Gustav Flaubert meets Sia (Week 1)

For my passion blog, I decided to take an old AP English project to the next level. In this project, we had to pick a passage and relate a piece of art to it. I loved it and I felt comfortable with it. I got to pick apart the music tonally and instrumentally, and I got to relate it to the tone and figurative language of the passage.

Of course I will be telling the name of the author/person singing the song and the name of the piece of literature/song, and I will describe the time period from which it originates, and then when I’m done analyzing the two, I’ll include a bit of what I feel about them. I won’t necessarily be relating the lyrics to the literature, but if something stands out, or the two happen to go hand-in-hand, I will use both, but generally, I will just be using the music (instruments, tone of voice, tempo). My favorite thing is to listen to and read new things, so suggestions would be fantastic, too!

For this first week, I’d like to look at a passage from Madame Bovary, written by Gustav Flaubert, and “My Love” by Sia.

Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert was written in 1856 in France.

“My Love” by Sia was written in 2010 for the “Twilight Saga: Eclipse” Soundtrack.

“She stood there in a daze. Only the pulsing of her veins told her that she was alive; she thought she heard it outside herself, like some deafening music filling the country-side. The earth beneath her feet was as yielding as water, and the furrows seemed to her like an immense, dark, breaking waves. All the memories and thoughts in her mind poured out at once, like a thousand fireworks…Madness began to take hold of her; she was frightened but managed to control herself—without, however, emerging from confusion…It was only her love that was making her suffer and she felt her soul leave her at the thought…Night was falling; crows flew overhead. It suddenly seemed to her that fiery particles were bursting in the air, like bullets exploding as they fell, and spinning and spinning and finally melting in the snow among tree branches. In the center of each of them appeared Rodolphe’s face. They multiplied; they came together; they penetrated her; everything vanished…Suddenly her plight loomed before her like an abyss” (Flaubert 355-356).

Here is the song, as well. I would encourage trying to read the passage while listening to the song because then you can feel the true anguish in both pieces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtM_cc4SPJI

In this song, the instruments that play emphasize an intense feeling that perfectly accents the meaning behind the singer’s voice and tone. She sings of leaving her love behind but there is a pain in her voice that speaks to the listener; she is lost and there is nothing left for her it seems. The piano is extremely haunting and accents the raspiness (is that even a word?) of her voice. When the music swells, the singer breaks off and the piano plays the same haunting tune. When she picks up again, her voices starts strong and continues to get even stronger, almost as if her desperation has been exemplified. The drums in the background lend to the growing intensity of her voice; in the very end, all of the instruments involved, including her voice, increase in volume, and fade off so that it is only her and the piano again, thus lending to the idea that she has lost hope. This relates to tone of the passage perfectly because it is what Emma feels and what Flaubert portrays to the reader. In the beginning of the song, she is broken and desperate, and as the song climaxes her anguish has been exemplified and Emma is overcome by the madness.  The madness is so overwhelming that she continues on with her intense feeling of anguish and desperation until she gazes into the abyss that is her plight.

When I first read this passage, I immediately thought to this song because both pieces epitomize anguish and desperation. To be quite honest, I was extremely depressed while writing this, but it hit me hard. I was very emotional because I felt the anguish of both Emma, from Madame Bovary, and the Sia.

Okay, I’m done with my first post. I really hope you weren’t too depressed with this song or with the passage, but I promise next week will be better. I’ve already got an idea!

Thanks for reading!