After Reading
I chose to read the novel this winter vacation. I did not mean to read this one, because the author is Gustave Flaubert, a Frenchman, so the English version can t be the original. I think the purpose for which our English teacher wants us to read the English novel is to let us experience what is real English. So reading a French novel in English is the same as reading an English novel in Chinese. I remember one sentence in our English textbook like this: No matter how well a poem is translated, something of the spirit of the original is lost. So is a novel. What a pity that I could not read an English original!
I read the gist of the story when I was in primary school. It is a story of how a beautiful woman dies. Madame Bovary is beautiful but her husband is not handsome and romantic. He is a doctor. He loves his wife with all his heart, but he does not know how to give her the kind of love she wants. Not being satisfied, Madame Bovary starts to find a lover who is both handsome and romantic. And she finds L on at last. She spends all the money her father and her husband give her on her lover, and lives the kind of life she has always dreamed of, paying no attention to the fact that all the people in town regard her as a vampire. Happy days are always short however. L on leaves her at last. And her heart breaks in pieces. There is no other way except to die. What a pity that such a beautiful lady dies in such a way!
I hated Madame Bovary so much when I read the gist many years ago, because Monsieur Bovary loves her so much but she treats him in such a rude way in return, in spite of the fact that she used to study in the convent. Each one in the marriage should fulfil the vows they swore at the wedding ceremony. One madame should be staunch to her husband, no matter how boring it is to be with him. Anyway he is the one you chose when you want to get married. That was the opinions I had at that time.
But after reading the novel, I think Madame Bovary has her own embarrassments which are hard to mention, too. Monsieur Bovary only loves her beautiful and distinguished appearance. No one in this family cares about what she thinks. No one asks about her feelings. No one wants to listen to her aspirations. What a lonely lady! The most important thing is that the life after marriage does not answer to her dream. The only feeling she has is disappointing. It is hard for a lady to bear.
Every girl has her own dream, her own ideal marriage life. Let s look at Madame Bovary s dream. When she was in the convent, she read some novels. They were all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every stage, horses ridden to death on every page, somber forests, heartaches , vows, sobs, tears and kisses, little skiffs by moonlight, nightingales in shaky groves, gentlemen brave as lions, gentle as lambs, virtuous as no one ever was, always well dressed, and weeping like fountains. She thought sometimes that, after all, this was the happiest time of her life-the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post-chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep roads, listening to the song of the postilion reechoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans for the future. It seemed to her that certain places on earth must bring forth happiness, as a plant peculiar to the soil that cannot thrive elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills?
She lives in the countryside before she gets married, and she hates the boring days. Perhaps the disturbance caused by the presence of Monsieur Bovary has sufficed to make her believe that she at last feels that wondrous passion which, till then, like a great bird with rose-colored wings, hung in the splendor of the skies of poesy; and now she can not think that the calm in which she lives is the happiness she has dreamed. So she changes the fade life by looking for a lover.
We always talk about the power of dream. We say that dream can be the light which leads us to the wonderland, the happy life, the unknown shore. Where there are dreams, there is progress. But Madame Bovary s dream is horrible. It leads her to death. Her dream is not practical. It is impossible to have the kind of life she dreams of, as the princess only lives in the fairy tale. To have a dream is wonderful, but to wallow in one s dream is dangerous, like Madame Bovary. There is an old saying : the more you hope, the more disappointed you get. Once you wallow in you dream, you will be hurt painfully if your dream cannot come true.
So ,friends, keep your minds clear and never be lost in your dream.