Madame Bovary #12

It's really nice how the story in Madame Bovary is so simple. There aren't any confusing mysteries or events that are left unexplained. The narrator even explains the thought of every single character. Instead of merely saying that Rodolphe smeared water on the letter that he wrote to Emma, the narrator says that he did that in order to appear as if he was crying while writing the letter. It is because of these detailed explanations that the characters in the story seem so realistic even though I've never met anyone with personalities exactly like theirs. Without these explanations, the characters wouldn't seem as realistic because of their over-exagerated personalities.

Madame Bovary #11

When Emma encourages Charles to operate on Hippolyte's foot and the operation fails, it seems as if this represents how Emma wants anything that's not beautiful to become beautiful, even if it is not capable of becoming beautiful. When Doctor Canivet arrives to help Hippolyte, whose leg was the swollen and had to be amputated by then, Canivet said that it was pointless to try and fix his foot and that it was like trying to fix a hunchback. That means that Emma was being foolish when she encouraged Charles to operate and shows that she's merely once again being obsessed with appearances.

Madame Bovary #10

It's amazing how Emma has gone through the same cycle ever since she lived in the country with her father to (and probably beyond) the time where she has her affair with Rodolphe. Emma keeps on cycling between being unsatisfied with her life, to loving Charles, acting out (later in the form of affairs), and then repeating the cycle. It seems logical that she would eventually become aware of the cycle that she's in or at least deviate from it a bit. I expect that will be what the end of the book will be about but for now, it doesn't seem like anything is going to change.

Madame Bovary #9

Wow! I really like how it seems like Rodolphe and Monsieur Lieuvain, the guy giving a speech at the great show, seem to be acting like the devil and angel respectively on Emma's shoulder. Rodolphe is saying that people should just give in to passion and what they want because it's their fate while at the same time, Monsieur Lieuvain is yelling "ENDURANCE! PERSEVERANCE!" Also Rodolphe represents the sophistication Emma wants while listening to the person giving the speech would mean than she's choosing to be a poor, middle-class woman.

Madame Bovary #8

While at first Rodolphe seemed like he'd be sophisticated, he's actually extremely deplorable! He reminds me a little bit of Polonius because of the way he talks for a long time and uses art in his speech to make himself sound intelligent and desirable to Emma.

I feel sort of sorry for Emma that she moved from Leon, who was sincere, whom Emma could relate to, and whom Emma could talk to about various things for hours, to this creepy weirdo whose first though regarding Emma was imagining her naked. But at the same time, it's Emma's fault for being stupid and liking him just because he's rich.

Madame Bovary #7

I don't understand why Emma wouldn't put more effort into her love with Leon if she knew that she loved him and that she's miserable being with Charles. Also, I don't get why she would push Leon away more and more by pretending that she was happy with Charles and her family the more she realized that she loved him. It's almost as if she's purposely sabotaging her happiness, but then she becomes sad when she realizes that she's succeeded. I wonder what Emma's next self-sabotage will be. Since the first two were love-related, I'm guessing she'll be having another affair.

Madame Bovary #6

For the first 4th of the book, there was hardly any character dialogue and the whole story was told by a third-person omniscient narrator. Once and Emma and Charles moved, there was more dialogue from Emma and most of the other people in town, but Charles still didn't have any dialogue. It seems like people who have dialogue are the people who are higher up in class, and Emma who want to be in the higher class.

I'm not sure what effect that this switch from all narration to narration with dialogue is having on how I see the characters. The narration could be seen as more precise because of how the narrator know everything about the characters or the dialogue can be seen as more telling of the characters' personalities because it's what they said themselves =/...

Madame Bovary #5

On Pg. 93, it says ".... Charles, reappearing, invited him out in his gig to go and see one of his loal patients..." The word "reappearing" made me realize how unimportant Charles has become since the beginning of the book. I thought that Charles would have a more significant role in this book, seeing as how the first 2 or 3 chapters were practically all about his parents, his lifestyle, how he was doing in school, and stuff he did as a doctor, but now, his name sometimes doesn't even appear in a span of two pages, and when it does, it only appears once and very briefly. I guess this shows how unimportant Charles is becoming in Emma's life and how unimportant his existence is to the two men who like Emma. One of them even sat between Emma and Charles when he came to eat with them!

Madame Bovary #4

It's strange that women, according to the summary on the back of the book, want to admit that they're like Emma and claim that the character Emma was modeled after them. Emma's seems to be really weak and pathetic because she's always relying on Charles to make her seem intelligent, well-known, etc. when she isn't even doing anything herself. If she's good at playing piano and embroidering, why can't she find a way to make it into the upper class herself? I understand why she can't if it's because she's a woman and all that, but after she gave up playing piano just because she knew that no one would hear her, it seems like she's pretty hopeless.

It's also a bit hilarious how pathetic Emma is. She only looks nice, but isn't really good at much. She couldn't even dance the waltz when the guy at the ball was trying to lead her and she ended up getting exhausted and collapsing on to her chair.

Why do women want to be like her?