Madame Bovary: Part 2

Is it odd that I still have little to no sympathy for Emma? Blame my upbringing, blame my personality type, but I still could careless for her as a character.  In all seriousness  even after the surgical blunder I still favor Charles, I mean these kind of medical accidents were commonplace and he just so happened to give my future field of occupation a little push in the right direction. Yes he attempted the procedure with the wrong intentions but many factors could be to blame, I mean Madame Bovary was finished around 1856, however aseptic technique only came into the eyes of the medical system around the late 1860's, before that discovery nearly 80% of people who underwent surgery contracted gangrene. Therefore I was surprised that Hippolyte just lost the leg and not his life, but I digress! That is just my opinion based on my background. I really found no sympathy for Emma except that I felt for her being trapped in the time period she was in. She made poor financial decisions with her innocent husbands money, had affairs on his dime while he stayed at home worrying, became a hysterical mess to her own delusions, and ultimately ruined their household and daughters future. Yes, its a lot to blame on one woman but she really didn't experience the consequences of any of her actions except for the fear of being found out when the debt collectors came knocking. I was less impressed by her affair with Rodolphe, she pines over a man who is just using her and cares so little about her that he wont even cry on her dear john letter and pretends to go on a trip. Great life choices Emma. While Rodolphe is a tool and uses her, shes not the first and we learn about this in the letter box scene. The box of letters and trinkets symbolizes a trophy case for Rodolphe, sure he doesn't even remember some of his conquests but he darn well has proof of all of them. Like any good misogynist women are objects to Rodolphe and they simply exist to entertain him and when he grows bored of them he'll throw them in a box and carry on. Now reflecting on the events that led up to Emma's suicide its interesting that this was one of the few times I felt sympathy for her, she ran out of resources and saw no solutions to her situation. I should have been able to predict her suicide but instead I was banking on her simply being so overcome by the situation that her heart gave out, or perhaps paying some homage to Melibea by jumping off the roof. Everything that lead up to her suicide including the ending of two affairs and her mad dash for money all made sense, it was as if her illusion had finally been shattered and the cold harsh reality was slowing seeping into her. When Emma was finally woken up out of her delusional life she came to the realization that the desire that fueled her was being cooled by the reality of her situation, she couldn't afford her borrowed life style that made her existence bearable, her suitors couldn't whisk her away from all her troubles and for the most part they didn't care about her. When all of this came crashing down upon her head Emma could only see one escape from the life in which she would have to face the reality of her decisions and in which she had nothing left to desire. Her choice of poisoning would have been my third guess at how she was going to off herself, women are prone to such a thing because generally speaking we don't like to die unattractive deaths if we can help it. Overall I'll still declare myself a Charles fan, I felt like the poor fellow was constantly getting walked upon and bowled over, whereas Emma in her defiant pseudo-feminism went about things in entirely the wrong way and as a result everybody suffered including herself.

Madame Bovary: Part 1

To begin I would be lying to myself horribly if I said that this text did not alienate me, Therefore in all efforts to be an honest person I'll put it out there bluntly: I could not relate to a majority of this text at all. However that being said it does not mean that I did not find Madame Bovary to be interesting. Personally I derived a unique form of entertainment from this first half of the book because I found myself so far removed from Emma that she became a novelty to me. Now Charles on the other hand I could find more to relate with from the mild frustration and distraction during his professional studies, to his almost naive approach to relationships. To put it simply Charles does not have an original bone in his body, and if he did he would not have the chutzpah to do anything with it. As a boy he is described as being ordinary with very few defining features except for one of his possessions: His hat, which to put it gently is something that I imagine to look like Parisian runway fashion crossed with a monster of Dr. Frankensteins, but to each his own. From the narrators point of view the hat seems to represent a misfit, something that was put together with the best of intentions but falls flat when it comes to a cohesive execution, somewhat like Emma herself. Even if it is a stretch of the imagination I saw a connection from that hideous hat to the staring attraction herself, consider the fact that her father sent her to be well schooled in a convent and that she was taught all of the skills a lady needed to possess in those times: reading, singing, playing the piano, painting, sewing, ect. However when the time came for all of those skills to be executed in such a manner that it might make her husband happy she falls short due to her own personal disinterest in Charles and eventual disdain for his presence. Emma is a complicated creature for the majority of the time she is incapacitated from doing much of anything useful due to her self invented boredom. By dreaming up lives of grandeur she progressively grows discontent with her normal lifestyle and fails to find anything of valuable interest unless it is a newly attentive male party. Her discontentment with normal life comes to a climax of sorts at the La Vaubyésssard ball, where she experiences her first real taste of "the good life".  The experience at the ball while told through her Vaseline lens whets her appetite and fuels her desire for an upper class existence that she may very well never obtain (I guess we'll just have to see how the second half goes). Although Emma feels as if she was born to live in that sect of high society I felt that while she has a certain stateliness about her she tries too hard, after all most high society ladies probably wouldn't dance with the same man twice in a row lest anyone start an unsavory rumor about the pair. A nice growing theme throughout the first half of this story is the excitement that she derives from new men in her life, in the beginning she got a certain amount of pleasure out of Charles but soon grew bored of him because he wasn't rich, good looking, or very interesting. Then she moved on to the Vicomte, a dashingly handsome fellow of high society but his attention only lasted an evening which she would fondly look back upon as if it were a pleasant dream. After the ball her attention becomes focused on the young Leon, who is also handsome but more importantly has the talent of engaging her attention for long periods of time which for Emma is something that can make her days go faster and her step feel lighter. However perhaps the most aggressive of all is Rodolphe, the new bachelor in town who refuses to take no for an answer, and maybe that is what irritated me the most? The fact that shes willing to ignore her husband for most of their marriage and to all together hate his presence for no good reason but when a man she barely knows forces his company on her she just takes it. 

Celestina: Part 2

The second half of Celestina was in a way just as dramatic as I was hoping it would be, the whole plot charged through to the end in quite the Shakespearean fashion providing both closure for the audience as well as a cathartic tragedy all in one. In act 11 the "small chain" as Calisto puts it is one of the most obvious symbols in the whole story, on many levels it represents a binding. To Calisto the chain represents him relinquishing his enslavement to his own misery and heartache that originated from his love of Melibea which he has been freed from upon learning that his affections are returned, it also represents what he might have believed to be his last tie to Celestina herself being that their "contract" was finally fulfilled. However that being said to Celestina the chain represents Calisto being bound to her in favor for presumably an indefinite period of time. A woman like Celestina is respected for two reasons, the first being for her age, talent in her trade, and wisdom, the second being out of fear. Celestina has power over people because she knows their most intimate secrets such as clergy violating vows of chastity, brides who did not maintain their true maidenheads for their husbands to take, and husbands who sought woman besides the wives they took in sanctity. The moment that Calisto enlisted the help of Celestina she knew he would be indebted to her and the payment to Celestina in the form of a chain represented that to her. For Parmeno and Sempronio the chain bound them to Celestina, in the text it literally was the payment they wanted and their desire for their share of it drove them to kill her and ultimately to their own deaths, but on a deeper level it represents the desire that all people experience. It is the powerful force that binds us to destiny and drives us to our fates much like in the case of Parmeno and Sempronio they were powerless to their own selfish desires as was Celestina. In act 14 Calisto finally is able to experience Melibea the way he yearned for the entire story up until that point, while I had assumed his happiness would be apparent that was not the case. Calisto is disappointed by the encounter for its brief timing and the shame that he has brought upon his household. He claims his passion is cooled and now he only feels the pain from where fate has left him at the early hour. His two closest servants were killed ultimately because of his tie to Melibea and he spent relatively little time mourning them, he also feels the shame of giving into his desires and the deep dishonor he has brought upon his ancestors. The theme of these darkened desires is also played up in the interactions between Calisto and Melibea in the way that the only meet in the twilight hours. By society's standards what the two lovers are doing is engaging in immoral behavior, things that could only occur by the dark of night, but the way it is portrayed absolves their passion of sin. The lovers only bathed in reflective moonlight seem pure and entitled to give into their desires, and Melibea being a source of this light in Calistos life is almost a validation of his desires, he is powerless to her and subsequently to his desires like a moth drawn to a flame.

Celestina: Part 1

The opening to Celestina was a wonderful parallel to Adam and Eve but more so it set the tone for a personal intrusion. In literature gardens are often seen as somewhat tamed forms of nature, both beautiful and revered yet private, and by having Calisto stumble into the garden of Meliba is represents the unapproved intrusion of a man into the private sector of her life. While it is not the most subtle of imagery it matches the characters and their attitudes on sex, love and desire which are often frankly put and brutally honest. I do not read Meliba as being totally offended by Calistos intrusion, more so she is disillusioned to his lovestruck manner, and having had a preview to the end she is better for this attitude. While the dialogue between Sempronio and Calisto is comical and biting at the dynamic between the master and conniving servant I can still see him as being a long suffering friend, otherwise I assume he would have just robbed him outright. As a reader I am amazed at the quick onset of Calistos love sickness, normally while love sickness is a well documented phenomenon both in medicine and in creative works the onset is generally post heartbreak but it seems poor Calisto has a weak constitution when it comes to his love for the unattainable image of Meliba, which thankfully is put to good use fueling the plot line. Enter Celestina, the war-profiteer when it comes to human desire, or as she is portrayed by Parmeno "Who could tell you what the old crone did? And all of it was mockery and lies." (26).  She is a woman who earns her living by manipulating people using their desires to breed fear, longing, anguish, and desperation. She draws out this process, as we will see in the case of poor Calisto, for her own benefit.  From a literary point of view Celestina represents the control that desire has over our lives, she is the dark side of love and she knows just how to use it. At first she comes across as a harmless quack who makes a living off of poor saps but soon proves to be the puppeteer of the various human desires that the audience sees coming into play. Parmenos dramatic monologues on Celestina serve to foreshadow, he acts as logic which is always extremely under-voiced in dealing with love, and therefore he will remain hopelessly unheard by Calistos heart yet on occasion as logic will he can validate certain actions of his master unwittingly. The dynamics of the first 10 acts tie in beautifully to the readings on sex regulation. Not only did that provide historical insight and background to Parmenos views of Celestina and her various "professions" both past and present but it also aided in reinforcing just how seriously Celestina could offend the sensibilities of that time (and yet Calisto hopelessly pursues her for "knowledge").