Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Emma doens't deserve love

Whree to start....after first reading of Emma and Charles love affair while Charles is still married, you think that they will be this cute little couple who will always live on a farm together and raise a happy little family. Granted it is usually a bad sign when you start a relationship with someone and it involves one or both of you to cheat. We slowly discover Emma's true personalitly as Flaubert writes on. I have much hatred and disgust toward Emma, not only does she hurt poor Charles but she is a disgrace toward women. Not all women tramp around sleeping with almost every guy, it's just not how it is. Emma doesnt' deserve the love that Charles gives her, instead of accepting and giving love back she goes and sleeps with Rodolphe and Leon. What a little slut, poor Charles. Emma tranformed throughout the novel from the crazy in love, down to earth girl to a women that is too similar to Charles' first wife. They both just want the ideal lifestlye with materialistic values and no love. As Emma looses her happiness through the novel she seeks to find it again. However, the way to find happiness is not through sleeping with other men while your married, it's just not a smart idea. Emma needs to mature and learn that love and sex are not the only ways to find happiness in life, granted love presents the ultimate high of love, which she once experienced. I feel that the only happiness Emma did encounter was through sexual relationships, perhaps this is why she continues to sleep around, she is in seach of love and happiness. She shouldn't be granted this happiness just beucase of the way she treats Charles. Overall Flaubert created a character that I would want to fight if I could go back in time to meet her. My hatred for Emma transfered into a hate for the novel, I would just get upset and angry with Emma every time I read about one of her new escapades. Flaubert tried to show the important value of love while adding a humorous twist to the novel.

1 comment:

David Lavender said...

I wonder if you're right in arguing that Flaubert tried to show the true value in love'--he doesn't seem like a fellow that would even grant love any special place in his world (a world where everyone and everything seems to descend to the lowest common denominator). Yours is the first post I've encountered to mention Emma "materialism" (her fetishizing of "things"). If the novel has any themes (and I'm not really sure it does) it may be how the bourgeoisie (the middle class) is so obsessed with material possessions (as a sign of status) and how their quest for them (Emma's borrowing) becomes their downfall. Does this strike a contemporary note, one to which we readers in the midst of a "credit crunch" can relate? I wonder.