Madame Bovary

¨Avant qu'elle se mariat, elle avait cru avoir de l'amour; mais le bonheur qui aurait du resulter de cet amour n'étant pas venu, il fallait qu'elle se fut trompée, songeait-elle. Et Emma cherchait à savoir ce que l'on entendait au juste dans la vie par les mots de félicité, de passion et d'ivresse, qui lui avaient paru si beaux dans les livres....et elle ne pouvait s'imaginer à présent que ce calme où ell vivait fût le bonheur qu'elle avait rêvé.¨
(Before she married, she had believed that she possessed love; but with the happiness that should have been the result, not arriving, it must have been that she was mistaken, she thought. And Emma sought to find out just what was meant in life by the words felicity, passion, and euphoria, that had appeared so beautifully in books....and she could not presently imagine that this calm in which she lived was the happiness of which she had dreamed.)


To me it seems pretty clear that Emma has formed one idea of what happiness is from things that she has read or heard about, but not experienced. I think it this is often the case as we expect certain experiences to be constant bliss but we find that the true nature of happiness is something quite different. Not that intense joy doesn't take place but that real happiness is probably something less high-charged and more stable than what movies and literature present it as. I think we probably arrive at happiness after processes that require a bit of effort such as developing sincere gratitude for blessings, developing virtues in dealing with family and friends, and achieving goals that were difficult. Blissful happiness, while maybe not really existing, surely doesn't come in any lasting form as a result of “falling” into something.