Madame Bovary (Roy’s Analysis)

Genroy Hylton It is in human nature to indulge in acts that gratify our emotion. Psychologists and evolutionary theologist teach that the heart can convince the brain, but the inverse is not true for the brain. That means people will most likely do what makes them feel good and not what is the best for them. Throughout the novel Madame Bovary the author Gustave Flaubert uses literary devices such as symbolism to express the idea that pleasure inhibits the progress of human aspiration. The first instance of pleasure inhibiting progress is in chapter one.

Charles Bovary the main character is doing some intense studying for his medical practice exams. The author states, on page ten, that Monsieur Bovary “breaks all good resolutions” and starts to go to cafes to play dominoes. The Arthur states that Monsieur Bovary starts to [lose his mind] over the game. Monsieur Bovary quickly loses his sensible self value, evidenced by the fact that he starts “spending evening … in a dirty public room. The Arthur further goes to express his low self esteem for Monsieur Bovary at this point by metaphorically comparing the game of dominoes to a simple clicking of dotted sheep bones on a marble table.

The specific form of pleasure, Monsieur Bovary is getting from his irresponsible actions, is the same of freedom. Throughout Monsieur Bovary’s life he has been subjected to follow under the authority of his parents. His farther always tried to push him to be aggressive, assertive, and strong willed. This can be deduced from the belief the farther has, which is “with enough nerve a man could always get a head in the world. ” which can be found on page seven. The farther also attempts to “harden his child’s constitution”, with “strict-discipline”.

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This actually works to further put young Monsieur Bovary into a submissive role. When a child is forced to follow a strict set of rules and is not allowed to challenge the principle but instead obey them without an understanding of why he should obey them, the child will make it routine to submit himself to the authority of others and even repress his own desires. The mother further encourages young Monsieur’s to be submissive by forcing her personal interests on him, such as, singing and to listen to her on poor frustrated ambitions”.

Young Monsieur Bovary does not want to listen to his mothers past sorrows, which he can not help cure, but he is forced to suppress his desires to her higher authority. The result of this is that young Monsieur Bovary will not create his own aspirations and follow the lead of who ever is willing to lead him, and in this case its his mother. She decides the path that young Bovary should take in medical school, and he obeys without a murmur because of the depression that has manifested between him and that has manifested between him and his mother over time.

Being deprived of the opportunity to develop his own sense of self for such a long period makes it understandable that Monsieur Charles Bovary would get enraptured to the point of ecstasy by his newly found freedom. The experience was so intense for him, the experience of making his own choices, that the author states, Monsieur Bovary would feel a “pleasure that was almost sensual” just by touching the door knob to a cafe. It is at the cafe that Monsieur Bovary opens himself up to the desires of his heart. He indulges in the freedom that he could not experience in the past because of his parent’s authority.

With his freedom, he ventures to learn a few verses of songs to sing at social events with friends and how to make punch. The simplistic nature of what he can only be comprehended by noting that his true pleasure comes from the fact that he chooses to engage in those activities. No one told him to. It was a choice that he made and he could only blame himself for the consequence of the actions that he has committed. He gained confidence in his ability to make choices, good or bad. Just the fact that he has the power to control some element of his life gives him a new sense of life.

But sadly, energy is neither created nor destroyed; it is simply transferred from one party to the next. This statement relates Monsieur Bovary’s new sense of life in the sense that it does not come without sacrifice and that in order for him to be able to enjoy it in this life, death must occur in the other. Monsieur Bovary had a very important test that he had to take in order to be able to practice medicine. With the time he should have been using to prepare himself for the test, Monsieur Bovary spent that time enjoying himself at the cafe, doing what was described in the previous paragraph.

Instead of using his mind and preparing himself for his exam, he was enslaved by the desires of his heart and enjoyed the pleasures of freedom. When he came to take the test, he found that he completely failed it and could not practice medicine. Not until Monsieur Bovary realized the effect of the consequence of his indulgence in pleasure, is he able to begin thinking with his mind. Not until he has to face the authority of his life, his parents, does he humble his desires for freedom.

After he faces his mother with the news that he failed the medical exam, he begins to reason with himself and studied “ceaselessly”. He retook the test and past. The second example is Monsieur Bovary getting pleasure from Madame Bovary and it inhibits his ability to address the disrespect she shows toward him. Monsieur Bovary grew up with profound respect for his parents, especially his mother. He obeyed his mother when she told him to marry women much older then he was and who was very unattractive, but when he gets in a relationship with Emma Bovary, he starts to disregard his mother’s decisions.

When the mother came to visit the newly wed couple, young Madame Bovary and she would get into arguments, described in chapter seven page forty. Monsieur Bovary would just watch his wife blatantly disrespect his mother by not humbling herself. He does not even try intercede and correct his wife’s behavior, because, as the Arthur states, “his [pleasure from] his wife is boundless”. If it still unclear that pleasure is a blinding force, the author states that “ Emma seemed to his perfect, “ even thought his “ perfect” Emma dishonors him by not stinting herself when in the presence of his mother.

The pleasure that he gets from young Madame Bovary distorts his logical to the extent that he begins to disregard the words of his mother because they are contrary to the words of wife instead of the inverse. Entering part then of the book, Madame Bovary becomes attached to the presence of a young man Leon. It is clear that she wanted to have an affair with him. When he leaves Madame Bovary is struck with despair and increases in her hostilities. Madame Bovary is clueless to why she has progressed to such an ill state, and when he tries to console her and find out what’s wrong she shrugs and disrespectfully states “what of it? He is so enrapture by pleasure that he gets just from having Madame Bovary as his wife that he fears to do anything that might jeopardize their relationship he it slave to his desired, and, because had not conquered his desires, as all adults must, he regresses to child like behavior, evidenced in the text when it states that offer Madame Bovary brushes his sentient behavior away, he “shut himself in his consulting room …. Put his elbows on the table and wept. ” He weeps like a child who does not know what to do and like a child writes a note to his mother.

Monsieur Bovary still had problems heeding to any advice his mother would give to him because it all supported the idea that Madame Bovary lays a loaner; and monsieur Bovary could not agree to anything that would conflict with the image he has of his wife as “perfect”. This is farm pleasure is the pleasure of outside acceptance. The term outside acceptance someone ability to be accepted by someone who is not biologically related, and therefore, has to accept them. This form of pleasure is farther enhance by Madame Bovary‘s beauty. When a man falls to this kind of pleasure his development as a man is inhibited.

The third example of pleasure inhibiting progress is Madame Bovary constantly seeks pleasure fro men other the husband. This inhibits her ability to from a health relationship between her husband and her child. Madame Bovary has become foolish because of her pleasures. She married to a husband who is deeply in love with her and is considered to be one of the top physicians. She is willing to risk her relationship by going out with strange men when she knows nothing about and can do nothing for her, but see so willingly buy them expensive gifts.

Rudolph, one her mistresses, states that most of the gift she gives he does not accept simply because he had no heed. Madame Bovary would continue to push and give gifts to these strange men even though they risk driving her and her husbands businesses into dept. Gustave Flaubert is a French novelist. His works consists of psychological analysis, the individual and the society, and realism. Flaubert was born in December 12, 1821 at a hospital his farther was a physician at. Flaubert has an older brother and a younger sister. They lived in a house connected to the hospital.

As Flaubert begins his artistic career, he is heavily influenced by a French writer named Honore de Balzec. They both practice aesthetic to bring beauty to their stories. It was also the first book he got published and brought him the attention of the literary world. Flaubert's works include A Sentimental Education (1869), a novel dealing again with the theme of the frustrations of middle-class life and human aspirations and The Temptation of St. Anthony (1874), a series of religious tableaux. In 1877, he published Three Tales, which contains short stories, "A Simple Heart," "The Legend of St.

Julian the Hospitalier," and "Herodias. " Flaubert's play, The Candidate, failed after a few performances in 1874, and his last novel, Bouvard and Pechuhet, which was unfinished on his death, was published in 1881. Gustave’s sister died during childbirth when Flaubert was twenty-four. She left behind her daughter Caroline Hamard, who was raised by Gustave and his mother. His mother would live with him until his fiftieth year. As an adolescent of fifteen, Flaubert fell in love with an older married woman, Elisa Schlesinger, and remembered her ever after as a pure and innocent love.

The young man was sent to Paris, France, to study law. He had easy access to prostitutes, and this led to venereal disease from which he never recovered. In 1845 Flaubert had his first attack of temporal-lobe epilepsy. He was crippled by his seizures, which were terrifying for him and reappeared at intervals throughout his life. In 1846 he had to face the deaths of his father and his beloved sister. Flaubert decided to quit his legal studies, since any emotional excitement brought on an attack of his epilepsy. He felt he must become an observer of life and not a participant in it, so he devoted himself only to his writing.

Gustave Flaubert was crippled by syphilis and his rapidly declining health. Two weeks before his death, he told his niece Caroline, "Sometimes I think I'm liquefying like an old Camembert. " On 8 May, 1880, Flaubert died from brain hemorrhage. Works Cited "Flaubert, Epilepsy. Famous People Who Suffered from Epilepsy: Gustave Flaubert. " Flaubert, Epilepsy. Famous People Who Suffered from Epilepsy: Gustave Flaubert. N. p. , n. d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013. Flaubert, Gustave, and Claudine Gothot-Mersch. Madame Bovary. Paris: Garnier, 1971. Print. "World Biography. " Gustave Flaubert Biography. N. p. , n. d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

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