I do not hate Emma simply because it is too easy to. Her flee from responsibility by way of suicide is extremely annoying and unsatisfying, however, expecting a grim ending to this novel, it could not have ended with such depressing closure without her death. That being said, the person I hate most in this novel is the apothecary, Homais. I remember Kim saying briefly that his presence was peculiar, but a theory of my own arrived when I read page 347: ” And he transfixed her with a stare so knowing and so terrible that she shuddered to the depths of her being.” At first, the reader thinks that look is alluding to her adulterous nature, but it was the exact wording (“so terrible”) that made me think of the devil immediately.
Earler in the chapter she has the brief conversation with Lhereux (336-338 ) concerning her debts. After scolding her he throws expensive lace at her, let’s her write new notes, and dismisses telling her the cost of anything. I can’t put this transaction out of my thoughts. He tells her that he would never say one thing and do another but that seems to be all he does. On page 357, he tells Emma that “pretty things never do any harm.” Obviously, they’ve done the most harm. I think he and Homais are in cahoots.
Her debts send her down a sprialing path of immoral actions. On page 351, “There was a demonic desperation burning in her eyes”. The old saying money is the root of all evil I feel is appropriate here. Throught adultery and gluttony she lost her soul.
The beggar interested me a great deal. Firstly, I loved that her harrassed the apothecary, Homais. The pharmacist calls him ” the poor devil”. And as we later find out at teh book’s end, the beggar tries to discredit Homais’s abilities to cure people. At first I thoguht the beggar a representation of Emma’s monetary situation, but he sings the song that echoes Emma’s woes when she is on her deathbed. Why is he there? He gives face to Emma’s poor state, and he challenges Homais’s supposed good nature. (His quarrel with Homais to which he is sent the the asylum (404-5))
When Emma goes to the tax collector to plead her case and we only see the interaction through spying eyes, he “suddenly recoiled as though he had seen a snake.” This is another Biblical reference to evil, and although it is referenced to Emma, it represents the hold it has on her.
You may say hindsight is 20/20 but once I read the first line I quoted in this post, I knew the book was going to end with Homais. Imagine my surprise when it was so blatant to say that “the devil himself doesn’t have a greater following than the pharmacist.” I really think Flaubert is being obvious here in his intentions with his character Homais. Why wouldn’t he just end with the poor fate of Berthe? Who would possibly be interested in the pharmacist winning an award aftewr reading about Berthe’s cruel future? Homais could be the devil, Lhereux his henchman and expensive possessions his manipulating tool, but who knows.
In regard to my previous post, did you notice how many times the word “pale” was used? Everyone lost color in the end, even Rodolphe. It almost became a very over-used description.
March 2, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Eh I disagree… Emma is an easy character to hate. I have no sympathy for her whatsoever. She is a drama-queen who wishes to live in an ideal world and whenever something happens to pull her from that dream she whines about it. Emma killing herself to me was fitting simply because it put an end to her whining. Also, it showed Emma’s last ditch effort to gain control of her own life one last time. If she couldn’t control her fantasy she could at least have the power to shape her own death.