Since my last post, I’ve started to get back into my book, and read the Sparknotes summaries from the first few chapters so I could understand it better. So far, Charles was made fun of in elementary school, he went to medical school and slacked off, and post-grad, his mom made some arrangements and he was able to practice in fancy area (I’m assuming it’s fancy from what I read in the summary online). Charles’ mom also arranged him a marriage, which was his first wife. Charles gets called to do farm work, where he meets a girl named Emma. Charles starts to develop feelings for Emma while still being with his wife. Emma starts to like Charles as well. Charles’ wife dies suddenly, and after that is when he starts going to the farm more to see Emma, until they eventually get married.
When I first read it, I thought that Charles met someone while working at a hospital and she suddenly died under his care. I’m glad I read the online summary or else I would’ve gotten confused very quick.
After reading the summary and analysis of the first few chapters, I’m a lot more interested in the book! The title of the book, “Madame Bovary” refers to Emma after she married Charles and takes his last name. The first bits of the book focused on Charles and his family instead of Emma. The focus was on Charles’ mom and first wife (which can also be referred to as Madame Bovary). The author did this to show how different Emma is compared to the other women in Charles’ life.
When Charles and Emma were planning their wedding, both had different ideas of what their ideal wedding was, which also emphasized how different they were. As I’ve kept reading, there are a lot of areas where their differences are highlighted. Emma realizes she isn’t as happy in this marriage as she thought she was, and she begins to become dissatisfied with her life. Before I read the book, I looked up what it was about, and one of the main parts of the book is Emma’s unhappiness with her marriage and other aspects of her life as well.
I’m getting more interested in the book, especially after hearing the story focus on Emma and Charles instead of JUST Charles.