Madame Bovary's Ovaries

1 The Human Nature of Stories A Quick Hit of Bio-Lit-Crit Othelloisn't just a story about a jealous guy. Huckleberry Finn isn't just a rebellious, headstrong kid. Madame Bovary isn't just a horny married woman. As students, we are told about various ways to understand fiction: that Othello may also teach us about deceit and loyalty (among other things), how Huck will tell us about the American national character, that Madame Bovary will help reveal the meaning of social transgression. In addition, those who get deep and sophisticated enough may be urged to examine what they read from various perspectives: those of Marx, Freud, Jung, or maybe the French literary theorists Derrida or Foucault, not to omit feminist and "queer studies," socioeconomic analyses, and the historical facts of each author's personal biography. The list is nearly endless: New Criticism, old criticism, new historicism, old historicism, critical theory, and sometimes crackpot theory. It's all fine, up to a point. No one has a monopoly on how to read what others have written. There is much to be said for examining literature as a reflection of class struggle (Marx), unconscious drives (Freud), power relations (Foucault), social mores, sexual repression, historical forces, or even--as postmodernists often insist--of "texts" that signify nothing more than themselves. But in fact,Othelloisa story about a jealous guy. Huck Finnisa rebellious, headstrong boy. And Madame Bovaryisa horny married woman. The reasonOthellois still being read and performed five hundred years after Shakespeare wrote it is because this play tells us something timeless and universal ...not so much about a fellow named Othello but about ourselves. It speaks to the Othellos within everyone: our shared human nature.Othellothe play is about a jealous guy, and, as we shall see, jealousy is a particularly potent and widespread human emotion, one to whichmenare especially vulnerable. That's precisely why it's okay to talk about Othello or Madame Bovary or Huckleberry Finn in the present tense: they live on, at least in part, because they have distinctly human characteristics that transcend the artistry by which they were depicted. Their tribulations, responses, loves and hates, fears and delights are in some way recognizable to all readers, to marvel at, agree or disagree with, learn from, or be shocked by. It may be startling to some--especially those who have not kept up with recent advances in biological science--but the evidence is now undeniable that much of human life is not socially constructed. In short, even though learning and cultural traditions exert a powerful influence, there also exists an underlying human nature, universally valid and characteristic of allHomo sapiens. People live in many different places, following many different traditions and cultural trajectories, but beneath this wonderful diversity there is something else that is equally wonderful, and maybe even more so: a common thread of recognizable humanity, woven of human DNA and shared by everyone who reads and writes (as well as those who don't). Othello's jealousy, Huck's rebelliousness, and Emma's urges are just three examples of that common thread. In his advice to the traveling players, Hamlet suggested that the role of the artist is to hold a mirror up to nature--not, as some theorists would have it, to hold a mirror up to another mirror and thereby reflect only the infinite emptiness of mirrors. The "nature" at issue here isn't wild animals, pretty landscapes, or magnificent wilderness, buthumannature. And human nature isn't like a unicorn or some other mythical beast. It exists. It does so because human genes exist and have produced a different kind of creature than horse genes or hyacinth genes have. "Read deeply," writesBarash, David P. is the author of 'Madame Bovary's Ovaries', published 0000 under ISBN 9780385338011 and ISBN 0385338015.