work of Johann Wolfgang, Von Goethe of Germany, Lord Byron of England and Francois Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo of France. All of these writers were associated with romanticism, a movement that championed individualism, emotion and imagination. In 1840 he began law studies in Paris but gave it up to write. Flaubert devoted the remainder of his life to literature. The first of Flaubert’s masterpiece was L’education Sentimentale published in 1869. But the most widely read novel was Madame Bovary, published in 1857 and it became the subject of famous legal case. Although both of the author and publisher were prosecuted on the grounds that the novel was immoral, Madame Bovary was generally recognized as one of the French literature masterpieces. Flaubert’s other important novels are Salambo (1863) and The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874) besides three short stories published as Three Tales and also the unfinished novel, Bouvard et Pecuchet (1881). Madame Bovary is related to the romantically motivated adulteries of a married woman who was overblown by love affairs and ended in her suicide. Emma Bovary, the main character of this novel was deluded by literature. She found that her marriage with Charles Bovary, who was a country doctor less romantic and satisfying than she expected. Charles was not a prince, but a bumbling (dull), aging man. Disgusted, Emma developed a relationship with Leon Dupuis, a young lawyer. She refused to sleep with him but regretted it after he left 3 the town. And then she met Rodolphe Boulanger, a wealthy landowner who seduced Emma to pass the time together. They had a brief passionate affair. When Rodolphe abandoned her, Emma returned to Leon. She was not so shy like she was used to be, this time giving in to their mutual passion. Her affair has an air desperation. She spent her limited funds on trips to visit her lover and love gifts. Emma had become a spendthrift. She went into debt to a draper and notary named Lheureux with a high rate of interest. Without knowledge of her husband, she sold Charles’s property. When their financial situation revealed, she was afraid that her husband would discover her affair. She felt confused and desperate. She ran to the chemists’ shop and asked for some arsenic, she poured the powder and ate it. Soon she laid down and died miserably. Thus, Madame Bovary both depicts and criticizes the inability of the romantic temperament to live in the real world. What makes the novel interesting is that this Gustave Flaubert’s novel tries to present the romantic psychology of Emma and undercuts it with irony at the same time