For the Lit-types - Did Emma Bovary drive anyone else crazy?

You could ask yourself why you reacted so strongly to her character. There is medicine in there I assure you:)

Think of the era that Flaubert depicted, the country-bumpkin, small-town sexually inexperienced and doltish Charles and the needs and urges that young Emma felt. Chas. was not able to scratch what itched; her lovers were.

One of the universal truths in Western society and literature was infidelity and the inequal treatment of female transgressors vs. their seducers. And “shop til you drop” is also a common theme.

Reread it and see whether you react differently. Can you read it in the beautiful french that Flaubert agonized over. (And remember, he was quoted as saying, “Mme Bovary, c’est moi.)

Emma Bovary made me sick. Women like her are the reason that I had mostly male friends all through college. By the time we got to the end of the novel, I was almost cheering for her death. And the film was, perhaps, even worse. She poisoned everything and everyone around her, and she didn’t even have the decency to die quietly and leave them all alone. She almost ruined the name Emma for me. Come to think of it, I still don’t have any friends named Emma.

And yes I know that she’s fictional. However, that doesn’t seem to matter right now.

I did read it again about 7 years later specifically to see if my reaction would be different, and I’m thinking of reading it again. Although I didn’t have as severe a reaction the second time around, I still couldn’t stand her.

I wasn’t exactly cheering for her death (mainly because it was going to devastate her family), but I wanted to reach out and throttle her just the same. I found it difficult to sympathize with her because she was her own worst enemy. She wasn’t able to appreciate anything. She really had it pretty good except for the fact that she seemed to think her life should read like a romance novel. I’ve read some arguments that it wasn’t her fault that she was like that because she was allowed to read so many romantic novels as a girl, but that seems a stretch to me. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever encountered who is that out of touch with reality because of literature. It also doesn’t really touch on why she had such a reckless disregard for the people around her. It’s bad enough if you’re going to destroy your own life, but to destroy those of the people around you as well? I think that’s what I have the most trouble forgiving her for. Nothing was good enough for her and she took it out on those who cared for her. I don’t recall ever seeing any true remorse in her. It’s less what she did and more her attitude about it all that irks me.

@zephyr826 – I actually wish my French was good enough to read it, but I’m far from fluent. It might be a good exercise though…. I may have to take a shot at it. :o)

I read it in French, for a class, and found it tedious. I’m not sure I would have bothered to finish it if it had not been an assigned book.

I actually just recently read Madame Bovary because I set myself a goal of reading fifteen classics that I’d never read before by my 25th birthday. If it hadn’t been for a goal, I wouldn’t have been able to finish it because I wanted to smack Emma. As @amanderveen said, it wasn’t so much what she did that bothered me, but her attitude about it. And in the end, I was very disappointed that more people didn’t die. I didn’t like any of the characters.