In his roles as doctor and husband, Charles relies more on assumptions than reality. In his Depiction of Charles, Flaubert seeks to critique his inherently trusting nature and willful ignorance. By placing Charles as Emma’s Imaginative foil, Flaubert dismantles the idea that Charles ignorant contentment is something to aspire to, and if one is to have fantasies, it is better to imagine the best life, not the most achievable.
Early on in the novel it becomes clear that Charles has few aspirations in life. As a child, it is his mother’s influence that pushes him towards education, and as depicted in the first few pages of the novel, it is made evident that he is the type of person who exists in permanent mediocrity. In these introductory paragraphs …show more content…
Charles is an inherently trusting person, and because his dream has been fulfilled, he is unable to hold any suspicions against Emma.
Emma takes full advantage of this, and in situations where she wants to spend time as far away as possible from him “ah, my poor piano” (230), or avoid retribution for her economic failures, “If she had not told him about the note, it was to spare him domestic worries; she sat down on his knee, caressed him, talked lovingly to him…” (243) She takes up the persona he holds he’s created for her to full effect.
In brief, Flaubert introduces Emma into the novel in a manner that immediately creates fantasy in Charles’s life. Flaubert uses this contrast between the ever fantastical Emma and Charles’s mundane persona to amplify the reality of Charles’ previous inability to create fantasies. Suddenly every action that Emma takes is a new chance for Charles to further idolize Emma. “…The sight of her straw hat hanging from the hasp of a window, and many other things that Charles had never suspected would be a source of pleasure now formed a continuous flow of his happiness.”