Selfishness and Wrong Views in Madame BovaryThe majority of Gustave Flaubert's classic 1857 novel, Madame Bovary, recounts the marriage and two adulterous affairs of a lady, Madame Emma Bovary. Emma, ​​believing herself to be in love, agrees to marry the widowed doctor who treats her father's broken leg. This doctor, Charles Bovary Jr., is completely in love with Emma. However, Emma realizes that she must have made a mistake in her love, because “the happiness that should have followed this love” (44) has not come. Emma is mistaken in her beliefs about the meaning of love and happiness. It is also evident that she considers herself more important than anyone related to her, including her husband, her daughter, and her two lovers. Emma's misguided opinions and selfishness clearly deny her the happiness she feels she is entitled to. Madame Bovary begins to reveal how she is denied happiness shortly after her marriage to Charles. A dominant thought resonates in Madame Bovary's mind: “My God! why did I get married? » " (58). Emma refuses the happiness that Charles offers, despite - or perhaps in spite of - his deep devotion to his wife, and wants to separate from her husband. She wonders "if by some other fortuitous combination he "it would not have been possible to meet another man and she tried to imagine what these unrealized events would have been, this different life, this unknown husband" (58). instead seeks a lover who is “handsome, witty, distinguished, attractive” (58) Assuming this is the version of the lover to whom her childhood friends are now married, Emma is also consumed with jealousy. . At the Vaubyessard ball, Emma ridicules Charles when he...... middle of paper ...... touches her and finally on the soles of her feet, so fast in the past, when she ran to satisfy her desires; , and which would no longer work" (419). Madame Bovary selfishly lets her husband and daughter suffer in the poverty she has caused. She never loved the two people she should have loved the most - the two people who loved her the most. Happiness will be prevented when selfishness and wrong opinions are present instead of longing for things one cannot have and emotions. which are simply unattainable, one must glory in the love of one's family and friends and enjoy all the objects that one can attain. Only then can one find the true happiness his soul longs for. Works cited Flaubert, Gustave. : Madame Bovary. Translated from French by Eleanor Marx-Aveling New York: Grolier Incorporated, n..