Analyse the marriage of Charles and Emma in Madame Bovary Essay

Analyse the marriage of Charles and Emma in Madame Bovary - Essay Example Fresh from the love and romance of her books and her fantasies while she is in the convent, Emma expects her husband Charles to â€Å"initiate [her] into the forces of passion†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ but he taught nothing†¦.knew nothing, desired nothing.† As a result, the reality that Emma confronts in her marriage and the interminable dullness set her into a pattern where she becomes ripe for adultery , as she wonders â€Å"just what was meant in real life, by the words felicity, passion and intoxication, which had seemed so beautiful to her in books.† (Flaubert Part I: Ch 5). Her marriage thus becomes a vague, ever present dullness from which she yearns to escape and it makes her a ripe candidate for adultery. Charles’ name â€Å"Bovary† itself appears to suggest the bovine nature of the man. He is dull and unimaginative, while Emma’s maiden name â€Å"Rouault† contains the French word for wheels and thereby suggests Emma’s passionate, exotic nature. What Emma expects from her marriage is a receptivity to her spirited nature so that â€Å"a sudden overflow would have poured from her heart as the ripe fruit falls from a tree when one lays hand to it.† What she finds however, is a dull man who has no imagination at all; although he means well, he is boring and clumsy. The ball given by the Marquis d’Aquevilliers is even more depression for Emma, as she watches the utter inadequacy of her husband to fit in with the nobility that Emma so much desires to be a part of, his smugness and ignorance dampen her ardor considerably. Charles decides to take his pretty young wife to the larger town of Yonville and hands over financial control to her, all i n the hope that she will be pleased.