When Fantasy Takes Over Reality Essay Research

When Fantasy Takes Over Reality Essay, Research Paper

Diana Trister

June 2, 2000

When Fantasy Takes Over Reality

Emma Bovary, like most people, dreamed of a life full of fantasy, excitement, mystery, and wonder. However, unlike most people, Emma Bovary let her fantasies take over her reality and eventually her happiness which, lead her to live a life full of misery and utter disappointment. Furthermore, her unrealistic perception of living ultimately led to her sad downfall.

When Emma was a young woman living on her father’s farm, she led a somewhat sheltered life. Since her mother had died, Emma had to take on the role of being the “woman of the house.” She cooked, cleaned and helped her father on the farm. None of these things were very glamorous. It seemed as though Emma needed to get out of the situation. She was bored, and she wanted to live the life that she saw on the pages of her books, and Charles seemed to be the person she thought could bring glamour and fantasy into her life. However, in the end, it seemed like no one could bring what Emma saw as happiness into her life.

Emma first discovered the “good life” when she went away to the convent. Since many things were restricted, and life was kind-of dull, Emma discovered the power of books. Books took her to fantastic places, full of mysticism and romance. She soon began to become obsessed with books; they were her only window to the outside. Emma also began to try to find parallels with her life and the world of fantasy. “Even in the midst of her raptures, she had always maintained a propensity foe the concrete; she had loved the church for its flowers, and literature for the power to stir up passion. (34)” After a while, the real world seemed rather boring and lifeless, and she became determined to find and better life, a life like the one in her books. “And she tried to find out exactly what was meant in life by the word ‘bliss,’ ‘passion,’ and ‘rapture,’ which seemed so beautiful to her in books. (30)”

Emma met Charles, who seemed (at the time) the one person who could steer her away from the dull and ordinary, into a life of glamour. She may have thought she was in love with Charles at first, but she was ignorant and believed she was when she really wasn’t. However, Charles was genuinely in love with Emma and loved her more than life itself. It wasn’t soon before Emma started to become disenchanted with Charles and found him boring. She felt as though he didn’t care enough about her to put in any effort to make their life together as romantic and wonderful and possible. This started as early as their honeymoon. “To taste their sweetness, she and her husband would have probably gone off to those countries with romantic names where newlyweds can savor their bliss in such delicious languor! They would have slowly climbed the steep slopes in a post chaise with blue silk curtains, listening to the postilion’s song echoing among the mountains, along with the tinkling of goat bells and the muffled roar of waterfalls.If she only could lean over the balcony of a Swiss chalet, or enclose her melancholy in a Scottish cottage, with a husband wearing a long black velvet cloak, a sugar loaf hat and fancy cuffs! (34, 35)” Anyone who comes up with this scene as their honeymoon and expects to have a honeymoon such as thins is most certainly setting him/herself up for disappointment. Emma seemed quite disappointed with what her honeymoon was like, and saw it as being Charles’ fault. “And yet it seemed to her if Charles had made the slightest effort, if he had been at all perceptive, if his glance had only once penetrated her thoughts, an abundance of feeling would suddenly have been released from her heart, like ripe fruit falling from a tree at the touch of a hand. (35)”

After the honeymoon, Emma’s feelings towards Charles seemed to head in the same direction. She had become more and more disenchanted with him, and marriage in itself. She stayed with Charles even though she knew that he was not her prince charming. “Charles’ conversation was as flat as a sidewalk, and it was traversed by a steady stream of the most commonplace ideas, all wearing their usual and appealing to neither the emotions, the sense of humor, nor the imagination. (35)”

Emma soon realized that Charles couldn’t make her happy, and make all her dreams come true. So she decided that she decided to take matters into her own hands. To life a life of fantasy and glamour she had to look the part. So Emma bought many expensive outfits and furnishings for her home, which she could barely afford, and she kept on buying them even though she knew that her bill was running high. At the time, bills didn’t really matter to Emma; she was much too preoccupied in living the life of her dreams. Emma also started to meet new people. The first person that she became interested in was a man by the name of Leon. He was a handsome, well-educated man who shared the same passion for all things beautiful. They could talk for hours about sunsets, and mountains, as well as literature. Emma became more and more infatuated with him. However, while this was going on, Emma was pregnant with Charles’ baby, which eventually became the greatest victim of this so-called marriage. She wanted the baby to be a boy so it can live a free life and do what he wants, unlike a girl who is restricted from many grand things. To Emma’