BOVARYSME - In psychological terms, bovarysme consists in a change of the sense of reality, in which a person has a distorted self-image, in which he/she considers himself/herself another person (of great and admirable characteristics), which he/she is not. In general terms, bovarysme refers to the state of chronic dissatisfaction of a human being, produced by the contrast between his/her illusions and aspirations (which are usually disproportionate to his own possibilities) and the frustrating reality. It can be characterised as a form of mythomania.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovarismo
I do not agree, because she was unhappy and every unhappy woman picks up an escape valve or she is going to have a compulsion for food or to spend on clothes, expecting that it will fill her need. This psychiatric definition depreciates a person. Who developed the theory of bovarysme, M. Jules de Gaultier, he did not know her, so without living together with her, he could not say it so sharply. I respect his theory, however, I have the daily practice of having a Charles Bovary in my life. Since the cavemen ages, the humanity already was bovaryste, otherwise we would not have any creation. The need is the mother of invention and the pursuit for perfection makes us bovarystes, except if you were born with the silver spoon in hand and you are happy in all senses, what I doubt. Bovary made mistakes. In 1857, the year of publication of the book, the injustice suffered by Gustave Flaubert through the people who had the same opinion as described above, made a genius be wronged. Let's make a small appetizer of Emma Bovary's defense, because I'm human and I want to go to the beach. Let it be noted that I would not do what she did, even my life being similar as regards her single time on some topics:
1) Emma had no mother, but a boring and selfish father who she had to take care of his illness;
2) The young ladies had to get married early and she was passing the age. Until the current days, what woman does not want to get married with a doctor aiming his plastic money and his medical status? Would they be a modern species of Emma Bovary as well? After all, the doctor is the husband, not them, see the definition of Bovarysme described above. The fact that the husband is a doctor and not them, creates in them an expectation of being able to spend and often even humiliate people by their social status, eg "my husband is a doctor, he is an oncologist" , we all need happiness, it's vital, it's the oxygen of life to stay alive;
3) So let's include the suicidal people who, like Emma, ended her life, just like female adultery. Which woman can handle a boring man? Old? Without ambition? And worse, there are those husbands who disgust the woman, just do the missionary position and it is all;
4) When it comes to male adultery, he tells his friends: "She only makes the missionary position, she's too polite, she has no libido and she (the mistress) does everything I want, she even turns me inside out." And us, women, we can not say this, for fearing the judgment of other women;
5) Do you want to see a happy woman? Take her to the shopping mall, give her money or the credit card, say she can spend whatever she wants, without limits. My son, she will buy even what she does not need, but you will have a very happy woman for a few hours;
6) Madame Bovary - Emma - for me, she was not looking for money, but happiness, someone to put an end on the mediocre life she was used to have, but unfortunately she traded 6 for half a dozen, an old and sick father for a boring and lying husband, with no self-opinion, mediocre.
Comment aside: there is a moment in the book in which Charles calls Emma to sleep and says: "Emma, il est déjà tard, viens!" and they get laid at the same time that she looks at the ceiling with an expression of boredom, of supreme unhappiness. How many women moan too much or pretend a headache to be free of the sexual act and the husband that, when satisfied, they turn aside, sleep and to complete, they still snore. So are these wives crazy? Do they have psychiatric illness? No.
7) In a part of the book when M. Lheureux, the peddler, comes to analyse Emma's assets for the execution what she owes him, he gives her to understand that if she were his lover, the debt would be forgiven. She is terribly offended that he thinks she's promiscuous and would tie up as a lover. She gets indignant and it shows that she was looking for love. How many of us do not look for this? The naive only, while the smart ones look for plastic money.
8) Seeing that he does not have support or understanding for her debt, she goes to the pharmacy of M. Homais, the apothecary (this is a real Bovaryst, because he wanted to be a doctor as a pharmacist, and, he was responsible for what happened with Hippolyte by convincing Emma to accept the tempting operation that would give Charles fame and money and if there is a guilty, this is M. Homais), fills the hand with arsenic and takes it all. One proof of the total non-culpability given to Emma is that even with her death, M. Homais convinces Charles - already financially bankrupt - to make a highly exquisite tomb to Emma. It is always good to remember that the dead ones do not spend money, do not eat, do not drink, and even less, they do not demand a magnificent tomb. Am I clear? If there is a victim in fact, or victims, they were Emma and her daughter Berthe, because with the death of the father (Charles), she goes to live with relatives, then they die and she goes to work as a maid in homesteads, while Homais receives a commendation and shows all his arrogance that, in the backstage, it is a great inferiority complex. So, instead of Bovarysm, we should put Homerism.
Poor Emma, whose only sin and great mistake was to believe in men: Rudolphe, Leon, for when she needed it, they turned away.
Emma, after all these years, you're still super current, for better or for worse, with an army of women doing what they've condemned you.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovarismo
I do not agree, because she was unhappy and every unhappy woman picks up an escape valve or she is going to have a compulsion for food or to spend on clothes, expecting that it will fill her need. This psychiatric definition depreciates a person. Who developed the theory of bovarysme, M. Jules de Gaultier, he did not know her, so without living together with her, he could not say it so sharply. I respect his theory, however, I have the daily practice of having a Charles Bovary in my life. Since the cavemen ages, the humanity already was bovaryste, otherwise we would not have any creation. The need is the mother of invention and the pursuit for perfection makes us bovarystes, except if you were born with the silver spoon in hand and you are happy in all senses, what I doubt. Bovary made mistakes. In 1857, the year of publication of the book, the injustice suffered by Gustave Flaubert through the people who had the same opinion as described above, made a genius be wronged. Let's make a small appetizer of Emma Bovary's defense, because I'm human and I want to go to the beach. Let it be noted that I would not do what she did, even my life being similar as regards her single time on some topics:
1) Emma had no mother, but a boring and selfish father who she had to take care of his illness;
2) The young ladies had to get married early and she was passing the age. Until the current days, what woman does not want to get married with a doctor aiming his plastic money and his medical status? Would they be a modern species of Emma Bovary as well? After all, the doctor is the husband, not them, see the definition of Bovarysme described above. The fact that the husband is a doctor and not them, creates in them an expectation of being able to spend and often even humiliate people by their social status, eg "my husband is a doctor, he is an oncologist" , we all need happiness, it's vital, it's the oxygen of life to stay alive;
3) So let's include the suicidal people who, like Emma, ended her life, just like female adultery. Which woman can handle a boring man? Old? Without ambition? And worse, there are those husbands who disgust the woman, just do the missionary position and it is all;
4) When it comes to male adultery, he tells his friends: "She only makes the missionary position, she's too polite, she has no libido and she (the mistress) does everything I want, she even turns me inside out." And us, women, we can not say this, for fearing the judgment of other women;
5) Do you want to see a happy woman? Take her to the shopping mall, give her money or the credit card, say she can spend whatever she wants, without limits. My son, she will buy even what she does not need, but you will have a very happy woman for a few hours;
6) Madame Bovary - Emma - for me, she was not looking for money, but happiness, someone to put an end on the mediocre life she was used to have, but unfortunately she traded 6 for half a dozen, an old and sick father for a boring and lying husband, with no self-opinion, mediocre.
Comment aside: there is a moment in the book in which Charles calls Emma to sleep and says: "Emma, il est déjà tard, viens!" and they get laid at the same time that she looks at the ceiling with an expression of boredom, of supreme unhappiness. How many women moan too much or pretend a headache to be free of the sexual act and the husband that, when satisfied, they turn aside, sleep and to complete, they still snore. So are these wives crazy? Do they have psychiatric illness? No.
7) In a part of the book when M. Lheureux, the peddler, comes to analyse Emma's assets for the execution what she owes him, he gives her to understand that if she were his lover, the debt would be forgiven. She is terribly offended that he thinks she's promiscuous and would tie up as a lover. She gets indignant and it shows that she was looking for love. How many of us do not look for this? The naive only, while the smart ones look for plastic money.
8) Seeing that he does not have support or understanding for her debt, she goes to the pharmacy of M. Homais, the apothecary (this is a real Bovaryst, because he wanted to be a doctor as a pharmacist, and, he was responsible for what happened with Hippolyte by convincing Emma to accept the tempting operation that would give Charles fame and money and if there is a guilty, this is M. Homais), fills the hand with arsenic and takes it all. One proof of the total non-culpability given to Emma is that even with her death, M. Homais convinces Charles - already financially bankrupt - to make a highly exquisite tomb to Emma. It is always good to remember that the dead ones do not spend money, do not eat, do not drink, and even less, they do not demand a magnificent tomb. Am I clear? If there is a victim in fact, or victims, they were Emma and her daughter Berthe, because with the death of the father (Charles), she goes to live with relatives, then they die and she goes to work as a maid in homesteads, while Homais receives a commendation and shows all his arrogance that, in the backstage, it is a great inferiority complex. So, instead of Bovarysm, we should put Homerism.
Poor Emma, whose only sin and great mistake was to believe in men: Rudolphe, Leon, for when she needed it, they turned away.
Emma, after all these years, you're still super current, for better or for worse, with an army of women doing what they've condemned you.
Katia Paes
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