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Madame Bovary
The male who conquers and protects his territory, the representative a whole social class: the bourgeoisie, the predator and the opportunist, this is how the pharmacist of Yonville, Homais, one of the most despicable characters in Flaubert's novel, Mme Bovary, can be described in short.
As the best suited character for a battle between classes, Homais triumphs over everything. With Homais, Flaubert succeeded to create the essence of what his most famous protagonist, Emma Bovary, hated along her entire existence.
Homais is the central figure in a hall of shame of human existence. He is the man who does not hesitate to harm others for his own sake, the man who seeks glory without having the slightest shred of worthiness in himself, the man who walks on dead bodies on his was to an undeserved glory. Flaubert makes us of his incisive irony until the last words of his novel. In the end, Homais reigns on the ruins of human misery, untouched and more successful then ever....
He has earned his long dreamed Medal of Honor and feeds on the undeserved merits brought by his notoriety and public appreciation.
Homais' aspirations of greatness are far from making them harmless. He turns against every potential obstacle in his way, taking advantage of his manipulative qualities and using public opinion as he pleases. In the last pages of the novel, the narrator describes the image of a parasite organism that attached itself on the host body. The host body itself, in this novel's case, the Bovary family, is not healthy, but it still has the resources to recover. Homais, as the parasite, slowly drains all these resources out and uses them to his best advantage before letting go and attaching to the next potential source of nourishment.
The best tool Flaubert's genius uses to present Homais in all his ugliness is irony. This irony he made use of throughout his entire book peaks at the end in Homais' destiny. The reader sees Homais not allowing his children to…
Homais' own explanatory support for the reasons he should be awarded the Medal of Honor are presented in an even more ironic manner. The only thing related to this profoundly amoral character that deserves admiration is his stubbornness to get that medal. The medal is the symbol of his complete success, the recognition of his life achievements that although highly questionable, are nonetheless worthy of praise in his own eyes. He deceives himself and the whole public opinion he relies on for his success to the point where he even gets the Medal of Honor. This is the biggest irony of all since that medal should be awarded for bravery, for outstanding merits outside the line of duty, for exceptional capacities and for exceptional deeds.
Since Homais eventually got the Medal of Honor, the society that made possible his existence appears to fall into derision. If Homais is publicly recognized as an outstanding, out of the ordinary, brave man, that means that the rest of his ordinary countrymen are worthy of everyone's despise. The great qualities of life, the guarantee to succeed appear to be: deception, lies, manipulation and lack of respect for life in general as long as it does not provide any direct benefits to the person him or herself. Everything about Homais is ironic and the best writer to come up with such a character was Flaubert.
Flaubert, G. Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town. 1998. Gerard Hopkins; Oxford University Press
In service to this "religion," she is expected to offer her entire self. Ultimately, although unintentionally, she quite literally gives her life in this servitude. In The Awakening, religion also plays an important role in the female self-concept. Adele for example specifically refers to the Bible when attempting to convince Edna of the merits of self-sacrifice for husband and children. However, it is also true that Adele has no concept
Denied marriage, the only other societal option is suicide. Society is the agent of her demise, not Lilly: "her life is not unpleasant until a chain of events destroys her with the thoroughness and indifference of a meat grinder." Goetz, Thomas H. "Flaubert, Gustave." World Book Online Reference Center. 2006. [1 Oct 2006] http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar200180. Biographical overview, provides insight into Flaubert's role as a uniquely realistic writer, thus stressing Emma's economic and moral
"(Flaubert, 235) Her spleen seems to spring from an almost metaphysic lassitude with life. Emma is never satisfied, and for her, as Flaubert puts it, no pleasure was good enough, there was always something missing. If Emma cannot kiss her lovers without wishing for a greater delight, it is obvious that she cannot cling to anything real, but only to the ideal dreams. She desperately tries to find a responsible for
The whole of the sequence leads one to believe that Charles is so daft that he would put his own life, not only his reputation on the line if Emma believed that it should be so. Charles from this point forward in the work becomes a piteous example of a spineless fool, and Emma likes him even less for it and therefore becomes even more distant. When Emma begins her
There is a feminine side to his masculinity, that is, and this passage shows that Emma has an equal share in this dichotomy. Hours after she is back at home, after Charles has left her alone in the house to attend to something, Emma shuts herself in her room to contemplate her experience and her joy. It is here that the realization of her own feminine power, and the active
Flaubert's novel also presents an overwhelming dissatisfaction over the French bourgeoisie at that time through the eyes and in the person of Emma. She only reflects the aspirations of her time for refinement and sophistication of the higher social classes where she desires to belong. Those of her class do not have the wealth and nobility of those in higher levels. Those above are materialistic, indulgent and wasteful without discrimination.