Saturday, January 12, 2013
Madame Bovary: Setting
In a one-page response, examine the significance of where the story takes place, especially given the shift in setting between Part I and Part II. How does the setting reflect or influence Emma's life, attitude, or emotion? What might the setting symbolize? Share your response on the class blog.
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I think the change in setting does influence Emma greatly, but in a negative way. When Emma was on the farm she always talks about how boring it is and how dull her life. Emma dreams of living the high life from her romantic novels. When she is brought to the ball, her attitude changed to fit the atmosphere and she tries to fit in. She becomes arrogant and cruel to Charles, who gave this opportunity to her. When he asks her to dance she rejects him, because she is afraid that he will embarrass her, even though she doesn’t know how to dance. She is very closed- minded and thinks she knows it all. This is interesting, because when she overs a conversion, she doesn’t understand it. This is because of the background she comes from, which I think causes her to want to try and be something she isn’t. She reads the romantic books and is trying to live how the books explain life. After the ball Emma doesn’t seem happy with living with Charles and when they move to Yonville. I think that moving can be a positive thing because a different change in scenery is good, but Emma’s attitude towards Charles I don’t think will change. The change in towns I think symbolizes the distance being created with Charles and Emma’s marriage. I find it ironic that Emma found her life so empty on the farm and Charles comes in and gives her everything she wants, but she still feels empty. We only see Emma really happy when she is at the ball and soaking in every detail, but she knows that is not the life she could live. I think she will never be happy until she lives the life like in the romantic books. Changing the setting has a significant influence on her, because that dream is slowly getting farther away from her and she is becoming depressed.
ReplyDeleteIs Emma's attitude/behavior determined by setting? Or would/will she be in unsatisfied wherever she goes?
DeleteThe setting in the story is part of the reason for the bad mood of Emma. Also, the setting represents her mood. After going to the ball and hanging out in the nice city with the rich people, she longs for that life. However, her wants are contrasted by her actual reality. Tostes is a boring town that lacks everything that Emma wants. She spends her time watching random people walking around outside her house. She also prays for things to change somehow. This is detailed on page 53, as the author writes, "All the while, however, she was waiting in her heart for something to happen... each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day" (Flaubert 53). Not only is the setting the reason for her depression, it is also a representation of that depression. Through her eyes, she sees the town in the same light as her life. There is nothing exciting. The same mundane things occur every single day. It is a trap that she cannot escape from. A change of setting represents a change in scenery. I predict that now that her and Charles have moved to Yonville-l'Abbaye, her mood will definitely change. From the description that is provided in the first chapter of Part Two, this town seems like there is more going on. There is a marketplace and inn. This may not seem like a lot, but appears to be an improvement. Also, I believe this change will be a breath of fresh air for her. She will not be surrounded by the same dull people and places. Finally, the pregnancy might be the excitement that Emma is looking for. This will give her something more to look forward to. I would be very surprised if her mood did not change with the setting.
ReplyDeleteCan she achieve "what she wants" (whatever that is) by het location?
DeleteI think the setting influences Emma's feeling of being closed off from the world. She wants so much to be noticed. She doesn't want to live a predictable, monotonous life. But instead she is literally trapped within the confines of Tostes and her marriage, living the dull life of a housewife. Emma is an educated woman who can play piano and dance and is well read, but she feels like she can't share it with anyone, least of all Charles who she feels can't appreciate all she has to give. Because of this and as the years go by she loses her appetite for what she used to delight in. Charles does notice that she is not happy at Tostes. Emma needs to move away from Tostes and tries her best to look as sick as she can in order to convince her husband to move, as described on page 57, "Charles fancied that her illness was no doubt due to some local cause...from that moment she drank vinegar to lose weight, contracted a sharp little cough, and lost all appetite" (Flaubert,57). This reveals how desparate she is for a change of pace. As the end of the chapter closes, she is also pregnant which fills her with hope that the bad portion of her life is over, and something better will take its place. However tragedy strikes as her greyhound runs away, and this makes her wonder whether this "blessing" of moving to a different town is just false hope.
ReplyDeleteAgree!
DeleteWho is to blame for Emma's unhappiness?
DeleteThe setting of the story influences Emma's mood throughout the book. The town of Tostes is nothing like the lifestyle that Emma longs for, which is the life of the luxurious which she gained a glimpse of at the ball. This puts her into a depression of sorts. The town of Tostes also represents her marriage with Charles. She becomes bored of Charles since he cannot offer her a luxurious or romantic lifestyle, which is similar to how she feels about the town, which is dull and mundane. Tostes literally makes her sick. She was so miserable in the town that she grew ill, which forces Charles to make the decision move. This can be seen when the narrator says, "She was constantly complaining about Tostes, Charles fancied that her illness was no doubt due to some local cause...It cost Charles much to give up Tostes...Yet if it must be," which not only demonstrates Emma's annoyance with Tostes but also Charles commitment to Emma which she fails to notice. I am sure that the change in scenery to Yonville-l'Abbaye will have some sort of effect on Emma. The town does not have much, and does not seem anymore interesting than Tostes, but maybe it can benefit Emma in a certain way. It may bring her a new hope to what she is looking for, but it may also lead to new disappointments. I think that her child will also have a significant effect on her. The child may change Emma for the better, or her desires of fame and glamor may effect her responsibilities as a mother. I am interested in finding out how a change in scenery and responsibility changes Emma's attitude and outlook on life.
ReplyDeleteEmma's personality changes to reflect the place she is physically at in the novel. In Les Bertaux, she was still Emma Roualt, a beautiful, free spirited girl. At her new home in Tostes, she is the outsider, the one who prefers to wander aimlessly than to fill her life with purpose. At the chateau, she is a high class woman with a cool exterior and passionate desires she keeps hidden. Her reservedness is saved for her husband, whose company does not excite her. In her imagination of Paris, she says "did not love, like Indian plants, need a special soil, a particular temperature?" She has romanticized the emotions and the frivolity that come with a new city. Even when she can not be in this city, she attempts to change her lifestyle so to suit the life she imagines she would live in Paris - making her new servant a "ladys-maid," dressing like the women of Rouen, and inwardly criticizing her husband, wishing he were as ambitious as she. Emma is a social climber with the idealistic theory that the grass is greener on the other side permanently ingrained in her mind. She feels as though the world owes her something, but only the viscount was able to provide that excitement she so yearned for, and only for a short while. Within the first paragraphs of part 2, Emma has already begun to criticize her new home - the landscape, the cheese, the costs of farming. It is as though nothing associated with her husband can please her. One can hope that with pregnancy, Emma can find some joy in life, and her surroundings, however tawdry they may be, will not determine her state of mind.
ReplyDeleteThe setting in Part I, when Emma attends a ball reflects Emma’s perfectionism, idealism and naiveté when she notices every single detail at the ball. She has such a vivid imagination that it interferes with the reality. Even though, she notices the physical details of the ‘perfect’ setting of the ball, she does not consider the complications of what this kind of life style might bring – jealousy, superficiality, etc. Emma is a restless adventurer, she always want the fresh and new change. She tries to remember every single thing about the ball, but eventually is left with the regret when days pass. The regret represents her unfulfilled desire to live such a rich lifestyle as people from the castle live. When the setting shifts from Part I to II, Madame Bovary moves to Yonville. This setting represents Madame’s mood, disappointment and silent depression (in the first chapter of part II nothing is written about Madame, only the setting). She loses hope to ever live a better life and that is indicated when at the end of part I she burns her wedding bouquet. The setting is described: “…confines of Normandy, Picardy, and the Ile-de-France, a bastard land whose language is without accent and its landscape is without character.
ReplyDelete“ (Madame Bovary (p. 41)” (Kindle Edition). I think the narrator is closer to Madam Bovary in this part and it is almost like she, herself, would be describing the setting like that. This setting represents her new, but boring, plain life (“without character”) and the anger that she feels (you would have to be pretty angry to call a land a bastard). In addition, Madame, in fact, is angry because her dog ran away and she accuses Charles of this “misfortune”.
I think the setting plays an important role in this novel. There are countless descriptors of the setting and environment around both Tostes and Yonville. The majority of the first chapter is spent describing insane details of everything from the single road to the plethora of graves to the words on signs in the pharmacy. I definitely feel that Emma was bored with her situation in life prior to the move. She is not entirely sure of what she wants but she “longed for lives of adventure, for masked balls, for shameless pleasures that were bound, she thought, to initiate her to ecstasies she had not yet experienced” (57). This show she yearns for new and exciting things she has not yet experienced. She seeks new thrills in her life. Her heart seems set on finding a new place and new adventures and she feels she has been dealt an unfair hand by fate. While in Tostes she dreamed of Paris and said “as for the rest of the world, it was lost, with no particular place, and as if non-existent. ..all immediate surroundings…the mediocrity of existence seemed to her the exception, an exception in which she had been caught by a stroke of fate, while beyond stretched as far as the eye could see an immense land of joys and passions” (51). I believe this displays how hopeful and naïve Emma is. She thinks that she is living in a boring box and that outside of it everything is grand and wonderful and she alone has this terrible life. Her optimism is notable but so is her selfishness. She has tunnel vision for what she seeks and always seems to be thinking about how things will affect her without considering others. I do not believe that Yonville will satisfy her continuous yearning for greener pastures and while it may temporarily this is only because it is different from Tostes. Soon she will again dream about a fancy and rich lifestyle and want to leave her boring life for the chance to fulfill her lofty expectations of what else is out there in the world. I feel her ambitions will ultimately lead her to a larger city such as Paris where there are more people and more things happening. She will view the benefits of a large city as multiple opportunities to seek adventure in her life. Emma’s emotions and feelings are temporarily pleased with new settings and environments but this cannot last until she finds what she is ultimately looking for in life. This may possibly be something such as fame and riches or something else, and I wonder if there even can be something to permanently satisfy her. I feel that the setting reflects Emma’s feelings most of the time because she was initially happy to get married and she “thought sometimes, that, after all, this was the happiest time of her life” (35). Soon after she is no longer satisfied leading to her criticism of her surroundings and her monotonous life.
ReplyDeleteThe setting of the story causes Emma to desire a more grand, exciting life. When she goes to the ball and interacts with the people in the chateau, she wants" to know their lives, to penetrate into them, to blend with them" (Flaubert, 47). After coming back to Tostes, she wonders what adventures the Viscount is having in Paris. Meanwhile, she sits at home with a husband she doesn't love. She lives in "the wearisome countryside, while beyond stretched as far as the eye could see an immense land of joys and passions;" she longs to be in the city (Flaubert, 51). Emma starts subscribing to Parisian magazines and buying more candles and vases to make her home less plain. Paris signifies the life she wants, while Tostes is the one she was stuck with.
ReplyDeleteHer contempt with her ordinary life causes her to lash out at people. Emma "at times expressed singular opinions, finding fault with whatever others approved, and approving things perverse and immoral, all of which left her husband wide-eyed," showing the negative effects the ball has on her (Flaubert, 56). She thinks she deserves better and hates "the divine injustice of God," which allows a woman fatter than she is to live at Vaubyessard (57). Charles decides to move to Yonville, hoping a new town will make his wife happier and healthier. Yonville isn't as rural as Tostes, so there will be more for Emma to do there. However, I don't think she will be satisfied until she's living the life she experienced at the ball. She and Charles have already become distant, and I think she'll try to find someone else in the new setting.
After a heavy illness staying in Tostes, Emma was diagnosed to need to change her place. A state of "wishing to die, as well to live in Paris", Emma grew irritated and desolate with everything around her such that she gave up music, drawing and embroider (52). Realizing nothing would improve in Tostes, Charles decided to give up his everything accumulated over four years including his wealth, his reputation, etc and moved to Yonville in hopes of curing Emma's sickness. This transition embodies Emma's desire for new things in her life as if a fish for the sea. The changing setting also decides Emma's capricious character throughout the story, though I am not sure for now how Emma likes the new town. I don't think Charles pick the right place. What Emma wants is the life with adventure and excitement, where the civility of gentlemen and ladies could influence her and make her as well elegant, accustomed to fansy and luxurious life of the high social-status. But the people in Yonville seems secular and plain as Charles. After all, incapable of knowing Emma and her needs, Charles chose the town on the grounds of its practicality, such as the size of the population, the income of doctors there, etc. Perhaps a change of air could help Emma in some way but I don't view the change optimistically especially, Emma was still angry when she lost her greyhound in the new place. From there we see no change of her, had it been a place like Paris, Emma wouldn't have been dominated by such a cranky mood. If Yonville finally turns out a place too "Tostes-like" or "Charles-like", Emma is never to be satisfied and perhaps the real antidote is to expect someone new in her life.
ReplyDeleteIs Charles sacrificing too much for Emma by moving to Yonville?
DeleteYes. But Charles doesn't know what Emma wants unfortunately, so he can't provide the "right" happiness. He is just an honest ordinary man who wants to live a peaceful life. But I don't know if it is a part of the responsibility of a husband under the context that one should give "unconditional love" to his wife, as Charles did. Yet the result of the migration and sacrifice did turn out a little tragic because neither of Charles nor Emma was pleased in the new place as far.
DeleteThere is much significance in the setting of Madame Bovary. The setting is so significant, it effects the health of the main characters. While Emma is living in Tostes, she gets physically sick. Charles realizes this is because she is not happy and moves to another town for her. Emma however, does not even realize Charles attempt to make her happy and continues to romanticize her time at the ball.
ReplyDeleteAfter their move to Yonville, the town itself seems to represent Emma and her feelings. It seems as if Yonville is just as dull as Tostes in the description. We have not seen Emma interact a lot with the town yet. The first chapter of part 2 gave us a detailed description of the town, and that is what most of the chapter was devoted to. From the description, the town does not seem it will change how Emma feels which makes me confused on Charles decision to make the move. But I do understand that at this point he is willing to try anything to get his wife back to the way she used to be. This makes me feel bad for Charles because he tries to be the best husband he can, but Emma does not seem to care.
Emma is her setting. What I mean by this, is that she is completely effected by what is going on around her. This is because she always is craving for something new. She was not satisfied with her life as a woman of the church, and now she is not satisfied with her life as a married woman. I expect that in this new setting, Emma will also crave for a new life. But because she is stuck with her husband, she will find a way of doing this without her husband knowing. She is not satisfied with who her husband is, so I would not be surprised if she fell in love with another person or tried to get rid of Charles. Although this is what I expect to happen, I hope that she will overcome her obsession with always wanting to do something new, and be satisfied with her wonderful husband Charles.
I think the setting is one of the largest factors in Emma’s mood. This was definitely true with the ball. Because the ball is a new place she is immediately fascinated, happy, and excited. She was the same way with the new house, but over time she became bored with it. The same thing likely would’ve happened with the ball if she spent enough time there based on her past behavior. I also think, in this book, setting is largely a driving force in the story. The setting is what begins to bring Emma down, and is what makes her restless and eventually “sick”, so they need to move. The setting I think, in kind of the reverse, is also metaphorical of Emma’s mood. I think this is really true with the new town that they’re moving to. The town is really sad and dreary and that’s how Emma feels right now. I think there is a significant relationship between setting and Emma’s emotion, but both seem interdependent. Because Emma, for the most part, is the view point we the reader get, if she isn’t happy, the setting isn’t as wonderful. If she is happy, it’s magical. For all we know the ball could’ve actually been pretty terrible, but because Emma was so fascinated, everything seemed fascinating to us. The setting also changes the tone of the story a little. This too I think is dependent on Emma’s emotion, but regardless, as the story goes on, so far, the setting has become darker and more quiet. There is some irony here because as the setting becomes more quiet and peaceful, Emma becomes louder and more furious. I think this idea of setting is really important for the story because it seems to be a central focus of the story and reflects Emma’s attitude towards the world and her husband.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if setting has an influence on Emma or if Emma has an influence on the setting. The setting seems to change when Emma's mood changes. For instance, when Emma is at the ball she is quite happy, awestruck even and the same goes for when she went from the farmhouse she was stuck in with her injured father to her new house with Charles. As soon she becomes bored with those though the setting seems to change. But much like Jon said the ball could have been completely different than how it appeared in Emma's eyes. It could have been dreary and boring but she saw it as magnificent and grand and so her mood was a reflection of that. This is where I become confused because was her mood pleasant because of the ball and it's fabulousness or was the ball a big deal because of her mood? Now that she is yet again unsatisfied with what she has been given and has moved to Yonville, Yonville is now perceived as miserable, dark, and awful. Is this because she is unhappy? Personally I think Emma is being quite selfish and is expecting so much out of life without working for any of it and her unhappiness is brought on by herself. I don't think she has the opportunities to change much but she needs to take a step back and look at her and her behavior. The setting could possibly change if she saw herself in reality and not the fantasy in her head.
ReplyDeletePeople in NYC and people in Cheshire have different life styles such as atmosphere, attitude and way to talk because where they live are different so, Emma’s attitude and behavior determined by setting. Moreover, the reason that author changed setting is to show how Emma’s mood built through change of her location. In part 1, author showed the readers all Emma’s vision, kind of imagination, which she wants to have in reality. However, place in part 2 is opposite to where Emma wants to live. Therefore, Emma’s attitude changed negatively. Whether the new place is objectively nice place, Emma will see everything badly because it doesn’t what she wants. Her emotion is built dramatically since there is a big gap. Her unhappiness came from board place in part 2.
ReplyDeleteThe setting of the story is the explanation for why Emma becomes so unsatisfied with her life. She doesn’t like the world where she is living in right now, instead she wants better and more romantic world. She is continuously blaming her marriage and Tostes. Her living place and her “dull” life cause her to desire for more and more. She certainly believes that her current life does not fit well into her. After she goes to the ball, she becomes much more sentimental than before. She feels embarrassed at the current life she is living, because she once thought that the life once she was seeking for is the beautifulness at the ball, and she believed she could live that kind of life; however now her life is so mundane, nothing special, and her non-ideal life is gradually leading her to sorrowfulness, which Emma will never recover from.
ReplyDeleteThe setting is very important to the novel because it relates to Emma. Emma's romantic fantasies are disappointing her by the reality around her. Emma starts going crazy because of the harshness everyday reality. Her personality seems to shift depending on the setting she's in in the novel; each setting has a different reality and ever reality interrupts her dreamy life. I do not believe it's a positive thing that her personality changes as her reality changes because in the farm she always complained about being bored because she couldn't have the life those in romantic novels have. Another example would be how mean she was to Charles in the ball, in my opinion, because his personality did not fit the enthusiasm or the personality of that in a romantic novel, or her dreamy dreams. She wants to be the center of attention, she wants to be entertained and she wants to live in a dream. Therefor, maybe the move to Yonhill would be more eventful which will help her become happier, and not feel like her life is empty, especially now that she's losing hope.
ReplyDelete