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.