After completing the novel I cannot say that I'm surprised of Emma's outcome. In my mind, Emma is stuck in the state of mind that her life will be like the books she reads- that the perfect fairy tale will find her. In a sense, she does deserve a happy and fulfilled life, just like any other woman would want, however, Emma is only concerned about her own happiness and will constantly neglect those around her if she finds a new source for that happiness.
An example of this can be seen in Charle's surgery. Emma wanted Charles to do the surgery because she knew it would bring him great fame and, in turn, bring her happiness. When Charles is given this idea he is timid, and now that it benefits her life, Emma immediately jumps in saying that he should do it and that he'll be great. I did not take this encouragement from her sincerely at all. Emma only wanted to be the wife of the famous surgeon and have more money and notoriety. Hence, when the surgery is not a success, she instantaneously blames Charles and is angered by him! As if experimenting surgery was wrong. In fact, I did not think Charles was in the wrong for trying to perform the surgery. People criticized him for it but experiments are how modern medicine has become the way it is today.
Besides the "lovingness" that Emma was giving to Charles, she was also secretly seeing Rodolphe. That was her new love and desire. I say "that" instead of "he" because it was the scandal and frill of the affair that Emma had fallen in love with. Rodolphe's money didn't hurt either I bet. When he leaves her, she is stuck with Charles again. Of course, Emma becomes depressed for her fairy-tale life that she thought would be given to her on a silver platter was flushed down the toilet.
Oh woe is Emma. I actually began to feel bad for her when... BAM, Leon's back. Here we go again, new life, new love, blah, blah, blah. A point where you want to flip a few pages in the book and fast forward through the movie. Predictable Emma rekindles her feelings for Leon and now wishes to start again with him.
It's no surprise that in the end Emma takes her own life. It was only a matter of time before she came to the conclusion that her life was not a fairy tale and that she could not live the fancy life that she desired. Still, one does have to feel some sympathy because it was not entirely her fault. Wanting to have wonderful life is no fault but Emma seemed to expect it to just come to her without her doing any work.
As I type and re-read my blog I get angry again like I did when reading the novel. I very much disliked Emma's character for her greediness and selfishness. Even though she was limited in her options, I still would have liked to see her divorce Charles and be shunned by her community than jump from guy-to-guy hoping that that man would give her the life she wanted. I would have liked to see Emma kill herself metaphorically and start a new Emma in a new town with a new life, yet she kills her self for real and I was let down. All that being said, I love when a novel sparks my emotions and subsequently I thoroughly enjoyed Madame Bovary.
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