Essay on "Emma's Ride to Freedoms Autonomy and Domination in Madame Bovary Analysis of Specific Passage"
Essay 6 pages (1616 words) Sources: 1
[EXCERPT] . . . .
Madame BovaryExplication and Analysis of Emma and Rodolphe's Initial Tryst in Flaubert's Madame Bovary
It is at approximately the midpoint of the action of the novel when Emma Bovary first -- and rather quickly -- succumbs to the seductions of Rodolphe Boulanger, and it is also at this point that the tale of Madame Bovary takes an explicit and, at the time of the novel's publication, a highly controversial turn. This scene begins Emma's descent into the depravity and debauchery that ultimately ends with her taking her own life, and is the first instance where the titular heroine (of sorts) seems to take a truly full enjoyment and engagement in her chosen activity. It is perhaps ironic, then, that she demurs at Rodolphe's initial invitations to ride, and even argues against riding with her husband, Charles. Ultimately, Emma becomes very enamored with…riding…with Rodolphe, taking an active and conscious concern in the direction of her life and the fulfillment of her desires.
At the same time, though Emma is clearly a willing participant in the sexual activity and reflects on her first encounter with great joy and a new self-awareness, it is clear the Rodolphe is the dominant partner in this scene as well as in their overall relationship throughout the novel. This juxtaposition of empowerment and dominance is one of the essential ambiguities that Flaubert deals with in Madame Bovary; the protagonist is at once internally empowered and externally dominated due to her femininity, and evidence of both forces is clear in the action, imagery, and narration of this scene.
The Act of Empowerment
The very
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act of sexual infidelity as engaged in by Emma and Rodolphe contains a high degree of seemingly paradoxical juxtaposition. It is clear at this point in the story that in addition to -- or perhaps as a result of -- her boredom, Emma has come to enjoy disagreeing with her husband, though she rarely directly disobeys him. In explaining her initial refusal to go riding with Rodolphe, "She made a sulky face, gave every kind of excuse…" (Flaubert, Madame Bovary, pp. 145). She continues to argue with him about the riding until he purchases here a new riding outfit; she has learned to use disagreement and protestation as a means of achieving her desires. In her interactions with Rodolphe, however, she is directly transgressing against her husband, and though she is initially resistant to this idea she feels no remorse but rather a thrill of enjoyment once it is accomplished.download full paper ⤓
At the same time as Emma is freeing herself from her obedience to her husband, however, she is making herself obedient to Rodolphe. It is through a series of missteps and refusals that Rodolphe eventually wears Emma down, and ultimately he commands and controls her to the point that she gives in: "Oh! Not yet, said Rodolphe. We're not going yet! Stay!" (149). Though he is being seductive, there is also no doubt that there is a command in Rodolphe's voice, and his physical actions are no less dominating until he eventually wins Emma over. Though there are textual indications that she was prepared to give in all along, it is important to note that Emma is controlled into making her descent into infidelity.
At the end of this scene, Emma learns from her husband that they are now the owners of a horse, intended for her to continue to ride in order to promote her health. Charles rather puppyishly asks, "was that a good idea? Do tell me" (150). Emma nods her ascent, no longer disagreeing with Charles but brimming over with the secret of her much deeper transgression. Charles' buying of the horse, of course, facilitates her continued infidelity with Rodolphe, as though he, too, has become subservient to Rodolphe's desires. This makes him also subservient to his wife, and so Emma Bovary's position has certainly and significantly changed: she is now, albeit clandestinely and in a limited fashion, served by her husband rather than vice versa, but at the same time this power only came to her through her "service" to another man, leaving her still largely without true power.
Images of the Feminine, the Masculine, and Power
As in much of the novel there is an abundance of sexual imagery in this scene of Madame Bovary, and it takes on especial significance here as the forces of feminine and masculine power collide and are hierarchically sorted in a very direct and physical way. Emma falls asleep after their lustful encounter, awakening to "Rodolphe, a cigar between his teeth…mending one if the two broken reins" (149). This simple description of the scene following Emma's first truly enjoyed sexual experience shows Rodolphe in a highly masculine state (complete with Freudian cigar) as the protector, while Emma appears both less capable and more vulnerable as she sleeps in the wild through Rodolphe's mending activities.
There are other images that are perhaps less direct but even more prevalent throughout the scene that both reflect the growing inner empowerment of Emma's femininity and the ultimate dominance and control of Rodolphe's masculinity. As the two riders leave the borders of visualization, the narrator notes the "damp air. The earth, reddish like powdered tobacco" (147). This image is vaguely evocative of traditional feminine symbols, especially the receptive and generative nature of the Earth. Pine cones appear on the path at the hors's feet, however, and this feminine landscape is seen as covered -- though not necessarily unpleasantly so -- with the seeds (a traditionally male symbol, for fairly obvious reasons) of the might pine trees that also eventually eclipse the feminine view of the land, taking over with their strong and unequivocal upward -- and masculine -- growth.
Immediately following this image, Emma's awareness shifts explicitly to "the rows of pine-trunks, an endless procession that stupefied her slightly" (147). There is a direct implication in this imagery of a phallic symbol, and it is something that both amazes and worries Emma, reducing her nearly to a state of "stupefaction." Though she is certainly aware of the nature of this ride with Rodolphe and his ultimate intentions, her feminine curiosity and indeed her own sexuality is awed and overpowered by the masculine power and sexuality that exists with Rodolphe. The imagery at once supports the notion that feminine power exists and is highly necessary in the world, and yet that -- at least in the world as it currently exists -- this power will ultimately be dominated by masculine drives and desires.
The Broader View of the Narrator
An examination of the narrative style and point-of-view of this scene is less certain in its determination of what powers exist and dominate in the natural world and in the world of Madame Bovary. The perspective is primarily that of Emma's, though Rodolphe's inner and untold thoughts are exposed form time to time, and the various places in the scene at which this point-of-view shifts as well as some of the specific delivery of certain pieces of information by the narrator create a much more mixed balance of power between the feminine and the masculine at work in this scene, calling into question the exact nature of dominance and submission generally and as they specifically relate to this scene in Emma Bovary's self-awakening and growing self-awareness.
Rodolphe does not turn immediately to aggressive seduction, and several of the narrator's insights into his inner thinking demonstrate a seeming acknowledgment of respect for the feminine power that Emma possesses: "He did not frighten her off with compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy" and "immediately he became respectful, caressing, timid" (148, 149). Though both of these glimpses could be read as simple manipulations on Rodolphe's part in his attempt to seduce Emma, the fact that the narrator chooses these moments to offer… READ MORE
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“(I PLACED THIS ORDER YESTERDAY NIGHT AND IT WAS CANCELLED BECAUSE YOU COULDN*****'T FIND A *****. I CAN WAIT UNTIL ABOUT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT, MAYBE EVEN A LITTLE PAST IT, BUT PLEASE DO GET ME A *****. IT*****'S ONLY 1600 WORDS LONG, AND MOST OF WHAT SHOULD GO IN THE PAPER IS IN THE NOTES BELOW)
INSTRUCTIONS
Your paper will be judged for its ideas, eloquence, internal coherence, and engagement with the text. Your paper must have a clear focus, articulated in the introductory paragraph, that is developed in the body of your paper. It also must show an understanding of and appreciation for the complexities of the text. Even when dealing with broad themes, you should sustain your argument with careful exegesis of specific passages. You may draw on related class discussions and lectures, but your analysis must go beyond those conversations.
WORD COUNT 1400 to 1600.
BOOK USED-- Madame Bovary, Provincial Lives. Penguin Classics, trans. Geoffrey Wall. -- I WILL FAX THE SCENE
TOPIC
Analyze one of the great scenes of Madame Bovary. What is the significance of the scene? How is it narrated? From whose point of view? How does it fit into the design of the novel?
SCENE SELECTED: Emma’s ride with Rodolphe, Rodolphe’s seduction of Emma (from “Your wife, he said, was telling me about her health” pg 145, to “She savoured it without remorse, without anxiety, without worry” pg 151.
THESISвЂ*****"I think it should have something to do with control, exertion of autonomy, how Emma interprets herself to have exerted control over her life by succumbing to Rodolphe, but how the imageries and actions in passage suggest the opposite. She is controlled, dominated. Maybe conclude that Flaubert is implying that a real exertio of autonomy is impossible for women of his time?? This fits into design of novel: questions the success of Emma’s rebellion, questions her responsibility over her fall, can we blame her or not? Is this the only way she could exert control over her life, an did he manage to exert any control over it at all? Is she blameable?
I don’t know what to think of the “how is it narrated and from whose point of view” questions.
The intro should begin by locating the passage within the novel, and identifying its relevance to the rest of the story (the beginning of Emma*****'s moral fall, etc) and by stating some kind of thesis. The conclusion should reflect some new insight not included in intro. I need quotes, and references to the text, constant references to this passage, and only from them comment on how these observations might be valid for the rest of the novel.
After citing the novel fully once, use parenthesis and page number. eg: *****"...*****" (34)
Oh, and my professor doesn*****'t like it when we are too intransigent with our thesis. She prefers us to point at the brilliance of the author in acknowledging the ambiguities of X problem, than for us to make the text fit avery strict thesis.
I will send the notes I*****'ve taken about the passage (must use heavily to write paper!!), my notes from our lectures (relevant things are in bold), and an example essay that got me an A in this class, so that you can get a sense of what my writing style is. I will do my best to also upload the passage itself, but it will depend on whether my scanner is working.
Please don*****'t cite any source other than the book itself!
Thanks so much and please email me if you have any questions!
PS. I will include my notes for the passage down here just in case. They*****'re very important, if insufficient; please read! Thanks!!
NOTES ON PASSAGE
Narration, POVвЂ*****"free indirect style at times, ambiguous distinction between narrator and characters. Narrator recounts things from the perspective of characters, aware of their interior feelings… but the situations are full of irony, it is the situations that point at Emma’s flaws in logic, rationalizations, rather than the narrator coming out and passing judgment about her actions. Narrator makes us judge her without seeming judgmental…
Irony, humor. In Rodolphe’s speeches, Emma’s interpretations…. “In my soul you’re a Madonna in a pedesta” (149) yeah right…
Does narrator or Emma tell us that the village is “dismal” (147)? Ambiguity?
?????
Affair with Rodolphe in general- full of riding imageries
Horse imagery already introduced by the toubadour poets __ centuries earlier. Alludes to the reign over the passions…
MAJOR THEMES: control, obligations, obstacles, freedom, constraints, letting go, ascent and fall.
This scene sustains conflict; a big fight for control between Emma and Rodolphe, Rodolphe taking control away from Emma (even shows his teeth, is aggressive, before settling back into deceptively placid attitude in pg 148-149. Aggressive maleness, phallic imageries: 149- “Rodolphe, a cigar between his teeth, was mending one of the two broken reigns with his little knife”). Rodolphe leading her to moral doom, “guiding” her and her passions with his words as effectively as he makes the horses trot with a click of his tongue (147), Emma is overcome, drowning (148:beneath the waves of the sea… her breathing was quick and broken), she finally yields and exposes her vulnerabilities (stretches her neck 149).
But isn’t Emma’s resistance a little contrived? The narrative hints that she will yield from the very start of the scene: pg 146: “Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger that his wife was at his disposal,” “she yielded to the rocking motion of the saddle”
Rodolphe must loosen Emma’s inhibitions, make her forget her responsibilities, take control away from her by letting her passions loose. But he controls her he seeks to control her passions, he “tethered the horses” (147)… it is when he can no longer keep a reign over her passions (she begins to dream about running away with him, makes plans) that he gives her up entirely.
Rodolphe must fight against the things that tie Emma down;
her family (Berthe-window-Emma, kiss/riding crop scene pg 146- foreshadows how Emma’s decisions will lead her away from her child who remains a shackle, anchoring her to Charles, interior spaces, domesticity, her mediocre bourgeoisie life… contrast between kiss and riding crop foreshadows how Emma’s decisions will end up hurting Berthe.)
Her morals, values, sense of duty, responsibility.
There are things that keep getting in the way of Emma as she rides on with Rodolphe. Stirrup- consciousness? Obligations, constraints of her freedom? 147 “the tall bracken… kept catching in Emma’s stirrup. Rodolphe… leaned over and pulled it loose…. To push aside the branches, he pressed close to her…
Rodolphe overcomes these obstacles through his persuasive words (paralleling his control over his horses: 147: God is with us… come on!.. he clicked his tongue… 148- “she stopped.-I am tired.. Come on. Keep going!) and by making use of his physical effect on Emma (147 “to push aside the branches, he pressed close to her, and Emma felt his knee touching her leg”).
Emma’s feminity itself gets in the way of her rebellion, and of he success of her rebellion (148: but her long skirts hindered her. In the end, it seems that Emma’s only form of empowering herself is by yielding to another man, by choosing another slave master. Things get caught on her clothing- feminity, role of virtuous woman is an obstacle to freedom? Allude to Emma’s wish for her child to be a man (). Phallic imageries: 149- “Rodolphe, a cigar between his teeth, was mending one of the two broken reigns with his little knife”
Fight for control, letting go of control, letting go of responsibilities
“Rodolphe let go of the reigns; they made off together in a single leap…” (146)
“The woolen stuff of her dress caught on the velvet of his jacket.” (149) Emma’s dress ends up getting caught on Rodolphe’s clothing. Her “freedom” from what’s trying her down comes in the form of a new man to which she ties herself down, new constrains. Is this fight for control successful for Emma? Is her rebellion truly her rebellion? Flaubert uses irony: Emma perceives her affair to be her great rebellion (151 “Emma felt the satisfaction of revenge... this was her moment of triumph, and love, so long sealed in, poured out in a copious fixing rush”) but it’s not her rebellion at all, she is being led, duped, used, like a horse? She is also being *blinded* “love blurring her eyes” (148), “blind with tears” (149), “dazzled her eyes” (149)
Escape/fall, Ascent, Freedom, Damnation?
Emma later reinterprets her affair with Rodolphe as an exertion of her autonomy, long suppressed. When she is riding with him, she looks down upon her town from the top of a hill, and it is implied that she views her ride as an escape from the mediocrity of her bourgeois life, from her failed dreams, her husband and child, Yonville… “Emma half closed her eyes to find her own house, and never had this dismal village where she lived seemed to her so small. From the height at which they stood, the whole valley seemed an immense pallid lake, evaporating into the air” (147).
Escape/ ascent (in Emma’s rationalized view) or fall? (situations suggest latter: nature recoiling from lovers, rotten flowers in stagnant pond…) the high-ground of Emma over her village is not paralleled by a moral high-ground, but by a fall.
148: “young trees had felled. They sat down on a fallen tree-trunk, and Rodolphe began to tell her about his love”
149 “rotting water lilies floated, stuck among the reeds”. Innocence tainted by impurity. Emma’s fantasies corrupted…
149 “At the sound of their steps in the grass, frogs sprang away into hiding” “…as if humming-birds, in flight, had scattered their feathers.” -- nature recoils at them.
149 “The evening shadows were falling”
river of milkвЂ*****"her body feeds on this moral fall? She becomes more beautiful as she falls deeper and deeper into immorality.
Contrast? Ambiguity of situation? I don’t know what this shows
Both Rodolphe and Charles tell Emma the same thing. Sort of. That by not submitting/going riding she is making a mistake,
145: C: “Health comes first. You’re making a real mistake” 149: R: “You are making a mistake”
Homais’ Advice (146)
To Rodolphe: “your horses may be skittish.” Emma is skittish, needs a firm hand. Irony.
To both of them: “Don’t take any risks! Stay on the straight and narrow!” Irony. They will deviate from morality, Rodolphe will lead Emma off the straight and narrow.
--
Passions
Fire (allusion to Aeneas’ Dido? And she will be consumed by her passions too). “sat there… between the two burning candles” (150)
Eating (“her plate”- 150, “savouring this idea”- 150, “she savoursed it without remorse, without anxiety….”- 151)
--
Emma’s Fantasies
151. Emma elevates her unfaithfulness- she equalizes heroism with unchastity. (link to her cult of Mary Stewart). Laces herself as an equal to these “sister voices” (151). Pride, vanity. Excited about having a secret and having a lover rather than because she loves Rodolphe. Allusion to Dante’s Francesca.
Gaining freedom and control by cheating on her husband…
Materialism. Bourgeoisie consumption. Foreshadows Emma’s bankruptcy and her inhabiity to rid herself of traits of the class that she despises… “the riding-habit decided her” (146)
Contrast between Rodolphe (domineering man, rider and lover) and Charles (pg 150 weak-willed, tender, asks for Emma’s opinion, paradoxically this upsets her. If society prevents her from achieving her goals on her own because she is a woman, at least she wants a successful, forceful lover who will allow her to live these goals through him.
Recurrent motif of Windows! вЂ*****" interior/exterior. domesticity, constraints/freedom. Berthe blowing a kiss to Emma from behind window. People looking out to Emma and Rodolphe from inside: “Eyes examined her from the windows”. Judgment, conventionality, obligations
RELEVANT LECTURE NOTES
Emma searching for control. Gender role reversals (Emma wears pants, wants to smoke, is not embarrassed alter wedding night, yet plays a very feminine character.
Fire- femina. Woman not in control of her passions (Eve, Dido).
We get inside Emma’s head. Interior place. Where does the story take place? We’re moving to an interior, emocional and interior, domestic space.
WindowsвЂ*****"breaking out, escaping, looking in and out.
Bodiness, sexual symbols, control - riding, rodolphe is leading her astray, she wiil eventually lead anoter astray-leon-when she becomes the seducer
Emma: What are you looking for?
Charles: My riding crop (sleeping with Rodolphe- riding crop)
It had fallen behind the bed
Sacrificial: baring the neck.
cult of Mary Stuart (killed because of affairs), and “illustrious or ill-fated” women.
agricultural price scene: Catherine Leroux wins price for “half century of servitude”. Emma trying to break free from servitude.
*****
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