Tell us how you really feel Flaubert

A solid portion of our class disucssion has been centered around Gustave Flaubert's us of Madame Bovary as social commentary.  It seems to be generally accepted that Flaubert's main objective was to comment on the desparity between the lack of opportunity for the middle class to move upward, and their insatiable need/attempt to.  We've also spent time disucussing the 'like-ability' of the characters, and struggling to define what approach we are to take in regards to interpreting the characters actions and motives through Flaubert's eyes.  And, after finishing the novel I truly believe that Flaubert meant to put a majority of the characters in as poor a light as possible. 

Emma spends nearly the entire novel in and out of various affairs, continually misleading her husband, and neglecting her dedication to marriage and parenthood.  At times, the novel almost lures you into fealing sorry for Emma by presenting her as this terribly tragic character, who's simply the unfortunate product of the wrong time period.  But, in the end Flaubert puts that to rest, and has Emma poisin herself.  Charels on the other hand is painted as a loser from the start.  He honestly and graciously trudges down his sad, pathetic path the entire novel, and you cannot help but feel sorry for him.  Regardless, in the end Flaubert has him meet a similarly sad ending - dying of grief, discuss, and betrayel after uncovering all of his wife's adulteries.

I feel like when we read a work like Madame Bovary - with such realistically grim plot - we as sensible human beings, search for redeeming characteristics within the characters and stories.  But the truth is, when you read this novel cover to cover - at least to me - it comes off as Flaubert just trashing the middle class.  I think he truly believes everyone outside his tax bracket is somehow less significant.  Every character that did not possess some kind of great wealth, knowledge, or prestige suffered an equally dreary and disappointing fate.   

Emma = Self-Destruction

I've essentially trashed Emma Bovary as a character every chance I've gotten since we've started reading Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and I'm not going to pass this chance up either.  In fact, I'd like to continue Wednesday's class discussion.  Now, I realize that Emma is a prisoner to a chauvinistically saturated time, and I do not agree with the the policies of the time in regards to women, and I am by NO means a sexist.  Having said that, Emma - in my eyes - the manifestation of all that encompasses weakness and irresponsibility.  Regardless of the fact that, to this point, Emma has not acted physically on any of her thoughts, and that we get the story from her perspective - allowing for a much more personal view into Emma's thoughts and urges - she still manages to garner my disdain.  My father always taught me that being tough wasn't necessarily about your outward appearance or the stories you could tell, but about your ability to control your own fear and destructive thoughts inside your mind.  Emma continually undermines everything she tries so desperately hold together by allowing her thoughts to consume her.  She makes the conscious decision to invest beyond her means in the desires that come to dismantle her life, piece by piece.  And I wholeheartedly believe that if Emma's character existed in any later time in history she would still be as empty, cold, and confused as she is now, because that is who she is at her core, and that is how she has come to understand herself.   

Like most artists, the content of Dante’s works are deeply rooted in the context of the time.  Most specifically, Dante’s Divine Comedy is irrefutably tied to the political strife of late-thirteenth-century Florence, Italy.  Like a majority of Europe, Italy in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries was a stage for the all too apparent power struggle between church and state.  Following the death of the last legitimate Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, the premier Italian party, the Guelph’s, separated into two factions:  the White party, who supported the Holy Roman Empire; and the Blacks, who supported papal governmental control.  Dante, an influential White Party leader, unfortunately found himself on the losing end of the Florentine power struggle, which ultimately led to his long, arduous, and melancholy exile.  Dante’s hardships in public policy and his disdain of the papal followers, namely Pope Boniface, helped him shape the Hell he conveyed in his Divine Comedy – a hell in which Pope Boniface and his followers most surely have a seat.     

Dido's Suicide: A Medium for Control or Helplessness

In class wed we discussed the fallout of Aeneid and Dido's relationship: one that was so delicately forged, and then so violently destroyed. Aeneus and Dido both suffered the crippling despair resulting from their spouse's untimely death. Aeneus arrived in Dido's kingdom as a guest, immediately following escaping his fallen City of Troy. With his family and home destroyed in a blaze of Greek vengeance, Aeneus is forced to start anew, regardless of his obvious vulnerabilities. Dido, fresh off some hardships of her own, has been ruling her kingdom since her plotting brother murdered her beloved husband in an attempt to usurp the thrown. unbeknownst to both Aeneus and Dido, Aeneus' mother, Venus, instructs the God of Love, Cupid, to shoot Dido with one of his magical arrows, immediately causing Dido to fall deeply in love with Aeneus. Dido and Aeneus both struggle to shed their connection in fear of dishonoring their late spouses, but their love proves to be too strong and they forge a relationship. Enveloped completely by their love, Dido loses sight of her goal of rebuilding and restructuring her kingdom, and in turn she loses her public support.
Then, in a divine turn of events Aeneus is visited by Mercury, the messenger God, who tells him that in order to fulfill his destiny he must journey to Italy, where he is to start an empire o previously unimaginable proportions. On cue Aeneus begins ramping up for his voyage. Dido learns if Aeneus' plans to leave and is destroyed. She confronts Aeneus, but to no avail. Crushed again, Dido is left in her kingdom, surrounded by darkness, and encapsulated in fear, she takes her own life atop a makeshift shrine to Aeneus.
Throughout the entirety if the Aeneid is clearly the hero. Still, unlike most works of this time period Dido, a female character, is depicted in a position of power. But, I question whether or not Dido possesses the internal strength to lead, and o web be in control. She is a leader of a kingdom who has survived opposition to rebuild/restructure a paradise in her own likeness, BUT she accepts her destiny as a failure when she takes her own life. In class we discussed suicide as being an exposition in control, but I believe it is in weakness. We have seen our heroes battle monsters, defeat spells and curses, escape the clutches of demigods, and even laugh in the face of the gods themselves; but when Dido, a 'female heroin', is faced with another heartbreak and a displeased kingdom she takes the easy way out and removes herself from
The situation, rather than fight for herself. Suicide is an escape, and some may say that staging an escape is an exercise in control. But, is it really, when what you are escaping from is helplessness?

What Makes a Hero?

For a majority of class Wednesday we focused on the theme of heroism, and more specifically in regards to Odysseus.  Personally, I have always viewed Odysseus as a heroic character, especially considering The Odyssey is an epic poem, but not all of you were quite as convinced.  And, that made me think - What makes a hero?  Must a hero have a specific goal or drive?  Are heroes a product of their environment/culture?  Is one's hero all's hero?
In my eyes, a hero is more than a winner.  My hero does not have to be the biggest, strongest, or fastest; nor does he need to be the richest or most powerful.  For me, heroism is most synonymous with leadership.  Leaders and heroes are competetive without depending on success, demanding but still caring, strong but still in touch with emotion, charismatic without being austentacious, and most importantly leaders and heroes perservere.  Odysseus, is a hero.
Against all intuition Odysseus leaves his kingdom, embarking on a journey towards Troy, where he fights and wins the Trojan war.  But Odysseus' win at Troy was just the first step in a journey that would ultimately take him over 20 years to complete.  For 20 long, arduous, bloody years Odysseus struggled to return home to his wife and his son.  At every turn he was led further astray from his path, and further away from his family.  He battled against the strength and brutality of the cyclops, the tempting, compelling words of Circes, endured 7 years of capture with the demigod Calypso, and endured years upon years of lost fatherhood and husbandry.
But what did Odysseus do? - He perservered.  Odysseus, after 20 years of travel returned home to his son, his wife, and his kingdom; but, no before outwitting and crushing all opposition of the suitors that had inhabited his palace.  I realize that Odysseus has flaws, and in heinsight there are points during his journey which differen't and perhaps more time and effort economical choices could have been made, but he is human.  And, while some may argue that in this world of Greek mythology that human are merely pawns of the Gods, this pawn conquered, this pawn forged past the knights, past the bishops and rooks, and past the queen to the king.  Check mate.

Polytheism the Issue

This week I would like to concentrate on Book V of Homer's The Odyssey, more specifically how the polytheistic beliefs of the Greeks, and most specfically Odysseus, weaken his character as a true hero.  I fully realize that in the time of Homer not only did the Greeks, and most of the Western World, believe that divine intervention was a true and realistic possibility, but also that it serves for entertaining text; however, to me, it serves as a hero's crutch.  In Book V, The Odyssey picks up with Oysseus in the midst of his own hell:  he has been marooned on an island, a slave of the irresistbale nymph Calypso.  In short, Calypso holds Odysseus captive on her island.  Every night she lures him to her bed, and every day he weeps in regret and pain.  And, at the conclusion of Book V Odysseus, with the help of Hermes, is able to trick Calypso into allowing his freedom from the island and more importantly her temptuous grasp.  Here, where most see a mortal man who, with his cunning, has worked his way to being one step ahead of the demigod Calypso, I see an easy way out.  Calypso, or any demigod or God for that matter, are excuses.  Excuses for action and poor excuses for escape and weakness.  To me, a true hero does not need infallable, divine enemies to conquor in order to be great, a true hero needs cunning, guile, strength, and honor.  Odysseus' true enemy should lye more in the Trojans - fellow men, who like Odysseus bleed, smile, and weep.  In all honesty, I feel the impossiblity of theses divine interventions take away from the truly epic hero Odysseus could be.