Last Thoughts on Emma...

All the adjectives that come to mind…

Now, upon finishing the book, I have a lot of adjectives to describe Emma Bovary. Selfish, cruel, conceited, reckless, driven by emotions, irresponsible, unrealistic, inane, spoiled, and the list continues. These self-centered aspects of Emma are not just seen at the end, but are seen throughout the story as the novel progresses, it is only ultimately seen at the end when she takes arsenic, poisoning herself, leading to her death.

Emma may be looked upon as someone who is independent and a break-away from society, seeing that women were not supposed to have such freedom over their accounts (as well as their husbands) but her character is truly flawed. She invested her life into the unsuccessful pursuits of a higher social status and passionate lovers, regarding her husband as something flawed and defective. Cruel to him so many times, she would carelessly go off to lovers, leaving him. In addition to that she’d continue to sign notes, sold property without informing him, all for the desire to get herself more materialistic things. And in the end, instead of her death affecting those who she cared about the most, it affected those she hardly paid attention to unless she wanted something.

Everyone moved on in life as if Emma was never alive, but Charles and Berthe remained affected forever. This proves her selfishness. Emma didn’t want to face the debt that she had caused her family, and she didn’t want to face life without a lover that “would go to all limits” for her, so her lack of responsibility drove her to poison herself. And of course this solves the issues in her life, she no longer has a debt and she no longer has to worry about being loved to the extreme. But this just transfers over the weight of her recklessness. Now, Charles is stuck with all the unpaid bills and is left without a wife, Berthe without a mother. And they suffer from her selfishness in ending her life simply because she didn’t want to take responsibility for it. Charles loses his mind, adopting her habits in signing notes for things that he can’t afford, and locks himself up in her memory. So miserable is he that it leads to his death. And then Berthe---innocent in the whole manner suffers the most, ending up with nothing and having to work in a cotton mill.

Everyone else in the novel gets along fine with the death of Emma, unaffected---actually prospering. Its those that she cared about the least that ironically are affected the most.