Emma Dialectical Journal

Guiding Question: What are the parallels between Emma and a drug addict?

Passages and Analysis:

1.“When Rodolphe arrived in the garden that night he found his mistress waiting for him at the bottom of the steps” (Flauber 182).

Emma has an addiction to Rodolphe; the person she runs to when she wants to get away from her life and go to another place. Emma and Rodolphe’s relationship is on pause for a little while; wanted nothing to do with him until her husband, Charles, became too much for her to deal with. He became an embarrassment to her after he failed to cure a man of a clubfoot. Only then did she run to her lover, who takes her away to a secret place where she can be oblivious of her problems.

2.“You're my king, my idol! You’re so

Emma’s good feelings show on the surface after Rodolphe said that he would take her away and be with her forever, putting in her on a high.

6.“She lay awake, dreaming different dreams. She and Rodolphe had been traveling for a week” (Flaubert 191).

Drug addicts who are in remission may have dreams: involving their preferred drug. frequency of these dreams can predict which addicts will begin to use again. Their dependency on drugs causes them to have dreams of them using it and then they remember the feeling of the drug in their system and they use it again. Emma’s dream of Rodolphe and their new life that they could have had caused her to have an even more need and desire for her “drug”, Rodolphe. Emma dreaming about him, causes her to want more of him, her need for the drug to be in her system.

7.“She leaned forward, looking down at the pavement and said to herself, ‘Go ahead! Go ahead’” (Flaubert

Emma’s sickness has a relapse after she goes to the garden and sees the bench that her and Rodolphe would always sit on when he would visit her. Seeing that bench again she remembers of the high and then goes through more withdrawal. After Emma’s near death experience she then relies on religion to guide her. Emma believed that she saw and heard heaven went she was close to death. Addicts are people that need to have something or someone holding them up or an escape from their everyday lives. Emma goes from Rodolphe to religion after he leaves her and Yonville behind.

10.“Her mother-in-law, who strengthened her good resolutions by the soundness of her judgment” (Flaubert 212).

After Emma’s near death experience and her new love for religion she begins to connect with her mother-in-law, elder Madame Bovary. Addicts, when they have gone through the worst parts of their withdrawal and begin remission they rely on their family for support. Emma sharing many parallels with addicts does the something after her sickness subsides because she turns her attentions to religion.

High Level Question: Predict how Emma would react if Rodolphe returned to