Madame Bovary and The Lady with the Dog - Assignment Example

College: Madame Bovary and The Lady with the Dog Introduction The novel, Madame Bovary, and the short story, The Lady with the Dog, are two different narratives written in the 18th Century. Madame Bovary is a marriage and relationship story authored by Gustave Flaubert. This novel was first published in the year 1856. The latter, The Lady with the Dog, has a quite similar story line even it was published decades later in 1899; authored by Chekhov Anton. These two books have uncountable similarities that have been evidently brought out in the plot development and themes. This essay shall, following the said aspects, describe and analyze such similarities, in an attempt to compare the two narratives. Firstly, the plots in the narratives shall be briefly compared in separate reviews. The comparative analysis of the themes observable in these plots shall follow. Plot Comparison Madame Bovary In this novel, the co-main character, Charles Bovary, has been described as of little talents and less charismatic. Charles Bovary is a doctor working in the country side. He happened to marry but his beloved wife died and left him a widower, who, takes quite a long time before remarrying. Emma, who would later become Charles’ wife, is young lady who grows up in a convent. Here, she is constrained and her movements are limited. When she met Charles, her dreams of freedom and luxury had been rejuvenated. She is very energetic and anxious to explore her youthful world. As she had believed that marriage and love was the only way of finding the ultimate happiness, Emma puts a lot hopes in this unity of a husband and wife. A few years later, Emma finds out that Charles was not just the man for her. He is as agile as she had thought. Charles is not exciting at all yet Emma, as young and beautiful as she was, wished to have more adventures in the world of love. Coincidentally, she meets another lonely heart with whom they shared common visions and fantasy. This new young is Leon; a clerk who is bored with the country side life. However, Emma’s affair with Leon fails to fully take off as Leon decides to leave for Paris sooner than she had thought. Emma’s quest for a luxurious life was not deterred by the departure of Leon. She soon finds comfort in the arms of another young man; Rodolphe. She is so much into him and even into debts while trying to please him. She would not listen to Charles, her matrimonial husband. She mounts pressure on Rodolphe to elope with her to a more exciting life in town. To her dismay, Rodolphe escapes and leaves alone. She is back to her boring husband. One day, while with her husband, Emma bumps into her long gone love, Leon. They strike another deal of continuing with their old affair. However, she got a big shock when she soon realizes that Leon is just as boring and conservative as Charles. The frustrations lead her suicide. Charles is left in a misery and trauma. The Lady with the Dog Here, like in the case of Madame Bovary, an adulterous intimate affair between Gustov and a married young lady, Anna, leads to the misery of their spouses. Gustov, a banker in Moscow, is married with two children. However, his marriage does not seem to excite him at all, just like Emma in Madame Bovary. He, therefore, ties to explore other avenues. He goes to job and after, goes clubbing. One day, while on a vacation, Gustov catches a glimpse of a young beautiful lady walking by the sea side with a dog. It was Anna. She is also on a vacation on the same beach at Yalta. The two get to know each other and start an affair soon afterward. Luckily, Anna’s husband, who was to join her at Yalta, develops an eye problem and cancels his journey. He then directs Anna to return home. Gustov also leaves Yalta for Moscow to continue with his boring life. While back in Moscow, Gustov develops such a strong nostalgia for the moments they had shared together with Anna. Therefore, he cheats his wife that he has to go to St. Petersburg in the lie of duty. He sets off to find Anna even though he does not her exact location. Through inquires he finds her residence but was afraid to reach. Later that evening, he miraculously meets Anna in a club. However, she was with her husband and was scared by the presence of Gustov. This incidence is similar to that in Madame Bovary when Emma met Leon while in the company of his husband. Anna, having confessed that she had also missed him, sends Gustov off and promises to visit him in Moscow. Days later, she cheats her husband that she had to see a doctor in Moscow. The husband “believes and does not believe” (Chekhov, 29). Gustov is very excited when Anna finally made it to Moscow. However, they have one barrier; their legitimate spouses. Unlike in Madame Bovary where, only Emma was a married partner mingling with single men, both Gustov and Anna had existing marriages. Comparative Themes Infidelity/lust/infatuation These themes have been presented in both the narrative as a pack of interdependent themes; as one act leads to the other. The lust and infatuation of Emma, Anna and Gustov led them to commiting adultery. The said characters had well established marriages but failed to be faithful to their matrimonial spouses. Emma went overboard to have an affair outside her marriage with two men; Leon and Rodolphe. He saw them as young and vibrant men who do her more good than Charles. The lustful eyes of Gustov would not get off Anna. When he went back to Moscow, he could not stop the lust. They consistently committed adultery; both of them being married people. Realism/Fantasy Realism is the attitude of accepting the situation as it is and moving on. It is being real. Fantasy is living in a non-existent world; a world of imagination and only full of good things. Before Emma married Charles, she had been imagining a smooth and sweet life of marriage and love. She thought the husband could take her on the top of the world, being a doctor. Gustov had imagined the same. However, they were yet to encounter the reality. Charles had no much time to spend with Emma, who was so much outgoing. He was a serious man with less creativity. Gustov and Anna also met their unbearable realities. They realized that life is not always what one would wish for. To avoid the reality, they create another fantasy by seeing other partners outside their marriages. They are still determined to pursue their fantasized lives. However, as eventually seen in these narratives, the reality will always carry the day. Fantasy turning into a reality is clearly evident when Leon turns out to be even a very boring man for Emma. Marriage/Family Marriage has been portrayed as a very complicated institution that does not easily work out for most people. Various persons enter into marriages with different expectations, many of which are always very high and hardly unachievable. Emma’s marriage with Charles could not work out since she had put a lot of expectations of it. Gustov and his wife might have had different goals while entering into their marriage. When one does not realize his goals, he is frustrated and decides to try out other means. The unfaithfulness in such marriages led to formation of dysfunctional families. Gustov, a father of two, was giving a bad example to his young children by cheating on their mother. These children grow in the absence of the father who is always clubbing and does not spare time to guide them. The children may ape the acts of their father when they grow up. Conservatism/Modernism/Luxury One aspect is common in both the stories. The partners being cheated on have been depicted as conservatives while the cheaters as modernists. The modernists aim at achieving a very fine and high standard modern life while the conservatives aim at retaining their integrity and morals. Emma, for instance is very obsessed with the urban life. She is bored with the life at the country side. This was why she had made all the effort in pleading with Rodolphe to elope with to more modern life. The husband, who is quite conservative, seems to be contended with what life provides. Gustov has embraced modernity by neglecting his traditional marriage and clubbing daily. Modernism has been merged with luxury. All these main characters had been pursuing luxurious life. Gustov found luxury in regular vacations and clubbing, so did Anna. Emma was in pursuit of the same luxury when she left Charles. However, the pursued luxury turned out to be very expensive and unattainable, especially for Emma. It only implies that the human needs are unlimited and can never be satisfied. Fate The theme of fate has been portrayed by how the spouses meet each other in unlikely circumstances. None of them could redesign their marriages. They had admired a luxurious life with their partners but fate gave then otherwise. It was by fate that Emma married Charles. He had lost his wife and so he had married Emma in place of the long gone wife. He had never planned this but fate made it. If his wife had not died, Emma would have married a different person, may be more exciting than Charles. It was also by chance that Emma and Leon met again. They had not planned any meeting and each of them had decided to move on with life. The very fate brought Gustov and Anna in one club after a long time without contacts. These narratives tell us how fate guided the ancient life; when the means of communication was very limiting. Comparative Rhetoric Dilemma When Emma meets Leon for the second time in Madame Bovary, she was with his husband. Here was Leon, her long lost love and, on other side, her matrimonial husband; Charles. She is caught in between. Shall she denounce her husband in public and take the hands of Leon? Shall she tell Charles the truth? Will she let Leon walk away again? That was the dilemma before she could decide to take on one side. When died, her husband is also torn into two; whether to think about her good side as a wife or her dark side as unfaithful partner. The unfaithful has died. Shall he mourn or rejoice? In another instances in The Lady with the Dog, Anna happened to meet Gustov while with her husband. She is also caught in the same situation as Emma. The situation becomes very tricky and unbearable. She attempted to hide from Gustov but he followed her. The two, Gustov and Anna were later caught in a dilemma when they did not know of what to do with their existing partners. Gustov could decide on whether to denounce his children in order to be with Anna. Irony/Paradox While the audience may expect the conservative partners to react on the infidelity displayed by their spouses, they have been portrayed as being ignorant and quiet about it. It would only be conventional to the lay reader if the victimized partners had reacted. Another paradox has been created when one individual reacts as if he or she does not like another yet they do. Leon left Emma in the country side to look for a better life yet he comes back to have an affair with the woman he had neglected. Anna ran away from Gustov when they met in the club and when he caught up with her; she confessed that she had missed him too. Work cited Checkhov, Anton. The Lady with the Dog. Yalta: Russkaya Mysl. 1899. Print Gustave, Flaubert. Madame Bovary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1856. Print “The Lady with the Dog”: A Curtain-Up Review. http://playtosee.com/page.php?sad=play&id=1427 Read More