A quick "google images" search of "Emma Bovary" (or "Madame Bovary") turns up a multitude of images trying to capture the essence of the character. (1) Select the visual representation that you feel best captures the essence of (or, at least, some aspect of) Emma. (2) Either paste the image into your response or provide a link to the image. (3) Finally, explain why you chose the image you did. (That is, examine the quality or characteristic of Emma Bovary that is captured well by the actress, painting, portrait, photo, etc.)
21 comments:
http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_904_373684_louis-icart.jpg
The link above references a watercolor, sketch-like image of Emma Bovary. Among the aspects of her personality captured in the representation is her desire to "blend in." Emma wears an extravagant cream gown whose color fuses with the brownish-gray tones of the dog, the wall, and the outside air through the window. At some points, the dress seems transparent, symbolizing her shallow ambition to imitate the etiquette of high society. Emma's expensive taste in clothes, her Greyhound, as well as her connection to music serve as "windows" to the aristocratic world that she yearns to embrace. Her location at the window is also significant in that it displays her mind's tendency to wander off, pondering what she "could' be doing and with whom she "would" be. Emma ignores her household responsibilities, seen in the picture by her failure to focus on the dog, in order to embark on these mental escapes.
http://www.librosgratis.org/files/2008/08/madame-bovary.jpg
The picture that i chose of Emma Bovary is from the cover of a different version of the novel. I think this painting better portrays Emma than the one on our book. This painting captures Emma's personality perfectly. She's wearing a pretty dress and a nice hat which shows that she cares a lot about her appearance. The look on her face is of complete boredom. Emma feels that she deserves better than the life she's been given. Everything about her life now seems boring to her when she compares it to the unrealistic things she reads about in her books. In this painting, Emma looks as if she's daydreaming that Prince Charming is coming to sweep her off her feet. Too bad it's not gonna happen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1765000/images/_1766800_bovary150.jpg
I think that this representation defines Emma Bovary in a nutshell. She is wearing an extravagant blue/purple dress that I thought was similar to the one that she bought in the story, just to read in. It is kind of extravagant, but that fits the persona and lifestyle that Madame Bovary wishes she had. In addition she is looking out a window which I thought was significant because Emma is always looking for something new to do. She gets tired of her old life then decides to pack up and move on. I think that it also shows how she is inside the house, like she is inside herself. Though she carries on these "affairs" she creates them to be the way she pictures them in her mind. This is no life to live and one would not be envious of this type of person.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/8828/bovary2.jpg
I thought this picture was a really good depiction of Madame Bovary because she is lying in bed, presumably just after giving birth to her daughter, and she is turned away like she does not want to look at her husband or child. During what normally is one of the happiest moments in a person's life, she looks sad and almost disgusted. It really illustrates her self-absorbtion and the fact that she does not have a care towards the people who love her. She focuses on her own needs and wishes and was even mad that her child was a girl and not a boy. When she doesn't get what she wants she is bitter and I think that this picture really depicts that element of her personality.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/8828/madameb1.jpg
I chose this picture because it is Emma at her finest. Emma is so bored with her life so she must find excitement in other events. Here Emma finds herself surrounded by many gentlemen and it seems as if they are vying for her attention. It is the attention that Emma craves, she may be flirtatious but would never cross the line and have an affair. However, it is okay to wonder and to be admired by other gentlemen. Here Emma seems happy and is taken out of her boring old life with her continous routine.
http://0301.netclime.net/1_5/2ac/180/23a/120893953697416.jpg
I liked this painting because it doesn't portray Emma as the stereotypical *beautiful* woman she is supposed to be. Her face is gaunt and thin, probably from her many cases of depression, but it gives her a bored and irritated look, which is what her character is. Emma imagines herself to be a great lady but really she is quite pathetic, whiny, and annoying. She is looking off into the distance--hence, daydreaming--but in her face she doesn't look peaceful and dreamy like in other paintings. Instead she appears rather pissed off and erm, witchy, which she is in the book. In her hand she holds a rose, which I assume is symbolic of her desire for a romantical life full of adventure, thrills, and hearthrob. Ah...she can't even enjoy the fact that she has a very pretty white dress on, contrasting with the dark and gloomy background..
http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/12530000/12532915.jpg
I chose this picture because (although there was another one that I liked better) because it reminds me so much of Madame Bovary. The littel bit of her face that can be seen looks pretty normal. She looks like a girl, nothing spectacular about her. However, contrasted with the ridiculously over-the-top and fancy clothing we see the real Emma. She is no one special, but she acts as if she is one of the famous damsels from her novels.
Also, she is looking away as she does throughout the book. She is looking towards the future, never really in the moment (ie: the moment being the picture). She always needs something better.
And most importantly I was drawn to this picture because Emma is turned away from the camera. We don't really see her face, just like in the book we never really know who she is. She doesnt take responisbility for ANTYHING!!! Even in chapter 9, for the most part we hear that she "yielded" -- at least in our version. She wanted Boulanger to keep telling her he loved her and forcing her until she could plance the blame off of herself. She wanted to give in the whole time, but she wanted it to be seen as different. She wanted it to appear as if she was forced into it. That's who she is...she keeps her real feelings away from everyone -- her real aspirations so that she appears something different. The reader really cannot even tell becasue she doesn't talk very often; we are jsut making assumptions -- although very believable assumptions.
http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/rsz/434/x/x/x/medias/nmedia/18/65/02/76/18829107.jpg
in the picture madame bovary is in a busy surrounding, she stands out in her orange dress because she desperately craves attention and looks much more elegant than everyone else in the picture because madame bovary MUST be the center of attention at all times. more importantly, she is holding on to the arm of another gentleman who i would say is rodolphe or leon and most certainly not charles because she looks at him adoringly while he parades her around the town. i would say it is more likely rodolphe because she seems more love sick. this is definitely the clingy pathetic madame bovary i picture every time i read that book.
http://estb.msn.com/i/E4/B0D42DD3779F35D812F47DF3B3EE3.jpg
This non-conventional picture of Madame Bovary is the best representation of her: a 5 year old little brat pulling at her pigtails. Emma is one in the same with this annoying, spoiled child. She conducts herself in a childish manner that mirrors how the girl in the picture would. Raised in a wealthy family, Emma is no doubt used to getting everything her cold heart desires. And when she doesn't get exactly what she wants, she leads the role of a brat: throws a temper tantrum and takes her plight out on other people (her husband Charles). Emma and the little brat will never be 100% content until they attain exactly what they want which is unrealistic, idealistic, and literally unattainable. There is hope for the young girl, but not for Emma. The young girl has time to grow and realize that compromise is necessary and her ideal picture of the world is not possible. For Emma, however, it is too late.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eigna1753/2076420913/
I think this is a really good representation of Madame Bovary. She is looking off into the distance, and looks very bored with everything. She is dressed in very nice clothes, showing her obsession with looking nice and about what people think of how she looks. It is showing how she wants her life to be like, to have everyone love her, yet to not care about them, to be bored with them. The look on her face is boredom, but it is also thinking. She is looking off into space, possibly thinking about what her life could be like.
http://www.blogdeivan.com.ar/wp-content/Emma%20Bovary%20alta%203.jpg
&
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/Morbe/EmmaBovary-JulietaDaz.jpg
My main image is the first one, but I also included the second because they go together and I feel that they compliment each other.
First off, I chose these pictures because they're modern(not sure if thats the word I want to use). Most of the pictures I found online were book covers, or black and white stills from that incredibly old movie we watched parts of. I wanted to find a more "updated" picture of Emma Bovary, because it gives a different perspective to the book. Second, I absolutely love these pictures. They epitomize the character perfectly, by small details. First, look at everything except her face. She's sitting at a piano, an instrument she learned to play at the convent. The piano has a positive association; when I saw the piano I thought of beautiful music, refined taste, pleasant memories, etc.. By contrast, she's wearing what appears to be a slip/corset that goes underneath a dress. This appeals to the scandalous nature of her character and the mischief she gets herself into. With these two details, she appears both innocent and corrupt, even without the expression on her face. It was clever to shoot the picture with her wearing that, sitting at the instrument that symbolizes what she wants. And, of course, the look on her face is of misery. You can obviously tell she isn't happy. She's staring down at the floor, with a look of wist and disgust. The "turmoils" of her life are on her mind. The best part of the picture in my opinion: if someone saw these who didn't know that it was a representation of Emma Bovary would probably think" "I wonder what's on her mind"
http://unpresentable.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bovary.jpg
It's not necessarily the nicest picture but it captures the Emma we all know and love. For starters it shows the wedding band. Which is her commitment to Charles. And then her wedding finger is stuck up while the others are down. So it sort of explains Emma in a nutshell. She is a married woman that is cheating on her husband. The fact that she flicks him off in this picture shows how she doesn't care anymore for like as she does so in the text. And her doing this gesture shows that she is moving on and that he means nothing to her. Which is relevant to the text since she is moving on with Rodolphe.
http://www.blogdeivan.com.ar/wp-content/emma%2520bovary%2520alta1.jpg
the picture i choose was a woman with her hand over her eye and sitting at a piano. first of all i thought she looked very beautiful which is what i expected emma bovary to look like as well. but anyway besides just physical aspect, i think this picture captures emmas personality since her life is so incredibly dramatic i just picture her sitting in her room looking out the window in that same pose, while charles sleeps, and imagines how different her life could be without him. in my mind i picture emma to be much more bitchy than the girl in the picture i choose but there was no picture i could find online that could express my true hatred for emma bovary.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2008/03/07/bovary.jpg
I think this photo of Emma protrays the inner struggle she experiences throughout the novel. The picture shows a woman (Emma) dressed nicely, pinned under an older, unattractive man. The woman is sort of staring off into the distance, not paying attention to the man laying on top of her. I feel like this picture depicts the way Emma feels trapped in the middle class, with no way out. The woman in the picture is staring off into the distance, ignoring the man on her just as Emma tries to ignore her marriage to Charles and her mediocre place in society by having affairs with other men and buying material things. Also, the woman in the picture looks almost like she's asleep but with her eyes open. Similarly, Emma's life consists a lot of dreaming about the day she will truly be part of that upper class society.
http://www.blogdeivan.com.ar/wp-content/Emma%20Bovary%20alta%203.jpg
This is a link of a modern photo of a woman in a courseted dress sitting at a piano looking rather meloncoly. i chose this photo not only because i love coursets but because i feel it is a good representation of what Emma would look at. She is a beautiful women in a nice setting yet she does not look happy. To me Emma alwyas seemed like the kind of girl who is always sad yet it's beautiful. She is the trajectly beauty, the beautiful girl who lies around like a debby downer but she draws everyone in, boys and girls, with her intense beauty. that is what this picture repesents me.
http://www.sophynaess.com/gallery/albums/From-the-Sketchbooks-of-Sophia-Naess/emma_bovary.gif
so this picture someone drew of emma bovary represents my intake on her character as we get towards the end of the novel. It seems as if her beauty and charm is no longer visible as soon as we see her incapability to deal with the realities of her life. Soon we see that her beauty is pushed back when her moral flaws come up to the surface (weird brown marks on her face). We no longer care about how pretty she looks or how fantastically she can imagine life, because we become angry with her incapability to realize the moral dilemmas her actions cause (or should cause) her. She has no body in the picture because her head is clearly too big for her pretty body to hold, so it has been erased/smudged over. At the point in the novel where we are (in part 3), she is essentially "crying" because her acts of adultery result in her being a complete moral ruin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teavera/76645023/
This picture shows a woman who is upset and confused over a man. I believe that that represents Madame Bovery in a nutshell. Almost all of her problems revolve around men and her relationships with men. The woman in the photo is in distress over the photo of a man, almost like Madame Bovery in her confict with being married yet having feelings for a different man.
The picture also has the woman in a room that is very fancy. This is most likely what she was expecting her life to be like, being married to a doctor. Yet her life didn't go exactly the way she planned, and it all revolved around her marrige to Charles.
http://img5.allocine.fr/acmedia/rsz/434/x/x/x/medias/nmedia/18/65/02/76/18829109.jpg
I liked this picture because it is Emma walking in the garden with Rodolphe. I think this is so representative of her because she has her armed linked through his and she walks a step behind him, showing how she abandons herself to any superior or willing force. Also, it takes place in her garden, at the home she shares with her husband, Charles. This is so important because it represents how everything takes place right under Charles' nose throughout the novel.
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/greatest-novels-of-all-time/76-1.jpg
I like this one too, because it shows Emma when she isn't with her lovers, the Emma that is bored out her mind and daydreaming about the perfect man who will wisk her off her feet.
the link is :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v404/Morbe/EmmaBovary-JulietaDaz.jpg
I liked this one because Madame Bovary looks so pretty in it. She puts in a lot of effort to look pretty and it shows that she cares about how she looks. Also, in the picture she looks tired and bored. even though she does in almost all of her pictures i found on google.
This shows that no matter how many guys are into her and care about her, she isnt satisfied. she doesnt seem satisfied with anything in her life. she seems tired of her life. she should smile.:)
http://www.blogdeivan.com.ar/wp-content/Emma%20Bovary%20alta%203.jpg
The picture that I linked to is a picture of Emma sitting at a piano. Her back is toward a camera, although her face is partially revealed to us. I feel that this perfectly captures Emma because we never truly know who she is completely. All that we have are glimpses into her personality that define her behavior. I do not think that we will ever truly see all of Emma. Also, in the picture, Emma's face is one of anguish. Throughout the novel, she is going through a mental anguish. However, for the most part, she does not let that show in public. The picture captures that vibe.
Post a Comment