BOVARYSME

What a pompous term for such a sad and touching “state of mind”. It is the eponymous of the Flaubertian figure “Emma Bovary”, and refers to a complicated and fragile human mind fabric, inextricably woven with chronic dissatisfaction, frustration, daydreaming, narcissism, selfishness, arrogance, loneliness and adultery.

It is once again women who are the most inclined ones to suffer from it though it is not an exclusive female characteristic, thanks God.

But let’s go back to Flaubert’s novel, and let’s meet Emma Bovary. She is a beautiful, romantic, naïve, secretive, passionate, stubborn, provocative and desperate woman, trapped in a marriage and a life she despises.

She tries hard to escape from her reality, from her vision of meaningless and emptiness, and from her sexually unappealing husband, Dr. Charles Bovary.
This poor devil is incompetent, stupid, unimaginative and repulsive to her eyes, even if he is the one who pays her bills, her expensive sense of decorum and her elegance.

I cannot help feeling sympathy for this man who spoils her, adores her, abandons himself to grief, after her suicide, and who keeps her memory clean and alive, forgiving her adultery.

Emma is the sick minded woman and Charles the poor victim of this drama.

In 1857, the novel was obviously a huge scandal and Mr. Flaubert was even judged for his work. He was judged, for telling the story of Emma, by a puritan and sexist society.

And what about nowadays? Is the sexual life of this married woman still a scandalous one? Are we more tolerant people? Is our society less puritan? Is adultery less shocking?

Do we understand Emma? Or do we still condemn her? What is our opinion about this lady now that we know about bovarysme?

I, as a woman, am not shocked at all by the sexual behavior of Emma; I don’t care a damn. What pisses me off is how she uses her husband, how she cheats on him, how she feels superior to him, how she ignores him and her lack of respect toward him, thus toward people in addition.

“Madame Bovary” is far from being a fiction; these ladies exist and I am nobody to judge a sick mind, I just would like to wish them all the best, hoping their torments of unrequited love will soon heal and that they will find their inner peace.

God bless them.