Flaubert's Sympathetic View of Madame Bovary

Whether Flaubert was a feminist or not, he definitely is sympathetic to women's concerns in Madame Bovary. This concern is not political or social, but rather psychological and emotional, and is expressed not in the hope of changing or improving women's position in society, but in order to show the tragic heroism of one particular woman who is willing to follow her dream even though it leads to disaster.

While Flaubert is sympathetic to Emma, the great complexity with which he portrays her suggests that he does not pretend to completely understand her. Nevertheless, it is clear that Flaubert relishes Emma's awakening as a woman and does not judge her for the excesses she shows later which lead directly or indirectly to her death as well as to the death of her husband. To Flaubert, Emma is a partially imprisoned creature (at least psychologically, emotionally and spiritually) who ultimately is freed, or frees herself, and the liberation seems to be worth the price in this reader's view. Emma's life is tragic, to be sure, but how much more tragic would it have been had she lived her life entrapped in the traditional woman's role as servant to her husband?

Almost every scene bespeaks the author's appreciation of Emma as a woman who both fears and delights in her awakening as a woman and as a human being. In the waltz scene (59), for example, the reader is informed that Emma "had never waltzed" and that "Everyone else was waltzing." She is left out, and somewhat frightened at t

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hings human. Her treatment of Rodolphe (354) as she asks for money can be said to cruel certainly, but it can also be said to be the terrible cracking open of a passionate woman driven to the brink of madness: "She no longer knew what she was saying" (354). Flaubert's attitude toward Emma is, to the reader, the attitude of a man toward a wonderful and terrible natural force which she admires, stands in awe of, and finally loves as much as he can, whether or not, along with Charles, he fully understands her. 2. Madame Bovary is definitely a novel of fate, for Emma is never in control of her life enough to make the choices she would have had to make to avoid the tragedy of that life. Could Emma have taken any path but the path she took? Emma's destiny could not have been other than that portrayed by Flaubert. Her life is inevitably tragic because she lives in a society and an era where a woman, seeking her own being, seeking love beyond shame, and at the same time not really knowing what she was doing to herself and others, simply had to come to a tragic end, taking others with her. Emma is such a force of nature, such a wild being born to break free from the constraints put on her by the patriarchal world around her, that she

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