Elevation Isolation and Downfall in Madam Bovary

It is in Raskolnikov's inability to quell his feelings of guilt, that we can see he is not the “superman” that he thought himself to be. Through his actions, his pride and isolation, Raskolnikov was unable to realize his presumed identity as an extraordinary person. She identified herself with them, and longed to be like them. But even in Madam Bovary’s conclusion Emma holds fast to her belief of her own excellence, seeks the help of no man or no immortal, and decides rather than to accept a normal life, she would rather commit suicide.

Emma, having already identified herself with the heroines of romantic fiction began a cycle of destruction as soon as she married Charles Bovary. It may be asserted that as long as you believe yourself to be extraordinary, you can never be it. Though it is too late for him to escape the demise and failure that the cycle brought upon him, he is able to escape the death and the destruction of spirit that Emma Bovary encounters. The first, Rudolph filled all her fantasies, making her girl-hood dreams come true. No one knows of her life’s goals and to everyone she was but a mediocre and strange wife to a country doctor that died a rather odd death. But it was very soon after their nuptials that Emma began to become discontented. This course leaves her no other option in the end but to accept that she is not an extraordinary person.