Madame Bovary was the first novel I read in elementary school in one day, and now that I think about it, I was young and didn't understand the meaning of it at all. It was not until the end of last year when a friend chatted about feminism and said, "Ms. Bovary is a female character that most men can't avoid", that brought me back the idea of reviewing it again.
About a month ago, I had time to watch the movie version. In the interlude at the beginning of the movie, the young woman was dressed in a golden silk dress, and her messy hair and panicked and dazed expression did not hide her originally beautiful face. But in this shadowy forest, the beautiful face, like this golden silk long dress, was only lined with the young woman's scurrying gesture, which became more and more embarrassed. In the last frame of this paragraph, a young woman in Chinese clothes falls into a dead-leaf forest. The golden silk and satin are incompatible with the surrounding withered and desolate leaves, which seems to be a metaphor for the conflict between the flashy ideal and the bleak reality in the short life of the girl.
In the movie, there is less foreshadowing of Madame Bovary's childhood. Later, she re-read the original book again, and she has a better understanding of the image of the girl Emma, and more understanding of Madame Bovary's behavior. "The only child", "a girl with a romantic temperament, with rose-colored cheeks, black and oily hair, tied in a big bun at the back of her head, and beautiful eyes", "She looks at you without any hesitation, with a kind of naivety. Innocent and daring look", "At the age of thirteen, she entered a boarding school for girls attached to the monastery. She received an aristocratic education", "She loves church flowers, religious music, and grew up under the influence of romantic novels. "…. These descriptions of the girl Emma all reveal the image of a girl who is romantic and immersed in romantic nostalgia.
Just like all young women of literature and art with romantic feelings, love is like a "giant bird with rose-colored feathers", soaring in the splendid paradise of poetry, young Emma fantasizes and longs for her own love to come soon. On the eve of the wedding, Emma looked out the window at the guests celebrating the wedding, unable to hide the joy of the girl's fantasy coming true in her eyes. The picture is a room in soft warm goose down tones and a French countryside background covered with Moranti color fog. Accompanied by Emma's smile and the playful guests, happiness is ordinary and unforgettable. Like the beginning of most love stories, romanticism is warm and long. Emma's innocence and her romantic longing for married life melted into the corners of her mouth. However, the joy at this moment is more like the last tribute to true romanticism in a short life.
When the guests had dispersed, the scene turned to the carriage returning home with her husband. In the cold and deep night, in the swaying carriage in the middle of the night, Emma, who had just become Madame Bovary, looked at her husband's hometown, her eyes were less expectant, and more It is doubt and initial disappointment.
Emma became Madame Bovary, and she finally got that incredible love. But did she really get it? "Speech as flat as the pavement, vulgar in opinion, dressed like a passer-by, does not arouse emotions, laughter or dreams," Madame Bovary said of her husband Charlie in the book. It is true that Charlie is of good character, with a convincing character and a decent job, but in Madame Bovary's eyes he is ordinary and even vulgar. She loves beauty, music and literature, but the people around her have no taste or even respond to Madame Bovary's affectionately sung love poems. The monotonous life day after day, the vulgarity of the mainland, the suffocation of life, the destruction of ideals... She began to doubt and get tired of it. The bleak life longs for "people in the same path" to help her open the door and release the light in.
Therefore, when the shrewd businessman Lele brings beautiful high-end goods such as Chinese clothing accessories, when the lawyer Leon brings a passion for travel, music, and opera, when the hypocrite Rodolph brings the promise of "going to Paris" , one by one, the beautiful temptations are wrapped in "romantic" sugar coating, digging holes in Emma's dull life and bringing her light. But when the holes got bigger and bigger, and the moment they collapsed, Emma realized that "high-end goods" have to be paid back, romantic lawyers also need a decent life, and hypocrites are always just talking and not doing. My romanticism was consumed intentionally or unintentionally, everyone's life continued, only I could no longer return to the reality that I desperately escaped.
At the end of the story, in the original novel, Emma devoured arsenic and died on her own bed; Doctor Bovary knelt beside the bed, and his wife's last sentence "You are a good man" lingered in her ears, heartbroken. In the movie, Emma walked into a long tree-lined avenue, stumbled on the pile of dead leaves scattered in the wind, dressed in arsenic in a panic, and the dead leaves were lined with golden clothes, which became more and more prominent "the romantic and mediocre fantasy" the tragic ending of the reality".
Byron said, a man's love is a part of a man's life, and a woman's love is the whole of a woman's life. The root of Emma's tragic fate lies in the fact that as a woman, in the process of realizing her self-worth, she devoted all her feelings and life to love, and the pursuit of perfect, ideal and romantic love has become the bondage of her life. shackles. But I think that Emma's shackles are not only about self-fulfillment in love, her shackles, but also the inability to escape the class system, and the inability to freely choose a partner, and the harsh reality of the early stages of capitalism under the cover of superficial prosperity .
On the one hand, Emma is brave, she dares to pursue love, she dares to express her heart directly, and she dares to pursue beauty under limited conditions. But largely, she is pathetic. Sadly, she doesn't have the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. The life she thinks is like the romances and legendary novels she read as a girl, romantic, interesting, and full of hope. But even though she was well educated, she was always the farmer's daughter, which is why his father married the "not too bad" country doctor under his father's arrangement. This is the class shackles of fate. If she recognizes the reality, assists her husband's career, and acquires some medical knowledge by the way, perhaps Dr. Bovary can really surpass the title of "country doctor", at least the Bovary family does not worry about food and clothing, and is respected and well-off Life is predictable. But she was not satisfied. Young Emma was attracted by the glitz of capitalism, either naively or deliberately ignoring the shackles of reality, pursuing the illusory romantic life of dreams, and indulging in rootless love and material pleasures.
What's even more tragic is that in every "awakening moment", Emma chose to escape. Women are always sensitive and worrying. Facing a hard-working husband, an indifferent lover, and an increasingly domineering businessman, Emma must have a few moments of conscious awakening in the countless sleepless nights. But Emma chose to escape. "It's better to hide in a beautiful fantasy bubble than the cruelty of reality," Emma might think. If Emma, who has just stepped into the shackles of a non-ideal marriage, is brave, and she is capricious and lovely to fight against reality; now she is fully entrusted with illusory romanticism, only the hypocrisy and depravity of being too addicted to pleasure are left. Emma, who "has no worries, a look of innocence and boldness" has disappeared, panicked and helpless, corrupted by the ugly and cruel reality, all the struggles of Madame Bovary seem pale, ridiculous and pathetic. Born in this era, we are somewhat lucky. Although the shackles of class still exist, the overall economic level of the society has been much improved, and it is not surprising that the example of jumping out of class and achieving personal value is not surprising. Living better within the current class seems to be more of a concern than breaking out of the original "social class". In addition, it is fortunate that the awakening of feminism has made more and more modern women dare to pursue love, and at the same time pay more attention to their own development rather than devoting themselves to marriage or family. To a certain extent, modern women have more and more choices, and society is more and more respectful and tolerant of women's choices. However, feminism in China is still in the awakening stage. There is still a long way to go between realizing the correct understanding, realizing the realization, and doing it well. This topic will be further analyzed in a subsequent article. Personally, I believe that the awakening of feminism can promote women to pay more attention to their own development, and make women's choices more diversified instead of being restricted by family and marriage. This is the luck of modern women compared to Madame Bovary. However, self-development and romanticism are not contradictory; what we do not agree with is negative romanticism, that is, under the guise of romanticism, escaping the norms, obligations and responsibilities of reality, blindly pursuing love and material pleasures. And positive romanticism based on reality is the positive energy that keeps the heart warm and soft, such as love, such as all beautiful art, such as yearning for beauty. It is beautiful and worth pursuing. It is the stars that you look up at and the corners of your mouth that rise unconsciously when you are immersed in reality and hard work.
May the beauty of the world be linked to you.
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