What was Madame Bovary's problem?
She was striving for something. She was striving.
Flaubert's omniscient, ironical narrator diagnoses her as resistant to faith, whose mystery she refuses to submit to.
The human mind rebels against what it cannot understand our discern through the senses.
Madame Bovary, therefore, tries to find fulfillment in people, places, and things.
Yet the world in all of its richness can never satisfy the eternity pulsing in every human soul:
"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
"World" is better rendered "eternity" ( הָעֹלָם֙ ha·'o·lam)
Bovary foolishly insists on searching and troubling herself, convinced that what she needs is outside;
Yet the One who slakes the eternal thirst of every soul seeks to dwell within each of us!
No comments:
Post a Comment