Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary Essay Question 1

Throughout Flaubert's Madame Bovary the title character, Emma Bovary, is immoral. She constantly lies and mistreats her husband by cheating on him with multiple men and attempting to auction off his belongings. She is always disappointed with her husband, Charles, and, at most times, is even embarrassed to be associated with him. Just by cheating on Charles with Rodolphe and Leon, she performs more immoral tasks than most women even think about. If Emma had any decency, she could have at least been honest with her husband and father of her child, but she could not even bring herself to do that. Emma also ran up huge debt with a local moneylender, and in order to pay off this debt, she devises a plan to auction off Charles' belongings behind his back. Lastly, when she takes the arsenic, whether she meant to commit suicide or not, it was an extremely selfish act. If she meant to kill herself, she was abandoning her husband and child. If she did not mean to, it was still an immoral act because she was trying to live out her romantic fantasy by causing pain to those who truly care about her.

Adultery is one of the most immoral acts a person can commit, and Emma does it more than once, with more than one man. This act within itself is enough to prove that Emma is dishonest. She committed to her husband and then snuck around his back with other men. Emma felt that her life was lacking passion and romance, but there are plenty of other ways to gain those aspects of life other than cheating. She could have voiced how she felt to Charles. That may have inspired him to do things to improve that part of his marriage. Emma knew that her husband loved her, and despite that, she still cheated on him. Also, Emma never told Charles about her affairs which show that even though she did not feel that guilty about what she had done. If a truly moral person ever made a mistake and cheated, the guilt would build upon them eventually forcing them to come clean.

Emma was persuaded into taking out loans from a local merchant that eventually got so out of hand, she was forced to auction off her family belongings. This was irresponsible and very selfish of Emma. She should have realized that after awhile there would be no other alternative to auction but it never occurred to her. What makes the situation worse is that she spent the money she was loaned on spoiling her lovers.