Where the Grass Is Greener R. A. Williams College

Many authors have identified the self-absorbed behavior of Emma Bovary as the key character quality that leads to her downfall, and modern analyses point to lack of social and educational opportunities as the root cause of the decline and death of the eponymous hero of Madame Bovary. However, Gustave Flaubert’s incisive and understated narrative provides a simpler and more fundamental explanation for the character’s increasing disassociation from reality and for the bad decisions she makes as a result. This essay will show that Emma Bovary suffers not from self-absorption but from a nagging certainty that other people’s lives are better than her own and that they are experiencing happiness that is denied to her. It is this certainty, coupled with a sense of unfairness, that drives every single bad decision Emma makes throughout the book.

To Emma, the proverbial grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. No matter where she goes or what her life circumstances are, she is convinced that other people have it better. During her years in the convent school, she was allowed to amuse herself by reading French romance novels. These were not the highly sexualized books of today but adventure stories similar to The Three...