The first part is melancholy and ideal, which is the most important part of the whole work, fully reflecting the poet's mental and physical pain and his spiritual efforts to get rid of it. In poetry, since the poet appeared in the world, he was cursed by his mother, hated by the world, not understood, tortured by illness and poverty, and lazy and confused by bad luck. Under the double blow of spirit and material, the poet tried to realize his ideal through the pursuit of beauty, but the result was confusion. Then, the poet turned to love, but lost his heart in the torture of love. Neither beauty nor love can dispel the poet's inner melancholy and anxiety.
Thus, the poet's eyes turned from his heart to the outside world, and he saw Paris. He entered the city, wanted to be clean, looked at the scenery of the city, listened to the noise of people, and stayed away from the struggle of the world. However, beggars, swans, old people, passers-by, prostitutes and tired workers keep coming into the poet's sight. Their pain makes the poet's heart restless, and he can only feel the light and beauty in his dreams. When the poet wakes up, he still sees the "world of sadness and numbness" (dream of Paris).
The poet had to turn to wine. However, the realm brought by wine is as illusory as a dream. When you wake up, everything remains the same. Therefore, the poet, like Dante, went deep into hell to explore the place where the "evil flower" bloomed, and this place is the deepest part of the human mind. The poet came to man's most despicable lust and boldly picked a few evil flowers for the world. However, when the poet roams in a sinful country, he gets despair, death and disgust at his own sinking. He had hoped that the suffering of the world was the price of atonement and returning to God's arms, but God was indifferent. Baudelaire doubted the existence of God and finally "spit out its curse to God".
The poet went through hardships and finally sought comfort and relief in his death. He praised death and saw hope in it. His conclusion is that all pursuits and ideals are ultimately a failure, and the human soul remains the same, and evil is always attached. On the journey of human society, there are "boring scenes of eternal sin" everywhere, and people only have a glimmer of hope, that is, to leave this world and "discover a new world" in the distant abyss (journey). This is the only faint hope left by the poet's long-term suffering and lifelong pursuit. The poet's pessimism stems from his strong love for the world. However, he can't change this world full of "evil" and he has to choose to leave. This is the tragedy of an era.