Emma In The Novel Madame Bovary

My question arises after knowing the character of Emma in the novel Madame Bovary. In this play women are characterized by a single character, "Emma", who shows the readers the great influential power that she possesses. Women are represented in this play by a strong character which has a great power of manipulation, a strong desire for love and an incredible capacity of seduction.

Emma is able to influence the lives of several characters, because she was used to obtaining whatever she wanted, especially the love of man. At the beginning of the novel we can see how Emma seduces Charles with her sensuality and passion which makes Charles fall in love with her; taking into consideration that Charles is a humble character that believes everything Emma says, after she seduces him and makes him think that his love is corresponded by her, she treats Charles as an incompetent and hollow person, she regrets meeting him and decides to leave him. For Charles this is something unexpected and he feels that he is worthless and falls into depression.Emma uses her body and beauty to play with men's feelings, she makes them fall in love, and then after she plays a while with them she leaves them. This causes internal conflicts with the different characters with the exception of Rodolphe, who we can say is Emma representative in a male version.

Emma doesn't only affect male character emotionally and sentimentally during the play, she decides to go further than that and her selfishness and lack of maternal instincts leads her to condemn her only daughter to an uncertain upcoming future. Her daughter is affected in many ways, first of all being rejected by her mother, who prefers having affairs with others men that being with her, and the clearly demonstration of Emma that she doesn't feel any type of love for her, how much rejected can Berthe feel if her own mother neglects her.

There are no words to describe what Emma does to her daughter; she is just the result of a untruth love of Emma and Charles, who is considered a mistake for them and in which Emma's own insecurities and fears are reflected in her feeling towards Berthe.As the play moves on, Emma leaves Charles, she doesn't divorce him but she separates from him, after a while she finds a new lover, who was amazed by her beauty and she decides to have an affair with him, he's name was Leon and he was able to maintain a quite long relationship with her. Again, Emma was able to captivate Leon's attention and play with his feelings, since he was unsure of himself, after a while he realizes that they were both superficial and they weren't able to be together much longer. Emma's influence in this character is presented when Leon decides to leave her and take his own way, know he was secure of himself and capable of overcoming the beauty of Emma and was able of leave her.

After having a romantic view of the world with Leon, Emma decides to have an affair with another man whose name is Justin, he falls terribly in love with her, but he shows his love in a very obsessive way, he was so in love with her that he was willing to do anything for her. She affects terribly the feelings of this character in the moment in which he is blinded by her love and he was capable of doing whatever it takes to make her happy, until the point that he gives her access to the arsenic that Emma uses to commit suicide.Emma, who's desire for men is non stoppable, and is a master in captivating male attention leads her to Rodolphe. When Emma meats Rodolphe she immediately falls in love with him, he is everything she has ever wanted; he is a handsome man with numerous sum of money.

In this point of the novel we can appreciate how the roles of the characters are changed, we are used to seeing how Emma influences males lives but know we have a different perspective, we see how Rodolphe influences the life of Emma, she is now the one that has fallen deeply in love with him and now he is the one that is playing with her feelings. Rodolphe was able to influence in the life on Emma because he does the same things she has done to every single man, he plays with her, he makes her think that he is in love with her, when he really isn't. Emma at this point feels betrayed by him and it is at this point that she is contemplating what true love is and at the same time the feeling of being treated as an object.After having several affairs and affecting the lives of everyone around her, we can see how at the end she is the one who was affected the most.

Emma was able to captive men's attention using her beauty and seductive power, but at the end want really counts in love is not beauty but the feeling you have toward the other person, and that was what Emma was not able to obtain. The incapacity of having a serious relationship with anyone makes her at the end suffer the consequences. We can see in the end of the play how the other characters react when Emma is struggling with financial problems and needs help; their response to her pleas of help is by giving their back, since they were just part of an unserious affair.

At the end the one who ends up being affected the most is Emma, because after she breaks several heart, she ends up with her heart broken to, that's what we call karma.

Article name: Emma In The Novel Madame Bovary essay, research paper, dissertation