Everyone has some mundane aspect of their life they want to escape. Be it at school, work, everyone escapes into some flight of fantasy for a brief respite from everyday tedious happenings. But what if these daydreams took over your life? What would if life grew too dull and one resented the fact that they just couldn't be a character in some grand, sweeping novel? The title character of Madame Bovary not only takes these romantic jaunts into imagination to heart, but her attempts to turn fiction into reality annihilates any chances of having a happy life in the real world. Her irresponsible actions ruin the lives of many people, all for the sake of her pleasure.
The downward spiral may very well begin after Emma & Charles Bovary are invited to a ball at La Vaubyessard, the home of Marquis d'Andervilliers, a former politician seeking to re-enter political life.
Queen Emma and party in France in 1865. Standing (...
Français : Illustration de Charles Léandre pour ...
English: Illustration of Madame Bovary by Gustave ...After Charles cures the Marquis of an abscess, the steward sent to pay the bill noticed several healthy cherry trees in the Bovary orchard. The Marquis asks for several transplants to supplement his poor harvest, and decides to thank Charles in person. After meeting Emma and seeing her bowing more like an refined aristocrat rather than a backwoods peasant, d'Andervilliers extends his invitation, thinking the couple will handle themselves well enough to get by with the rich guests. Upon arriving at the party, Emma is bombarded of romantic images of the aristocracy: "Blazing candelabra cast long glimpse on the sliver dish-covers...there was a long row of bouquets from one end of the table to the other...(Flaubert 41)"ÃÂ. Along with these images, Emma receives a glimpse of the Marquis' lecherous father-in-law, who was rumored, among other things, to be the lover of Marie Antoinette. Emma is awed by the man...