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Introduction: the Heroine’s Dilemma The essence of the happenings of ordinary contemporary life seemed to
Flaubert to consist not in tempestuous actions and passions, not in demonic
men and forces, but in the prolonged chronic state whose surface movement
is mere empty bustle, while underneath it there is another movement, almost
imperceptible but universal and unceasing, so that the political, economic,
and social subsoil appears comparatively stable and at the same time
intolerably charged with tension.1
The high incidence of suicide among women who people
nineteenth-century fiction and drama, as illustrated in Flaubert’s Madame
Bovary and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, among others, often is viewed as the
heroine’s quick and relatively easy way of escaping from her problems
and from the complexities of life. The shock of suicide, especially as it
is presented in Madame Bovary, brings to the fore the seriousness writers
like Flaubert and Ibsen attached to the power society wields in molding
a woman’s life and character into the model it deems appropriate. Their
fictions show how dire the consequences may become should a woman’s
needs lie dormant or fail to be fully realized. Among the needs that
go unfulfilled in the women of these literary works are their sexual
ones, which is why so many of these novels and plays center on sexual
awakening and on the dissatisfactions of marriages of a conventional
kind. The amount of research done and material written on this topic
speaks to its significance when considering the issue of sexuality both
for the characters in the aforementioned novels and for women in
general. In This Sex Which is Not One, for instance, Luce Irigaray says
that “Woman derives pleasure from what is so near that she cannot
have it nor have herself. She herself enters into a ceaseless exchange
of herself with the other without any possibility of identifying either”
(31). Indeed, as we can see in these literary works, the oft overlooked
(or merely misunderstood) subject of female sexuality, if even granted
its own status, remains a threat to male control in such androcentric
societies.
Particularly prominent in the discussion of the place of and
entitlements for female sexuality is Flaubert’s protagonist. Emma,
because of her resistance to women’s pre-mandated roles and because
she eventually succumbs to suicide, stands as a fitting example of
a culpable character for those readers alarmed by the willful or
independent woman. In this analysis, sexual and personal latitude,
Emma’s case certainly suggests, breeds destruction of what most
nineteenth-century bourgeois considered the core of existence: strict
adherence to the social and moral codes maintaining a proper and
respectable citizen.
While Emma Bovary has been considered a prime example of a
woman victimized by love, her victimization has not been regarded as a
sufficient reason for her suicide, especially when a host of other factors
seem equally as important: extravagant expenditures, adulterous actions,
a mistreated and ignored child, perpetual deceit, and abandonment of
household, husband, and child. In spite of the rather conventional
condemnations of Emma’s suicide as a character flaw or a weakness of
femininity,2 a more complex and wholly dissimilar explanation of her
actions emerges once one delves into the multitude of cultural issues
and religious forces affecting Emma. One is not hard pressed to find a
number of readily available explanations for suicide among heroines in
nineteenth-century literature, such as the weakness of women, character
flaws, or unhappiness in marriage.3 However, none of these accurately
speaks to the tension between the desires of the heroine and the
mandates of a patriarchal society. Rather than readily dismiss a heroine’s
worth because of her suicide, a slight refocusing from the heroine to
society’s heroine will help us to identify a problem in the community and
the predominant attitudes towards this issue.
As stated earlier, many readers’ approaches to Madame Bovary
reflect the prosecution’s tactic of criticizing Flaubert during the novel’s
trial. That is, the focus and thus critiques are based too closely on the
actions of the characters only, losing sight of a larger purpose to the
novel. A meaning for these actions should be sought in consideration
with the social, moral, and gender forces impinging on Emma in
mid-century France in conjunction with the multifaceted issues raised
by Flaubert. Certainly, the structures within which the heroine lives
influence her actions or lead her to certain ends. In other words, Emma
does not commit adultery detached from the norms of her society;
rather, she is (even if indirectly) led to these ends by her society. For
heroines such as Emma, suicide neither vindicates their former actions
nor serves as an uncomplicated means of escape from their problems.
In Emma’s case in particular, continuing her life on the same alienating
path to satisfy the demands of her society and the men controlling
that society is in itself a type of suicide. Her choice to take her life
is just that—a deliberate decision to declare the course that life will
take, as she proclaims herself the autonomous controller of her life’s
path instead of the passive follower of what is shaped by societal and
cultural norms. This analysis will show that her suicide is motivated by
altogether different reasons than those adduced in much of the existing
criticism. As Margaret Higonnet has shown, Emma’s suicide “expressed
not merely a deathwish but an incommunicable or impossible lifewish”
(116).
Flaubert does not present Emma’s sexual awakening just as
a selfish pleasure-seeking or a moral defiance, but as a symptom of a
deeper sense of separation from her body, her desires, her womanly
identity, and, therefore, it is needed for her to become a self. Thus,
her sexual awakening intimately connects to her suicide; though
misinterpreted by many as her failure at life, more accurately, Emma’s
suicide leads to what Flaubert hopes to communicate as the necessity
of reexamining the societal norms at work in her world and likewise the
beginning of a new approach to female sexuality and suicide. Once fully
examined, her suicide is seen not as an impetuous act, but as an attempt
to pronounce her dissatisfaction with the means of living available to
her. Her suicide as self-annihilation is all the more powerful when seen
this way.
Sexual Awakening: An Unheard Plight
In the final stage of Emma’s life, the culmination of her
sexual awakening and the resolve to commit suicide bring to fruition
the immense struggle of her life and the bounds she is willing to
breach in search of contentment. These occurrences also elucidate the
institutions of Emma’s world, particularly their ignorance of her needs,
which sap her drive for freedom and help to induce her later suicide.
Initially, it might seem that Emma’s failure to secure a lover,
as well as her immense debt, propel her to commit suicide; in other
words, suicide is the simple solution to her dilemmas, merely passing
the burden of her actions to another after her death. Her earlier
contemplation of suicide may also support readers’ and critics’ opinion
of her capriciousness of activity and emotions. Also, this prior attempt
magnifies what many may cite as her inability to survive in a society in
which other women live. Both points support the judgment that her
actual suicide was the ultimate sign of her failure to become part of
or adapt to the social norms. However, these two examples of suicide
(along with the various other examples of suicide throughout the text)
occur at markedly different phases of Emma’s life, which partly explains
why she carries out one and abandons the other. Her first attempt
comes after receiving Rodolphe’s letter that ends their relationship,
similarly dissolving her hopes of escaping Yonville to inhabit a veritable
dream world with him. This initial suicide attempt should be viewed
as a romantic gesture, controlled by the ideas of what emotions she
should be feeling at the moment rather than by a genuine apathy
towards life. Her thoughts that “she was free” and her own urging to
“Do it! Do it!” (166) hint at the relation of this action to her literary
texts and imply that she will become the martyred heroine if she does
this. These thoughts also suggest the insincerity of her motivations, as
she would commit such an act with full knowledge of what the reaction
of those around her would be. Moreover, the action as described is
more of a passive act, as “The ray of light…was tugging the weight
of her body towards the abyss,” she was “waiting for the earth to
open up,” and “the snoring of the lathe went on and on, like a voice
furiously calling to her,” her only necessary action being to “let go, to
give in” (166). Emma, then, needs little spurring in order to complete
such an act, as there seems to be a physical force pushing her to such
an end. This external stimulation to jump indicates her lack of control
over her actions, suggesting that this type of suicide would be more an
impetuous show of her emotions than a genuinely felt desire to end life.
As these thoughts flow through her, Rodolphe’s image remains at the
forefront of her mind, her actions suggesting her willingness to make
the ultimate human sacrifice in memory of this lost lover and, moreover,
that she can become the image of a suffering and tormented heroine
by such actions, and that this image would be the one people would
remember. Even after this attempt is foiled, she clings to her romantic
visions of the thwarted lover to such an extent that her dolefulness
overpowers her, debilitating her to an almost comatose state as she
repeatedly talks of the feelings of death consuming her. Similarly, after
her thwarted attempt, she turns to religion and an intense interest in
the sacraments in order to fill the void her lover has left. She believes
that such devotion can replicate the same feelings of love and passion
experienced with her lover, but under the guise of another emotional
experience. Such devotion is questionable, however, as even the priest
notes that her religion could “in its fervour, end up close to heresy and
even extravagance” (173); her need for feeling regardless of the source is
further marked as she mixes the altruistic with the self-serving, wherein
“it was difficult to tell her egotism from her charity, her corruption
from her virtue” (174-5). At this point, Emma is emotionally confused,
unable to separate herself from her romantic realm or to determine the
impact of such blindness upon the emptiness of these romantic notions.
Emma’s actual suicide, as it marks her awakening to the lack of
any place in society other than the roles mandated for her, and to the
ways that institutions diminish or ignore her worth, starkly contrasts
with her naïve and uninformed initial attempt. After the current of her
misleading emotional beliefs floods from her mind, stripping her of
her former vigor, she is left emotionally and spiritually exhausted. Her
poisoning is not an impetuous act, as could be suggested by thoughts
of jumping to her death. Rather, it is the result of her discovery that
the value of her experiences and words with her lovers is considerably
diminished. Whereas she formerly believed that she could become
a more esteemed person through such actions and words, now, after
having been rejected by the men from whom she beseeches help and
to whom she formerly entrusted her soul (thus, by extension, the
institutions she believes in), her vision is cleared, and she realizes that
she can no longer conceal what has been hinted at for so long—that
she has no choice other than those determined to be appropriate by
society. Her society and its outlets are deaf to her problems, but even
more troubling is that the places she should be able to turn to in order
to relieve her from such suffering are just as shallow as the words of her
lovers.
Emma’s initial explanation for needing the arsenic is “to kill
the rats that were keeping her awake” (256), to rid herself of the false
notions of what the institutions of her society can offer her and images
of whom she thinks she can become. As a woman, she is alone in
the world, separated even from her fellow women, since they do not
realize their plight or, if they do, they do not challenge it. Emma has
hinted at an acknowledgment of the counterfeit hopes promised by the
institutions of her society, but previously, she has always found some
other emotion that propels her on the path of denial and that impedes
her full realization of the forces acting against her. Ultimately, the
roles she must fill to be accepted by society leave her forlorn, and the
feelings which should complete her fail to satisfy. Her possibilities of
action and thought are trivialized, but she cannot realize this until she
has experienced the gamut of these emotions and recognized for herself
how they deceive her as to what her value is for herself and others. In
other words, if she had committed suicide as a younger woman, her
intentions would have been less clear since one might wonder what
she had to base this on other than a broken heart and thwarted plans
of an ideal or romantic escape. So, she needs this recognition first and
then she can act, not as the passive object of her world (as in the first
instance), but as the aggressive actor in her own life, one who is not
coerced into action by the gender-biased commands of her society,
but who chooses to stick her hand in the arsenic jar to pronounce her
statement of life. Her suicide, then, is a choice, a violent rejection of
living the life of the bourgeois culture which ultimately condemns her
to a hapless and neglected existence; only once she sees what has been
concealed by her romantic visions can she make this choice.
No scene better encapsulates society’s callous indifference to
Emma’s plight and desires than her wake. It is here where all facets of
society are represented and where Flaubert’s implication is most loudly
pronounced but most often ignored by critics, as seen most apparently
in the novel’s trial. Various members sit around Emma’s body out of a
sense of duty to represent their particular institution, all “immeasurably
bored; yet nobody wanted to be the first to leave” (271). Their presence
does not reflect a genuine interest in or sympathy for what has occurred.
Both Homais, representing science/reason, and the curé, representing
the church, stand as the manifestation of two polar ends in Emma’s
society and two of the most damning forces ignoring her, as they fall
asleep at the wake, “their stomachs bulging, their cheeks swollen…as
still as the corpse itself ” (272), suggesting their complacency despite the
implications such a tragic occurrence has for both of their institutions.
Such a scene echoes the initial observation of Yonville as Charles and
Emma enter, of “a cowherd snoozing by the water” (56), equally telling
of the entire town or culture’s inability to be cognizant of the issues
facing others, especially the ultimate “other” of woman. Not only
are religion and science implicated by their unawareness of Emma’s
situation, but also, we find her two lovers unconscious of her dilemma:
“Rodolphe, who had been wandering the woods all day, by way of
distraction…sleeping peacefully in his chateau; and Leon, far away, was
asleep” (278). Even as Emma’s physically and emotionally lifeless body
lies for all to see, not one person of the entire spectrum of professions
and creeds is awake to the gravity and message of her death. Her dead
body is the most visible sign capturing her (and Flaubert’s) opinion of
women’s most viable option in society. Both Homais’ and the curé’s
fight with each other to determine whose dogma should govern blinds
them from realizing Emma’s plight as is manifest by her lifeless body on
display.
Interestingly, juxtaposed to the town’s apathy toward Emma’s
tragedy (marked by their sleeping at Emma’s wake) is the speed with
which news of Emma’s poisoning spreads throughout the town, as “that
night the village was wide awake” (259). The poisoning, suggestive of
something vile living among them, stirs the town to attention; such an
occurrence brings life to a town mentally numbed from a history of rote
adherence to established tenets. This unquestioning belief makes them
unaware of what could provoke such an action; once Emma is dead,
they are unaffected by her issues, as she can neither blame nor explain
and as they have neither the interest nor the ability to see that a problem
with their way of living provokes her death. Now, they are unaffected
by the news of her death and can continue their lives as previously. The
town’s ignorance of the issues at stake is further confirmed by the speed
with which they abandon Charles and Bertha after they lose Emma and
are left widowed and motherless: Homais disassociates himself from
Charles since “in view of the difference in their social positions, [he]
did not care to continue the intimacy” (281), and Bertha is effectively
handed off to family members after Charles dies, ultimately working in
a cotton mill, whose harsh conditions suggest her imminent death. On
a more metaphorical level, Bertha’s plight also marks the final death
of Emma and her recognition of the need to shape womanhood in
a different, more progressive manner. Moreover, it is a death of her
rebellious ideas of what womanhood should be and her desires to
become someone more worthy of a voice in society.
If Emma’s suicide does not alert readers to a problem in
the structure of living, Homais’ triumph in winning the Legion of
Honor at the end of the novel should shake the readers from a state
of complacency. In this ironic ending point, Flaubert highlights the
lack of progress he envisions for the future and the diminished value
of society’s issues now that Homais concerns himself with “the social
problem, the moralization of the poorer classes, pisciculture, the
manufacture of rubber, railways and so on” (282). The weight of “the
social problem” is depreciated since it is included (and, thus, can be
suggested to carry equal emphasis) with issues of a lower significance.
Also since, at the same time, Homais advocates a means to resolve such
a problem, he uses rather harsh measures to rid the town of the Blind
Man, suggesting that since he is not compatible with Homais’ vision of
the proper citizen, he should be rejected and eliminated. Further, the
means Homais employs to secure this award call into question society’s
standards and susceptibility to corruption. Specifically, to attain his
ambition, Homais uses perverse means, as “He sold himself in fact,
he prostituted himself. He even addressed a petition to the sovereign
imploring him to do justice; he called him our good king and compared him
to Henri IV” (284), all of which speak to certain members’ abilities to
more actively control the evolution of their lives.
While Emma’s lifelong struggle to determine and activate
her desires is thwarted by the inadequate resources society offers her,
Homais, representing progress and encapsulating all men, uses these
measures to his advantage, suggesting the inevitable ability to use any
instruments necessary to prevail in order to please his self-serving
desires. Emma’s actions, especially towards the end of the novel,
challenge this hierarchical view of sexuality, as she (unconsciously)
attempts to become a kind of woman not yet definable or one that
society simply cannot comprehend. The Legion of Honor marks a
triumph for Homais but a further tragedy for Emma, silencing her
message while reinforcing the power of society’s already-established
institutions. Her suicide holds much potential power as a means of
communicating the problems within society, for, when its motivations
and implications are considered, such an act could expose the
problematic and often unjust methods by which many of society’s
prevalent institutions operate and unsettle the “patterns of provincial
life” so daunting for Emma. Yet, Yonville continues on, its members
all silent partners, impervious to the repercussions of Emma’s suicide.
Such blindness to the plight of others and unquestioned modes of
living remain an unconscious form of suicide, depleting the bonds of
community and the liberty of self, perhaps the most dangerous pattern
of all.
Notes
1 Erich Auerbach. Mimesis. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1974. Qtd. in LaCapra 197-8.
2 A representative occasion of the moral outrage occasioned by Emma’s
character occurs in the 1857 trial of Flaubert’s novel. As Dominick
LaCapra shows in Madame Bovary on Trial, the prosecuting attorney,
Ernest Pinard, judges Emma’s suicide as a clear instance of her
liberated and adulterous actions, pointing to it as a violation of social
morality. In other words, Pinard sees Flaubert’s heroine as already
having a profoundly negative influence on sympathetic readers who
refuse to condemn her behavior or who do not judge her suicide as an
act detrimental to women and to the moral order. For Pinard, Emma’s
suicide is inadequate punishment for the faults she commits (LaCapra
35).
3 See Margaret Higonnet’s article “Suicide: Representations of the
Feminine in the Nineteenth Century” for a concise yet interesting look
into the historical trends of suicide among literary heroines and the
implications and reactions of the heroine’s respective societies.
Works Cited
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives. Trans. Geoffrey
Wall. Penguin Books, 1992.
Higonnet, Margaret. “Suicide: Representations of the Feminine in the
Nineteenth Century.” Poetics Today. 6.1/2 (1985): 103-118.
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which is Not One. Trans. Catherine Porter.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
LaCapra, Dominick. Madame Bovary on Trial. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1982 |