Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - Essay Example

25 May Assignment “…no one can ever give the exact measure of their needs, their ideas, their afflictions, and since human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing-bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.” Flaubert, Gustave Written in the renowned novel by Gustave Flaubert entitled Madame Bauvery, this quote has found place in the hearts of thousands of people around the world, by echoing the voice of philosophy. The novel analyzes the world of a dreamer who feels has failed during to achieve and realize his goals and thus is forced to resort to a life of extravagance. It talks about the lives of Rodolphe and Emma, two lost souls making an attempt to portray their feelings through the perfect words. Flaubert’s philosophy has been inspired by his real life observations and experiences and talks about the life that an individual visualizes for himself and how that ceases to become the reality in his life in a very highly probable manner. In order to express the depression and negative sentiment that a person undergoes because of the same, the author writes that there are very few words in the world. This very philosophy helps the readers understand that despite an array of emotions that an individual might be feeling, he or she can only portray the same through so many words, meaning that vocabulary is extremely less in number when compared to number of feelings that a person may have during the course of his or her lifetime, with respect to different situations. However, since there are a limited number of words in the dictionary, all these feelings get grouped under a single channel of thoughts even though they might be different. The quote above by Flaubert helps in providing different perspectives and an analysis of the various ways in which a man can club his emotions together in order to make something material out of it. His underlying theme talks about the difference between dreams and reality in an individual’s life and how, when that takes over one’s life, makes him completely miserable. The author means to say that there may be many different sentiments that people might be feeling and because one cannot express their feelings exactly to another, the sentiments might also be extremely different from one another, however due to the lack of words; they are characterized similarly, under the same name, losing their unique value. The human tongue has been compared to a cracked cauldron because of the inadequacy that a language suffers. Just like the soup or stew leaks out of the cracks of a cauldron, the human tongue leaks words that fall upon its tips; people barely take time to think before they speak and the words that come out are not the most original aspects of their feelings. By speaking, they actually undermine what they feel inside however; it is a language of expression that they need to communicate to significant others in order to get their message across. The very same vocabulary is used to describe different kinds of feelings and emotions and this is why people are not able to understand each other at times; they spend their lives thinking of words to say when Flaubert writes that actions are more than enough to justify their feelings. An action truly does speak louder than words. Just like the cracks of a cauldron force the big pot to make the soup fall out, the human tongue forces the mind to speak words that would most likely depict its feelings. Words are the outlet that human beings have developed for themselves – a language is quite simply a river within which marine creatures, that are the words, are carried along the current which sometimes may be very strong and at others, soft, depicting the tone or the level of emotion of the speaker of those words. Words thus fall without prior notice; people speak their minds because that is the closes that they come to terms with their emotions in front of others. An individual always feels the need to speak out to others and tell them about what is going on within their minds, especially if it concerns someone else. Flaubert’s quote recognises the existence of stars in the sky – a comparison of the vastness of the universe which is reduced to pity when a human being utters his feelings through series of words, demeaning the worth of his actions and his sentiments by doing so. At this point, when the tongue tips out word from the mouth of a man feeling a passionate emotion, it undermines his feelings and reduces the measure of the pressure of the emotion that tingles his senses, and that is why, the author writes, that even the stars feel pity for such a man because he never learns to simply let his actions be; he does not learn that they need not be supplemented with words or a language all the time and that they are effective without doing so. All a human being wants is to be out with the words for what he feels should be heard by another and does not understand that instead, it should be felt by another. By simply making someone party to one’s feelings, in Flaubert’s words, ‘knocking out tunes for bears to dance to’, one’s feelings are rashly played with and not given the value that they deserve. Flaubert’s philosophy may also be seen in the philosophy of Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, where he depicts the ideas of the storytellers that are on their pilgrimage of life. Through different literary forms, Chaucer has made an attempt to describe the story tellers more than the actual tales in order to help the readers for their impression of their characteristics and then base the stories that they hear, around their traits in order to come closest to some form of morality. He focuses later not on the pilgrimage or the journey but on the stories being told during the journey and the people telling them, especially the manner in which they do so. Like Flaubert thus, Chaucer focuses on the society that influences an individual’s actions as well as the world that a man creates for himself in his mind as opposed to the one he is actually living within. “Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf, For al his kepyng and his jalousye; And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye; And Nicholas is scalded in the towte. This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!” (Chaucer, Geoffrey) Chaucer’s lines depict that every character in the story has learnt his own lesson, and the same is different for everyone because of the existence of different perspectives related to a single thought. Different sentiments and feelings are understood and felt in various ways, which makes it difficult for words to deliver an exact measure of what a person may be seeking. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a poem divided into a twelve part book depicting the beginning of the world as well as a supernatural surrounding that the Earth is a part of as per Christianity, through the actions of Adam, Eve, Satan, and other creatures and characters. The piece is divided into narratives from the point of view of each being, and ultimately, a reader might find it very difficult to interpret the words of the three characters as they undergo similar situations, however by feeling different emotions. Adam and Eve’s story has been depicted both with and without sin, and Satan has been depicted with a great amount of charisma. Milton writes, “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven,” (Milton, John) as a characteristic of Satan, giving people the opportunity to not characterize him as otherwise. Such a sentence would obviously depict Satan to be the ultimate symbol of badness in the world however it is the human tongue after all, classifying through certain words but not being able to explain the feelings attached to the same. Milton and Flaubert’s philosophy may be compared thus on the basis of religion because similar to the ideas of Milton, Flaubert takes a stance on the elite class of society as well as the religious Christian aspect and talks about sins and the idea of morality. By introducing Yonville’s priest and his impact in society in the story, Flaubert compares religion with the ideas of science and depicts how the actions of the people are affected. It is pertinent to understand that the philosophy of expressing one’s feelings and emotions through language is extremely difficult to do so; Chaucer’s story tellers, Flaubert’s estranged lover Emma, and Milton’s Christian perspective all talk about various perspectives hidden behind the veil of sentiments that a person might be undergoing but is not able to express as clearly. It is obviously a very tough task to give an exact measure of one’s ideas because since every individual is entitled to his or her own perspective, he or she is free to think differently regarding the same situation. Flaubert discusses this very viewpoint that even though he might be saying something, another person might be gathering something completely different from the entire discussion. Through the other stories as well, it is easy to notice how the story of one man can be understood differently by another. This is the barrier that language faces – it may be able to tell someone else what the feelings and sentiments of one person might be, however the exactness of the ideas or the measure of correctness within one’s words is always subject to a probability of zero to hundred. One can never be sure of what has been spoken and how it has been perceived by a third party because of the existence of different perspectives. Works Cited Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary;. New York: Random House, 1957. Print. Chaucer, Geoffrey. A Taste of Chaucer; Selections from the Canterbury Tales. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964. Print. Milton, John, and Scott Elledge. Paradise Lost: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1975. Print. Read More