Madame Bovary's Character Analysis of Term Paper

In the same manner that the bourgeois class had 'imprisoned' the proletariat by letting them aspire to achieve the same wealth and social status that they had, came the looseness of morality required from the proletariat. This is what happened to Emma, whose internal conflict -- that is, whether or not to thoroughly embrace a rich and comfortable life despite her increasing commitment to immorality -- failed to give her the aspirations she had created from the time she had been exposed to the modern, yet sometimes vulgar, life of the rich and elite class.

Frustrated by the lack of fulfillment of her ambitions through her affairs, Emma had become restless and disillusioned in the same way an individual would have acted has s/he not achieved prosperity in the modern capitalist society: "The disappointment of her failure increased the indignation of her outraged modesty; it seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably, and, strengthening herself in her pride, she had never felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt for others. A spirit of warfare transformed her. She would have liked to strike all men, to spit in their faces, to crush them, and she walked rapidly straight on..."

Emma's death at the end of the novel marked the loss of the proletariat to the bourgeois class, especially those, particularly Emma, who was not armed with the new knowledge and skill required of an individual who wished to become part of what seemed to be the new order of the society -- a modern, capitalist society dominated by the bourgeois class.

Bibliography

Flaubert, G. (1857). E-text of "Madame Bovary." Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/mbova11h.htm.

Marx, K. And F. Engels. (1848). E-text of "The Communist Manifesto." Available at http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html.