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Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters I-VI
Chapter I We first meet Charles Bovary as a new student in class who, under scrutiny from his peers, is struggling to make his way. Charles is the son of a former army surgeon, and his family lives on a small farm. We next follow Charles into adulthood. Charles's father is a poor money manager and is often caught having relations with many of the "village harlots." Madame Bovary (Charles's mother, not his later wife) has lost all respect for her husband and focuses only on her rather plain son, spoiling him and planning every aspect of his future. She determines that medical school is the best path for the boy to take, so she sends him along to pursue his studies. Unfortunately, instead of performing as a dutiful student, Charles regularly misses classes, and his laziness causes him to fail the medical exam. This fact is hidden from his father for many years. Charles sits for the exam again, passes this time, and becomes a doctor. His mother arranges for Charles to practice in Tostes, a nearby village, and urges him to marry Heloise Dubuc, an older, wealthy widow. The marriage is not particularly happy. Chapter II At four in the morning, Charles is asked to set a simple fracture at a farm outside of town. While working on Rouault's fracture, Charles finds himself drawn to his daughter, Emma. Smitten by her, he makes an excessive number of followup visits to the farm. Heloise notices her husband's change in behavior and asks some townspeople about Rouault's daughter. Jealous of Emma, Heloise makes Charles promise he will never visit her again. Reluctantly, Charles agrees but then learns that Heloise's lawyer has stolen most of her money. Moreover, he learns that she lied about her wealth before they were married. One week later, shocked and humiliated, Heloise suddenly dies. Chapter III After Heloise dies, Charles again befriends Rouault and visits him often. During these visits, he begins to spend increasing amounts of time with Emma, either watching her work or chatting idly. Soon Charles falls in love with Emma and asks Rouault for her hand in marriage. After consulting with his daughter, Rouault lets Charles know of her favorable decision through the pre-arranged signal of opening a window shutter. Although the marriage is agreed upon, Emma and Charles must wait for Charles's official mourning period to pass. While waiting, they plan for the wedding. Emma desires a romantic midnight wedding but settles for a more traditional ceremony, followed by a celebration that lasts well into the night. Chapter IV When Charles's official mourning period for his first wife ends, he and Emma get married. The wedding is a very large event all over Emma's father's farm, and guests dress in their best clothes to honor the celebration. After the wedding, they all return to the farm in a long, festive procession and then feast throughout the night. The next day, after the wedding night, Charles is elated, but Emma is very calm and collected, considering that she has lost her virginity and begun her married life. After the couple departs for Charles's home in Tostes, Rouault remembers how happy he was during his own wedding. Chapter V Once in Tostes, Emma inspects their new home and begins to establish her presence in the house. Most notably, she forces Charles to remove his dead wife's dried bridal bouquet from the bedroom. Emma then begins to plan small improvements to the house while Charles, deeply in love, focuses purely on his beautiful new wife. Charles feels that his life has reached a degree of perfection, while Emma feels somewhat dissatisfied. A romantic by nature, Emma expected her marriage to lead to bliss, passion, and perfection, but real life has already fallen short. Chapter VI Emma remembers her convent life. At first, Emma delved into religion, treating it with the passion she read about in romantic novels. When Emma's mother passed away, she acted the part of the grief-stricken daughter, just as she believed she should, giving the role all the passion and pain she could muster. However, Emma soon grew tired of mourning and eventually left the convent, abandoning her romantic notions of religion and death. Emma returned to her father's farm, where she began to enjoy the simple life, but soon found herself bored. Unsure of how to create a life of excitement and satisfaction, Emma latched on to Charles, believing he could offer her the romantic idealism she had always longed for. AnalysisChapters I-III The opening chapters of Madame Bovary set up the basic scenery of the novel. Flaubert's story takes place in the provincial French countryside, and within these first few chapters, he introduces his main characters, Emma and Charles. As we begin to understand Charles's character, we recognize that he is not particularly bright, nor is he dedicated to professional success. Specifically, Charles skips many classes, fails his medical exam, and, in his interactions with Emma, does not understand much of her side of the conversation when she discusses novels and romantic ideas about life. Moreover, his intent concentration on the minor details of Emma's dress and appearance demonstrates that he is more interested in her as an object than as a person. Meanwhile, observing Emma, we begin to understand the fantasies through which she approaches life. Most notably, Emma hopes for a novelistic, torchlit, midnight wedding, an ideal already clearly at odds with the realities of her life. This early conflict between fantasy and reality began still earlier in her performative mourning (described in Chapter VI), and this conflict will grow larger as the novel progresses. Although the novel's title suggests that we should focus on Emma, we are not introduced to her immediately. The first chapter focuses purely on Charles, and we meet two other Madames Bovary before Emma. The first is Charles's overbearing mother, and the second is his domineering first wife, Heloise Dubac. As we consider these relationships, we conclude that Charles is fairly passive and prefers to be controlled by the women in his life. Later on, Emma will take advantage of this characteristic. The title, Madame Bovary, presents Emma in relationship to her husband--to the Bovary family--rather than as the independent, unfettered woman she wants to be. When we meet Emma, we immediately see how different she is from both Charles's mother and his first wife. Emma longs for romanticism and grandeur, while the other two women are realistically simple in their desires. Charles finds Emma's imaginative nature slightly overwhelming, mysterious--and highly alluring. Chapters IV-VI In these three chapters, Flaubert presents the various perspectives of some of the central characters. Once Charles and Emma are married, the novel shifts our attention from Charles to Emma. At this point, Charles is entirely in love with and devoted to Emma, providing a foil for Emma's growing disillusionment with her marriage and married life. As Emma again feels a sense of incompleteness and wonders how her life might be improved, Flaubert has set the conditions for her downward spiral. Thus the true tale of Madame Bovary begins. In this section, we see Emma's most fundamental character flaw, the way that her romanticism leads her to discontent. The flashback to her convent life provides clear evidence that Emma not only is the kind of person who becomes obsessed with romance, but also is the kind of person who easily becomes discontented and eager for something new. When she becomes bored with her life, Emma tries new things without thinking through the consequences or worrying about the commitments: the convent, then the farm, and now marriage. Later, she will stray again from affair to affair, hoping that the newness she encounters in these things will lead to the happiness and intense romance she has always desired. This pattern helps us understand the wedding, which occupies the majority of Chapter IV. Flaubert describes the event in extreme detail. It used to be normal to narrate the events of a wedding by relating how the guests were dressed. The novel does this but goes farther, explaining, for instance, how the guests' early morning preparations resulted in shaving cuts on their faces. In these descriptions, Flaubert is not writing for the society pages; he is entirely honest, mentioning the flaws of each attendee. Thus he presents a true description of a country wedding. The people are dressed their best, but they are simple farmer families who live simple lives, and they can never truly look glamorous. Despite Emma's wedding preparations, she cannot but be disappointed by her own wedding. She is trapped in her bland circumstances. This tension in Emma's experience is, more broadly, an example of the overarching commentary on bourgeois life that Flaubert provides.
Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters VII-IX
Chapter VII During her honeymoon, Emma is disappointed to be in a simple town rather than a romantic chalet in Switzerland. Emma thinks Charles is dull. She cannot understand his simple happiness, and she begins to resent his complacent behavior. Unknowing of Emma's despondency, Charles continues to love his new wife, and he believes he has truly found happiness. Charles's mother visits their new home, and she and Emma immediately butt heads. Charles's mother resents the fact that he loves Emma, feeling jealous of her son's new wife. After her visit, Emma re-evaluates her approach and tries to fall in love with Charles, but she cannot do more than play the role of a happy wife; she cannot force happiness. Unable to access the passion she believed she would encounter in marriage, Emma wonders if she has made a serious mistake. The Marquis d'Andervilliers, a patient of Charles, invites the couple to a ball at his mansion. Emma grows obsessed with the concept of the ball and with the luxury and wealth that she will witness. She imagines that the Marquis lives a perfect, ideal existence, and she dreams of living a similar life. Chapter VIII The ball lives up to Emma's expectations. She is amazed by the Marquis's wealth and by the opulence and luxury of the ball. While she is ecstatic to be a part of this luxurious event, Emma is embarrassed by Charles. In her eyes, her husband is clumsy and unsophisticated in comparison with the noblemen and cultured women who attend the event. At one point, Emma sees a servant open a window to cool the ballroom, and she catches a glimpse of peasants watching the ball. In seeing the peasants, Emma is reminded of the farm and the reality of her unsophisticated upbringing and current life. Later, Emma dances with the viscount and imagines the alternate parallel lives she might have led--filled with luxury, passion, and the fineness of expensive things. As Emma and Charles travel home, the viscount passes them, dropping a cigar box, which Emma keeps to remember the night and remind her of how happy she felt. After returning from the high of the ball, Emma grows despondent, depressed, and angry, now that she is back in Tostes with Charles and her dreary life. Chapter IX Emma has grown obsessed with the concept of the luxurious life she believes she was meant to have. She begins to spend much of her time fantasizing about a better life. She reads innumerable ladies' magazines and obsesses over the viscount's cigar box. She also treats Charles with anger and contempt, because she largely blames him for the limits on her life. Emma obsesses so greatly over her unhappiness that she becomes physically ill. Charles becomes very concerned about Emma's health and believes a move to another town will allow her a chance to heal. He decides that they will move to Yonville, a town that conveniently is in need of a doctor. Just before they make the move, Emma finds out that she is pregnant, and she is quite displeased. In a fit of anger and frustration at the simplicity of her life, Emma throws her dried bridal bouquet into the fire and watches it burn as she packs and prepares for the move. AnalysisThe novel's perspective has now shifted almost totally to Emma's point of view. Thus, Charles's lack of refined manners and simple ways, evident before, are magnified now. Since Emma is very concerned about herself, her daily routine is painstakingly described. Since the routine is so simple compared to the viscount's, it is easy to see why Emma persuades herself that she should be thoroughly bored. Moreover, as Flaubert gives more and more attention to Emma's boredom, the novel generates a sense of realism. In this respect, the reader is free from the bounds of Emma's idealistic perspective, able to look sadly upon Emma's deteriorating mental condition. The basic conflict in Emma's life is that she is entirely unsatisfied with her life and motivated to lead a better life, but she cannot create the ideal perfection she imagines. Emma's definition of happiness is, after all, inaccessible. She has always imagined a life of luxury and passion, but she is married to a simple, dull, middle-class farmer. Since she refuses to accept her situation, Emma grows increasingly restless and unhappy. Her obsession eventually leads to physical illness. Flaubert's description of the viscount's ball and Emma's intense, dreamlike bliss during the event provides a perfect contrast with Emma's true life with its dull lack of luxury. Ironically, although Emma is intensely happy at the ball, she fails to realize that no one really notices her. Her brief, relationally meaningless dance with the viscount becomes a fantastically romantic interlude. Long after the ball is over, Emma holds fast to her memories of it as though her life depends on it, while she grows more and more resentful of her husband. Emma feels so bad about her situation that she makes herself sick with anger, frustration, and unhappiness. When Emma throws her bridal wreath into the fire, she symbolically is totally rejecting her marriage and the middle-class existence that she believes has prevented her from living the ideal life. Finally, in this section, Flaubert examines Emma's past, which is just as simple and meager as Charles's. While at the ball, she remembers her life on the farm. Here Flaubert seems to be suggesting that a person like Emma, though she may desperately try, will never escape her humble beginnings.
Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters I-VI
Chapter I Flaubert begins Part Two by describing the town that Charles and Emma are moving to, Yonville-l'Abbaye. We encounter the Lion d'Or inn, Monsieur Homais's pharmacy, and the graveyard, where the gravedigger, Lestiboudois, grows potatoes. News has gotten around that Charles and Emma are arriving, and the villagers await their arrival. The couple arrive late because Emma's dog escaped during the journey and was not found. In her times of despondency, the dog was one of the few things that could bring Emma happiness of any kind. Therefore, when it abandoned her for its own freedom, she became upset and angry. She arrives in Yonville in a poor mood. Chapter II The man with whom Charles has been corresponding in Yonville is Homais, an apothecary who owns the pharmacy. Homais is a pompous man who believes himself well schooled in medicine. He is eager to discuss the trade with Charles. Upon their arrival, Homais joins the Bovarys for dinner at the town inn. Homais's boarder Leon, a young law clerk, is invited to join them for the meal. While they eat, Charles and Homais discuss medicine, and Emma and Leon bond over all that they have in common. Like Emma, Leon loves romantic novels and often dreams of greater things. Having discovered their similarities, the two sense a closeness and believe they have finally discovered worthy company. When the Bovarys arrive at their new home, Emma has hopes for a fresh new beginning. She thinks maybe her life will finally become what she has always dreamed. Chapter III Leon clearly has developed a deep affection for Emma; he cannot get her out of his mind. Meanwhile, Charles's medical practice begins slowly, but he grows very excited about Emma's pregnancy. Emma gives birth to a girl, and she is disappointed because she hoped for a boy. After some discussion, they name the baby Berthe. Charles's parents visit and stay for a month following Berthe's christening. For the first few months, the baby is sent to live with a wet nurse until she is weaned, as per the traditions of the time. At one point, Emma is feeling particularly lonely and decides to visit the baby in order to feel something other than dissatisfaction. During her trip to the nurse's home, Emma feels weak, and when she sees Leon, she asks him to escort her. Because the town is so small and everyone is watched by others, rumors of an affair immediately spread. During her visit, the wet nurse asks for many extra amenities, taking advantage of Emma's visit. After the visit, Emma and Leon walk by the river, each feeling passion and romance for the other. Chapter IV Winter has arrived. Charles and Emma often eat with Homais on Sunday evenings. Leon also attends these meals, and during these evenings he and Emma continue to develop their relationship. The two are powerfully attracted to each other, but they do not admit their feelings. Charles is oblivious to this developing relationship, but the villagers are confident that Emma and Leon are already having an affair. Chapter V Emma is a careful observer. As she contrasts her husband with other men, she decides he is entirely dull and has nothing to offer. She also realizes that Leon is in love with her. During their next meeting, Emma and Leon both are awkward and anxious. Having discovered the possibility of an affair, Emma grows increasingly nervous and imagines she is a martyr, suffering for her unrequited love. While acting as a caring and dutiful wife, she harbors strong feelings for Leon and punishes herself by not eating. Berthe returns home, having been weaned from the wet nurse, and Emma tries to distract herself with her daughter. But her desire for Leon eventually overcomes her, and she wallows in self-pity. Emma sobs, her frustration overwhelming her, and blames Charles for her unhappiness. Ominously, the shopkeeper Lheureux hints to Emma that he can provide loans, in case she ever needs one. Chapter VI Emma hears church bells tolling and decides to return to her religious roots to seek help for her unhappiness and dissatisfaction. But Abbé Bournisien is preoccupied with a group of unruly catechism students, and he does not understand or even perceive Emma's deep emotional pain. After this failed visit, Emma grows extremely frustrated and angry. Back at home, she physically pushes Berthe away, and Berthe falls down and cuts herself. Seeing Berthe bleed shakes Emma out of her wallowing. She tells Charles what happened but claims that Berthe was simply playing--that the fall was an accident. Emma exclaims that she is a terrible mother, but Charles helps calms her down. Leon decides to study law in Paris. Although he loves Emma, he believes their romance is impossible because she is married, and Yonville bores him anyway. Leon also looks forward to the possibilities of romance and excitement that await him in Paris. When Leon and Emma say their goodbyes, both are awkward and quiet, but they recognize the powerful undercurrent of their mutual feelings. After Leon's departure, Charles and Homais discuss city life, why it is intriguing, and how it can be difficult. AnalysisChapters I-III In Flaubert's detailed description of the simple, dull town of Yonville, he uses poetic language to compare the area to "a great unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver." This romantic description of the simple town is available to readers, but Emma cannot see such beauty there. Thus Flaubert demonstrates how limited Emma's perspective is. Instead of seeing beauty in Yonville, she feels trapped and alone, describing Yonville as "a mongrel land." Emma's kind of romanticism makes her blind to the simple, everyday beauties that surround her. Leon, who shares her obsession with romance and passion, is Emma's true idealistic counterpart. In truth, however, readers can perceive that Emma and Leon's first dinner conversation is trite and simple. They discuss how books remove them from their everyday lives. Yet, they believe the conversation to be deeply meaningful. This is the first step on the path wherein Leon encourages Emma's romantic hopes and desires, while she begins to develop feelings for him. Berthe's birth is a disappointment to Emma because she wanted to bear a son. A son would have more opportunities to live out his dreams (and his mother's dreams) than a daughter. Although Emma wants to be free, she recognizes and participates in antifeminist prejudices regarding her own child. Emma, as a woman and a wife, feels trapped by her circumstances, prevented from shaping her own life, although in the novel she will do more than anyone else to shape her own fate. But Emma, at this point, sees only her limitations. She notes, "a man, at least, is free; he can explore all passions and all countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most distant pleasures. But a woman is always hampered." Upon her daughter's birth, Emma at least hopes she can access glamour vicariously and on her daughter's behalf, but when she realizes she cannot afford to buy expensive clothes or furniture for Berthe, she loses interest in this way of realizing her romantic ideals. The villagers in Yonville help us understand village life and the status of Emma and Charles in the local social structure. For example, the wet nurse lives in a small hut with the children she nurses, and she is not ashamed to beg Emma for things she cannot afford, including coffee, soap and brandy. Through this example, we see that in comparison to the majority of her local society, Emma is quite well off, even though she is not a member of the aristocracy. Compared with Emma, the village innkeeper is a simple woman with simple concerns, and unlike Emma she accepts her place in life and finds a decent level of enjoyment in her situation. Chapters IV-VI Part Two, Chapter IV, ends with Leon's feelings for Emma becoming very clear. Flaubert describes the shame Leon feels in being too shy to proclaim his love for her, and we learn that he has written her many love letters already--only to have torn them up before succumbing to the temptation to give them to her. Leon certainly wishes Emma were not married so he might be able to pursue her and acknowledge his feelings for her. For her part, when Flaubert shifts the narrative back to Emma, she has her own thoughts of love. Emma's vision of love is idealistic just like her other ideals; she believes that it can only "come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,-a hurricane of the skies, which sweeps down on life, upsets everything, uproots the will like a leaf and carries away the heart as in an abyss." Flaubert satirizes Emma's romantic notions by explaining, "She did not know that on the terrace of houses the rain makes lakes when the pipes are choked, and she would thus have remained safe in her ignorance when she suddenly discovered a dent in the wall." Here, Flaubert mocks Emma's fantastical perspective and her refusal to acknowledge, must less accept, her reality. Once again, we confront the ultimate conflict of Emma's life: she longs for unrealistic romanticism and passion, but she is continually frustrated by the realities of life, leaving her fantasies out of her grasp. To her credit, Emma does try to control her romantic attraction to Leon. To punish herself for her feelings, Emma works to become a dutiful wife and mother, playing the part of a martyr. She does not see the joy that is possible in her present family. In any case, when she injures her daughter after pushing her away in annoyance, all auspices of being a good family woman disappear. Just before pushing her away, Emma looks at her daughter with disgust, as yet another weight in her life, a circumstance that holds her down and prevents her from living out her fantasies. In fact, Emma was not excited to be pregnant from the beginning. Emma simply cannot access what is good about her maternal instinct, and she finds no pleasure in being a wife to Charles or a mother to Berthe. The only thing that prevents Emma from infidelity is Leon's decision to move to Paris. Homais in his pomposity is developing as a representation of what Flaubert despises about the new bourgeoisie. Moreover, through Emma's conversation with the priest, Flaubert comments on the superficiality of bourgeois religion. At this point, Emma is in serious need of assistance and realizes that she needs help; she thinks she has nowhere else to turn. She is entirely unsatisfied with her life and has turned to her priest in a final attempt to save her from herself. But the Abbé Bournisien is preoccupied with the simple rowdiness of his students, and he does not give Emma's concerns or plea for assistance any serious thought. While Emma might have come at a better time, it seems that the Abbé would not have been able to understand her concerns anyway. When Emma explains that she is suffering, the Abbé believes she is referring to the summer heat. This failed interaction is an implicit criticism of the superficiality of the church at this time, implying that it responds primarily to rowdy disturbances and superficial needs. From a literary point of view, we can see Flaubert's innovative narrative technique developing. In contrast with many of his contemporaries, Flaubert matches his prose to his narrative subject quite consistently. For instance, during descriptions of Emma's boredom, the text slows considerably; it seems to take longer to read. When she is excited and engaged in life, the pace quickens dramatically. Finally, of course, when Lheureux hints to Emma that he is a moneylender, we detect foreshadowing of her eventual downfall due to excessive debt and, in particular, the role of Lheureux in the process.
Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters VII-XII
Chapter VII Leon has left for Paris, and Emma once again grows severely depressed and frustrated with her life. In her depressive state, she fantasizes about Leon quite often and dreams of what life would have been like had she succumbed to her desire to begin an affair with him. While in this state of despair, Emma meets Rodolphe Boulanger, a wealthy and attractive resident of a nearby town. Boulanger brings a servant to Yonville to be treated by Charles. While Charles examines the patient, Homais's assistant Justin is standing in the room. Justin faints upon seeing the man's blood being let. Emma helps revive Justin, and as she cares for him, Rodolphe takes note of her beauty. At this moment, Rodolphe begins planning his seduction of Emma, viewing her as a purely sexual object. Chapter VIII The annual agricultural fair is taking place in Yonville, and all the residents are quite excited. The fair is a large event where local farmers display animals, give speeches on issues of agriculture, and receive prizes. For working on the same farm for fifty-four years, Catherine Leroux, a very aged woman, receives one of the prizes. Amid all the excitement, Rodolphe spirits Emma away into the town hall, where the two watch the prize ceremony from the window. While they stand alone inside the empty hall, Rodolphe capitalizes on the opportunity and tells Emma he loves her. At first, she is not responsive and continues to listen to a speech on public morality given by the representative of the local prefect. But Rodolphe is persistent and urges Emma to admit that she feels similarly drawn to him. Emma is torn, and at first she attempts to behave as she believes a married woman should, but she soon succumbs, holding his hand and intertwining her fingers with his. With this interaction, Rodolphe lays the seed for what will develop into a lengthy affair. Chapter IX After confessing his love at the agricultural fair, Rodolphe avoids Emma for six weeks in order to allow her to develop a powerful yearning for him. Finally, he visits her, and at first she behaves coldly, but he is persistent and speaks to her again of his love and romantic intentions. Emma is won over, but she does not yet submit to Rodolphe. Charles returns home, and Rodolphe offers to take Emma horseback riding. Afraid of what might develop, Emma refuses, but Charles ironically convinces her to take Rodolphe up on his offer. Emma and Rodolphe go riding together through fields, forests, and greenery. When they have stopped to rest in a particularly beautiful glen, Rodolphe again professes his love for Emma. Finally, Emma submits to him, and they make love. Upon returning home, Emma rejoices in the romanticism that has finally entered her life. She throws herself into a life of adultery. She and Rodolphe continue their affair, with Emma often sneaking away from home to meet him. As their affair progresses, Emma grows increasingly dependent upon Rodolphe and develops a certain obsession with him and his luxurious life. Chapter X Emma and Rodolphe begin to meet in the arbor in Emma's garden rather at Rodolphe's home, since they are apprehensive of raising suspicion. As Emma grows increasingly passionate and obsessed with her lover, Rodolphe grows tired of her and her romantic idealism. Nevertheless, due to her extreme beauty, Rodolphe continues the affair, all the while stressing that they must be careful to prevent their relationship from being discovered. Emma notices that Rodolphe appears to be pulling away from her and repeatedly demands that he state his love. Emma receives a letter from her father, which sparks a memory of her childhood, and Emma begins to grow guilty. As she did once before, Emma commits to a sacrifice of her happiness. She tries to force herself to love her husband and treats Rodolphe coolly, trying to end the affair. Chapter XI After reading a paper praising a new surgical procedure that cures clubbed feet, Homais speaks to Emma and Charles about the issue. Seeing an opportunity for Charles to improve his career, Emma urges him to perform the surgery on Hippolyte, a clubfooted inn-servant. Despite his clubfoot, Hippolyte is in fact quite mobile and has adapted extremely well to his unfortunate ailment. However, eager to see the surgery performed and their doctor become famous, the townspeople convince Hippolyte to undergo the operation. Charles is quite nervous, but Emma's confidence spurs him on, and he performs the surgery. At first, it appears to have been a success and, briefly, Charles is a local celebrity. But within a short time it becomes clear that something has gone seriously wrong. Hippolyte develops gangrene in his leg, and a doctor from out of town must be called in. To save Hippolyte from certain death, the doctor amputates his leg. Charles is publicly embarrassed, and when his incompetence becomes clear, Emma again feels only disdain and disgust for him--not at all recognizing her own role in the disaster. Before this incident, Emma attempted to slow down her relationship with Rodolphe and to be more faithful and loving to her husband. Now, upon Charles's extreme failure, she returns to Rodolphe with a renewed passion. Chapter XII Emma has lost all hope for her marriage. She begins to fantasize about escaping with Rodolphe. Eventually these fantasies grow increasingly realistic to her, and she begins to speak with Rodolphe of her wish to leave Charles. Rodolphe is minimally responsive, not wanting to encourage her in such thinking. Meanwhile, the merchant and moneylender Lheureux has begun to take advantage of Emma's weakness for luxury by encouraging her to make purchases. Through Lheureux, Emma buys many expensive gifts for Rodolphe, even while he grows increasingly turned off and frustrated with her romanticism. As her obsession has increased, Emma's behavior has grown careless; all of Yonville save her husband knows of her indiscretion. Even Charles's mother is suspicious when she visits, which leads to a fight with Emma. Trying to mend fences between the two women in his life, Charles urges Emma to apologize to his mother, and she complies. Angry and humiliated, Emma puts formal plans in place to run away with Rodolphe, planning to take her daughter Berthe and meet Rodolphe in Rouen. Rodolphe plays along with Emma's fantasy, but as he leaves her garden for the last time, the reader sees that ultimately he will not follow through with these elaborate plans. AnalysisChapters VII-IX The agricultural fair is a very important event for the townspeople of Yonville. It demonstrates the realistic outlook among people living in the French countryside. Flaubert describes how happy and content the farmers are with their lifestyle, emphasizing their lifelong dedication to hands-on work. Catherine Leroux, for instance, is a strong opposite of Emma. Leroux has worked on the same farm for over fifty years and is a timid, quiet, humble woman. In contrast, Emma is extremely displeased with country life and yearns for something greater, more exciting, and more luxurious in life and love. The introduction of Rodolphe portends the eventual disaster that will occur later in the novel. Rodolphe is very unlike Leon. While Leon saw Emma as an unattainable and intimidating example of perfection, Rodolphe views her as a woman to entertain himself with. Leon felt true love and a strong desire for Emma, while Rodolphe views her as a purely sexual object. At first he is mildly entertained by her romanticism. Leon prevents himself from pursuing Emma because she is married, while her marital status makes Rodolphe more determined to woo her, because he knows there is little danger of a permanent commitment. Rodolphe senses Emma's unhappiness and eagerness to have an affair, so he calculates carefully and manipulates her in order win her over. The moment of Rodolphe's first attempt at seduction is highly ironic. While he professes his love to Emma inside the empty town hall, an official gives a speech on public morality. To highlight this contrast, Flaubert goes back and forth between describing the scene inside the town hall and describing the speech being delivered outside. The entire town is listening to the speaker with rapt attention, while Emma and Rodolphe begin a fundamentally immoral relationship. Flaubert's method very clearly highlights Rodolphe's insincerity. For example, when Rodolphe tells Emma he loves her, the official presents a local farmer with an award for the best manure. As the scene progresses, the switches between Rodolphe's dialogue and the official's grow more and more frequent until single sentences are interleaved. Irony continues to play an important role in the development of Rodolphe and Emma's relationship. Charles is the one who urges Emma to accept Rodolphe's invitation to go riding, which would be imprudent if he really understood Rodolphe's intentions and his wife's interest. Charles believes the riding will help Emma's health, leading her to spend more time outdoors or exercising. Not only that, it is Charles who writes to Rodolphe to request that he escort Emma on a brief riding excursion. Charles has no idea that he is handing his wife over to a sexual predator and, in so doing, he is urging the initiation of a long, adulterous affair. As Emma rides alongside Rodolphe, Flaubert writes with extreme lyricism, which helps the reader grow sympathetic to her situation. Emma is in love, but we feel sympathetic for her in the ironic knowledge that she is simply being manipulated. Although she appears to feel true passion, we know Rodolphe is not to be trusted. It is easy to perceive that Emma is simply caught up in her pattern of short, passionate romantic interludes, and we know from her earlier attempts at religious and maternal love that she is rarely serious for long. Even if Rodolphe were to fall in love with her, would she really stay with him for the long term? This problem illustrates the ultimate flaw in Emma and Rodolphe's relationship and promises the tragic end of their affair one way or another. In any case, we feel sympathy for a woman caught up in a false sense of love and romance. Emma's emotional suffering is simply being hidden for the time being. Chapters X-XII As Emma's affair with Rodolphe progresses, the impending tragic end of the relationship looms larger. Through the couple's interactions, we painfully observe Emma's blindness and naiveté while Rodolphe clearly remains interested only in sexual pleasure. In this section, Emma again demonstrates her inability to remain happy for an extended period of time. Once her guilt over the affair takes over, she throws herself into self-sacrifice, but again her attempts to love her husband and support him in his career are shallow. As we would have expected, Charles fails in the operation. He again shows weakness in being talked into performing the operation. Emma held out great hope for the success of the surgery, and she might have returned to a more sincere faithfulness if he had succeeded. Instead, she is severely disappointed and disillusioned with Charles's proof of mediocrity. Though she is disgusted with her husband, Emma has an easy out, a man she thinks is ready and waiting, and she finds it easy to return to Rodolphe. The failure of Hippolyte's operation demonstrates how excessive pride can lead to destruction. Homais, Flaubert's classic bourgeois know-it-all, provides the initial inspiration for the surgery, and Emma and eventually the whole town pridefully root for Charles's success. Of course, it is naive to believe that a simple article provides enough training to engage in a dramatic operation. As a result, the mediocre doctor and the overly proud Homais are responsible for the loss of Hippolyte's leg. Instead of helping him, they cause the man intense agony. Despite their brief fame, they embarrassing themselves powerfully. In contrast, Hippolyte never wanted the surgery and was happy in his humility, making do with his imperfect leg. It is not aristocratic pride but a more basic, natural human pride that leads his peers to persuade him that a deformed person is actually unhappy. Like the gangrene that gradually poisons hisHippolyte's body until the leg must be cut off to save his life, the creeping evil of infidelity is going to catch up with Emma. How can she cut off the limb that is threatening her life? Although she lives a relatively comfortable life, she cannot recognize beauty or happiness in it and instead strives for perfection. As her life passes by, Emma's unhappiness and resulting adulterous and dishonest behavior poisons her. Like Hippolyte and his desire for two perfect legs, Emma meets disaster in her search for an unrealistic perfection. As her life grows increasingly intertwined with Rodolphe's, Emma begins to lose all sense of morality. She also develops an even greater obsession with superficial things. She becomes excessively vain and increasingly bold in her behavior, almost daring Charles to catch her with Rodolphe. Caught up in her personal satisfactions, Emma puts her family, finances and life at risk while she buries herself in her relationship with Rodolphe. As her boldness grows, so does her addiction to luxury, and Emma purchases many fine and excessively expensive goods from Lheureux. She cannot afford these items, nor are they appropriate for her house or lifestyle. Flaubert masterfully develops Emma's moral degeneration and increasing debt. Which problem will be the one that leads most directly to her downfall?
Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters XIII-XV
Chapter XIII Unsurprisingly, Rodolphe plans to abandon Emma on the day they are scheduled to elope. Although he finds her extremely attractive and enjoys the sexual pleasure of their relationship, he has no desire to tie himself dow. Besides, he has grown annoyed by her increasing romanticism, and he thinks it best to cut ties. As he thinks about how to break the news to her, Rodolphe remembers his many former mistresses and goes through a collection of tokens from each woman. Finally, Rodolphe decides to write Emma a letter to explain his decision. Even in the letter, Rodolphe is dishonest, claiming that because he loves her so intently, he cannot continue their relationship because he knows he will only cause her pain. Although it is a complete falsity, Rodolphe believes this excuse will satisfy Emma and her romantic notions. Rodolphe has the letter delivered to Emma hidden in a basket of apricots, a common method of correspondence between the couple. Meanwhile, Emma has spent the day preparing for her eventual departure and is extremely excited by what her future might hold. When she receives the basket of apricots, she immediately searches for the letter and hurries to the attic to read it. Upon discovering that Rodolphe has abandoned her, she is simultaneously unbelieving and devastated. She almost jumps out of the attic window. Charles calls her, distracting her from her suicidal thoughts. Before going down to meet him, she drops the letter and then cannot find it. (The letter will remain hidden in its resting place for many years.) In the evening, Charles eats Rodolphe's apricots, unknowing (as usual) of the meaning behind them. When Emma sees Rodolphe's carriage heading out of town, she faints. Emma is overcome with sadness and again falls into an illness after exclaiming that she wishes to see no one, not even her daughter. Emma suffers from a very high fever and is close to death for the next six weeks. Charles does not seem to be able to help her. He calls in doctors from neighboring regions, but none can cure her. When October arrives, Emma finally begins to recover. Chapter XIV Charles is extremely concerned about Emma's health, and his finances are in a very poor state as well. The doctors he calls in to try to heal Emma are very expensive, and Lheureux sends bills for Emma's excessive debts. With no other choice, Charles also borrows money from Lheureux, at a very high interest rate. As Emma begins to recover, she believes she has had a religious awakening. She throws herself into the devout Catholicism of her childhood, praying constantly and forcing herself to behave kindly to her husband and child. Yet, following her usual pattern, Emma soon grows frustrated with this approach. Finding a lack of the desired ecstasy of religion, Emma recognizes that her kind of Catholicism cannot replace the feelings she had for Rodolphe and the happiness she felt when they were together. Despite her disappointment, Emma continues her religious behavior and is purposely kind to the people around her. In this kindness, Emma develops new friendships with people she had previously almost ignored. She grows to know Justin much better--over time, he has fallen deeply in love with her. Binet, the tax collector begins to make frequent social visits, as does Homais, who suggests Charles take Emma to Rouen to see an opera in order to lift her spirits. Upon this suggestion, the priest and pharmacist argue over the morality of theater. The priest claims it is against religion, while Homais defends the art form. Eventually, believing he will be assisting his wife in overcoming her extreme illness, Charles decides to take her to see the opera, despite its cost. Chapter XV In Rouen, Emma is eager to immerse herself in the sophistication of the city and the opera, and she is of course embarrassed by Charles's simple country ways. Despite her embarrassment, Emma greatly enjoys the opera and is caught up in its drama, romance, and beauty. During the intermission, Emma hears that Leon is in the audience and is shocked. Soon, Leon finds Charles and Emma and the three decide to skip the second half of the performance and go to a nearby café. Emma is quite excited by this turn of events, and she is impressed by Leon's Parisian-influenced sophistication. At first, Leon makes fun of the opera, but when Charles mentions that Emma should stay in the city to see the second act, Leon immediately begins to sing its praises, claiming that the second half is the artistic triumph of the opera and cannot be missed. It is decided that Charles will return to Yonville and Emma will stay in Rouen overnight in order to see the second half of the performance the following day. AnalysisEmma's character is consistent in that she retains her romantic spirit and continues to feel trapped in a life she does not enjoy. Therefore, she is repeatedly creating romantic illusions and obsessing over ways to improve her life. She throws herself into the affair with Rodolphe with great force, but Rodolphe ends the relationship, which sparks suicidal thoughts (thoughts which foretell Emma's future). Upon receiving Rodolphe's letter, Emma stays in character. She falls into a deep illness and lies on the brink of death before rediscovering her religion and attempting to discover happiness through devout Catholicism. Ultimately, religion does not please her either, and she yearns again for romance, love, and true ecstasy. Thus, when she meets Leon at the opera, Emma is quite ready to begin a new affair. Her cyclical lifestyle continues as she continues to switch between extreme unhappiness, embarrassment at her behavior, attempts at improvement, and romantic indulgence. When Emma loses Rodolphe's letter in the attic, we might assume that Charles will eventually discover it and learn of her infidelities. But when he does find the letter, much later in the novel, he assumes that she and Rodolphe simply had a platonic relationship. Emma's failures to improve her life have multiple causes. Clearly, she refuses to live the life she has been given or assumes she is supposed to have as a woman in her town. Thus she rejects those who she believes are holding her back as she strives for something better, although we must wonder if she could be content with any actual level of opulence for very long. At the same time, Emma is not the only source of blame. In truth, Emma's society is restricting indeed, despite the fact that most women seem to be content in it. And although Rodolphe blames the end of their affair on "fate," he is the one who chose to begin the relationship, he chose to continue it, and he chose to end it. Given her weak character, Emma's decisions were not thoughtful, and in that sense they were not her own; she had very little influence on the course of the relationship, and ultimately she was cast aside. Although she is unhappy in her marriage, Emma cannot leave Charles without being able to rely on another source of financial support. Rodolphe's ending the affair leaves Emma with no other options, for now, and she is forced to return to Charles. It is thus convenient that she decides to try returning to the role of devoted wife and mother. Meanwhile, Rodolphe moves on, most likely to begin another affair. He leaves Emma behind without feeling very much regret or concern for her happiness. In composing the scene in which Rodolphe writes to Emma, Flaubert capitalizes on Rodolphe's power of manipulation and Emma's gullible romanticism. The letter includes absurdly romantic sentiments with many exclamation points and forced elements of drama. Recalling the earlier prize for the best manure, Flaubert again emphasizes Rodolphe's insincerity by narrating Rodolphe's careful construction of the piece. Thus, when Rodolphe writes "fate is to blame!" he congratulates himself for his choice of phrase, thinking, "that's a word [i.e., fate] that always helps." This view behind the writer's craft makes it clear that Rodolphe's letter is completely dishonest and a final act of manipulation. Whenever an author shows someone else composing a written document, readers should consider whether the author is making a statement about his own craft. We must wonder to what degree Flaubert sees his own novel as a falsehood rather than an expression of truths about people like Rodolphe, Charles, and Emma. Flaubert's work is even more carefully crafted than Rodolphe's letter, but his motive is not to manipulate the reader, is it?
Summary and Analysis of Part Three, Chapters I-VI
Chapter I While in Paris and Rouen, Leon had forgotten his love for Emma, but after seeing her at the opera, his old feelings return quickly. The day after the three sat together at the café near the opera house, Leon visits Emma in her hotel room (Charles has returned to Yonville). Emma also begins to remember her feelings for Leon, and the two have an intimate conversation about unhappiness and about the romanticism of death. Leon finally professes his love to Emma and kisses her. In an attempt to avoid the heartache her first affair caused, Emma refuses him, but she agrees to meet him the next day at the cathedral. Almost to convince herself of her strength in turning him down, Emma writes Leon a letter explaining that she cannot be his mistress and that they must not pursue a relationship. The next day, Leon arrives at the cathedral, but Emma waits, planning to be late enough to avoid him and prevent herself from falling in love again. When she arrives, however, he is still waiting for her. She gives him the letter, but he does not read it, and to further avoid the awkwardness of their meeting, Emma accepts the beadle's offer of a tour of the building. Leon grows increasingly frustrated and finally pulls her away and hails a carriage. The two climb into the carriage and pull the curtains tight, as Leon tells the driver simply to drive aimlessly throughout the city. They drive all day and into the evening, and no one can see what is going on inside. At one point, a hand emerges to discard the torn-up pieces of Emma's letter, and we are to assume that the two have consummated their relationship. Chapter II Because they were so caught up in each other during their carriage ride, Emma has missed the last coach back to Yonville and must take a private cab to catch up to it. Upon returning home, Emma is called to Homais's pharmacy, where Justin is in trouble for taking the key to a storeroom where Homais keeps arsenic. Emma is unsure why her presence was so urgently needed, and she is frustrated at having to watch this exchange. Homais finally tells Emma that Charles's father died. Charles is deeply saddened by the news, and his mother visits for an extended period--Emma is quite unpleased about this turn of events. Later, Lheureux comes to Emma with yet another list of debts. Having heard about Charles's father's death, Lhuereux suggests that Emma obtain power of attorney over the family finances in order to settle her debts. Emma comes to Charles, arguing that this approach will benefit everyone, and he naively believes her and agrees to the arrangement. Ironically, Charles even sends Emma to Rouen for three days in order to have Leon draw up the papers, unwittingly giving the new couple three full days to further their newfound relationship. Chapter III Emma visits Leon in Rouen. They spend three passionate days together in their hotel room, making love, taking a boat tour, and enjoying the romantic moonlight. On the boat tour, the boatman tells Emma and Leon of a party of people who were on the boat the night before. The man describes Rodolphe--and Emma shudders at the memory of him. But Leon is unaware of her affair with Rodolphe, and she does not want him to know that she loved another before him. To avoid suspicion, she quickly recovers and makes Leon promise to write to her in Yonville. Chapter IV Emma returns to Yonville, and to continue their affair, Leon comes up with reasons to visit the town. As a result, his life in Rouen is neglected, and he begins to encounter troubles with his work. Meanwhile, Emma throws herself back into excessive spending, and her debt grows worse. To make her affair easier, Emma schemes to have Charles agree to let her take piano lessons. Many evenings in a row, she sits at their piano, failing to put together a piece of music and feigning frustration and disappointment. Finally, she asks if she can take lessons, arguing that they undoubtedly will bring her happiness despite the expense. Charles agrees. Of course, there are no piano lessons, but Emma has a weekly excuse to spend time with Leon. Chapter V Every Thursday, on the pretext of taking her piano lesson, Emma goes to Rouen to see Leon. The affair has again awakened her extreme emotions. At home, she is nervous and aloof, but in Rouen, she is ecstatic and dramatic. With each visit, Emma's and Leon's relationship grows in intensity. As the intensity grows, the two begin to see each other as characters from a novel, which results in a certain degree of playacting and falsity. While riding home to Yonville, Emma repeatedly sees a beggar who is blind and deformed. The man enjoys singing a particular song that disquiets her, and she is eager to be rid of his presence. After some time, Charles meets Emma's supposed piano teacher and discovers that she has never met Emma or even heard her name. Charles presents Emma with this finding, and she quickly shows him fake receipts from the lessons. Imagining it all must have been a simple misunderstanding, Charles is convinced that everything is as it should be. Emma's life is beginning to spiral out of control. She is becoming deeply enmeshed with Leon's life as he becomes concerned about her growing obsession. She spends inordinate amounts of her husband's money and lies to Charles about almost every aspect of her life. Lheureux is unwilling to allow Emma's debts to go unpaid, and he urges her to sell him a part of Charles's father's estate. She agrees, and he then talks her into borrowing even more money. When Charles's mother arrives, she examines the family accounts. To prevent disaster, Emma has Lheureux give her a false bill for a much smaller amount of money than is actually owed. Despite Emma's attempt to maintain control, Charles's mother burns the power of attorney papers in the fire. Emma is aghast and Charles is unsure of how to proceed. Eventually, he agrees to have the papers drawn up again. Chapter VI On a day when Emma is in Rouen to see Leon, Homais visits Leon, and Emma is forced to wait for him. She grows extremely angry at Leon for allowing Homais to keep him, and she then accuses Leon of not wanting to spend time with her. Leon promises to try to get away, but he is unsuccessful. Emma refuses to wait any longer. She returns to Yonville in a rage against Leon. She cannot believe that he would cast her aside, and she now starts to question his dedication to her. As a result, she treats him with a bit of contempt and tries to control every aspect of their relationship. Noticing her change in behavior, Leon himself grows resentful. Emma's debts begin to loom heavily. A debt collector makes a surprise visit, and the sheriff serves her a legal notice. To prevent disaster, Emma borrows even more from Lheureux and desperately tries to raise money, selling many objects from her and Charles's home. But even as her debts mount and financial ruin looms, Emma continues to spend large sums of money when she is with Leon. Disapproving of her excessive behavior, he speaks out against her extravagance, and she grows angry with him. After all their romance, extravagance, and drama, Leon and Emma nevertheless have grown bored with each other. Once again Emma strays, searching for something new. She even finds herself at a disreputable restaurant with some vulgar clerks after attending a masquerade ball. Emma returns to Yonville to find a court order demanding that she pay 8,000 francs immediately or lose her property. In a state of panic, Emma asks Lheureux for help, but he refuses and sends her away. Lheureux always understood Emma's weakness and has been eager to make all of the Bovary property his own. AnalysisChapters I-III As Emma begins her next love affair, now with Leon, she immediately abandons her religious renewal. As soon as the possibility of romantic love appears, she once again becomes lost in a fog of superficiality. Since Leon first parted ways with Emma, both have had signficant life experience. Emma, in particular, has had a lengthy affair with a dishonest, wealthy man, while Leon's romanticism has lessened as a result of his Parisian experiences. In taking up Leon's perspective, Flaubert demonstrates that while Emma has again fallen deeply in love, Leon maintains a certain realistic distance and recognizes something of the harsh realities of their illicit behavior. This is another aspect of reality that Emma cannot accept. By this point, Leon has acquired characteristics that remind us of Rodolphe. At times, for example, he applauds himself for employing particularly romantic gestures or words. Even so, Leon has little of Rodolphe's sophistication; he becomes very impatient during the tour of the cathedral. Rather than recognizing Leon's immaturity, Emma simply allows herself to believe that his actions are a result of his intense love for her, and she characteristically buries herself inside of this fantasy. In the cathedral, Emma's internal conflict between religiosity and unfaithfulness is brought to a head. Although she attempted to convince herself that she would not submit to Leon's advances, she quickly succumbs (as we expect), abandoning the church and following him to the fateful carriage. Just as Flaubert criticized bourgeois religion earlier in the novel, when Emma sought the advice on the Yonville priest, he criticizes it again here. Emma accepts the beadle's offer of a tour, but a tour is just a safe outsider's view of the cathedral without the risk of being enveloped by the morals it represents. She accepts the tour because she can feel her romantic desires beginning to take hold again, but the tour cannot provide the grounding that she needs. Emma "clung to the Virgin, the sculpture, the tombs-to anything," but rather than helping her, the beadle's detailed tour does not give Emma any spiritual support. The carriage ride is one of the most well known parts of the novel. In this scene, Flaubert tells us what is going on inside the carriage without being explicit. His detailed description of the carriage's movement represents Emma and Leon making love, while the driver's exhaustion represents the couple's physical exhaustion. As the carriage continues to move throughout the city, it becomes clear that during the carriage ride, the couple is consummating their affair. Most notably, at the end of the scene, when a hand scatters the torn pieces of Emma's letter, the dissemination of the scraps represents sexual climax. The torn letter itself represents the failure of her resolutions of piety and loyalty to her husband--these resolutions are now cast to the wind. Chapters IV-VI In this section, Emma's faults and debts, which grew slowly before, now spiral out of control. She might have believed she had the possibility of true love with Leon, but the relationship has always been weighed down by her increasingly romantic notions and her obsessive disposition. In obsessing over the superficiality of objects such as the curtains in the hotel room and the decorative pieces on the mantel, we see that Emma still has an idealized view of her relationship with Leon and an unrealistic perspective on the world. We see that she is lost in a world of fantasy. The fantasy is impossible to maintain for very long at a time, and reality creeps and then leaps into her life. Emma spends money even more carelessly in order to distract herself from her failing relationship with Leon. Furthermore, she sinks to cavorting with highly unsavory, vulgar men at parties in Rouen. Her increasingly excessive spending and debt compounds the pain and impending tragedy inherent in her relationship with Leon. Emma is hovering on the edge of ruin, emotionally and financially. As she steps closer to the edge, her panic begins to overwhelm her. The blind beggar represents Emma's increasingly wretched behavior, suggesting that this is the life she is headed for after her blind, romantic prodigality. Emma's overwhelming fear of the beggar mirrors her fear that in finally confronting her demons, Emma will meet death. Things have gotten out of control in almost every aspect of her life. Emma is lost in a whirlwind of guilt, passion, frustration, anger, love, and the harshness of reality. Meanwhile, Charles is entirely unaware of the seriousness of Emma's situation. Characteristically unaware, he continues to fund her trips to Rouen.
Summary and Analysis of Part Three, Chapters VII-XI
Chapter VII Emma's debts have finally caught up with her. Policemen arrive at the Bovary house to inventory the contents of the house, which will be used to pay Emma's debts. To prevent Emma from removing anything, they leave a man behind to guard the house. To prevent Charles from learning of the shame that has fallen on his house, Emma hides the man in the attic and tries to come up with alternative ways to get the needed money--approximately 8,000 francs. Bankers in Rouen refuse her loan requests, so Emma turns to Leon. Leon refuses to steal money from his boss, but he does agree to try to raise money from friends and bring it to her. After her desperate round of pleas, Emma heads home and tosses her last five francs to the blind beggar who has haunted her every trip between Rouen and Yonville. Upon returning to Yonville, she discovers a public notice announcing the Bovary auction. Emma feels mortified. Among her last-ditch fundraising attempts, Emma almost sells herself. First she visits Guillaumin, the town lawyer, who has yearned for Emma for quite some time and now asks for sexual favors in return for the money. Emma is offended and storms away from him. Next, Emma visits the tax collector, Binet, while two Yonville women spy on their exchange. Binet is making napkin rings in the attic while Emma begs him for more time to pay. When he refuses, she attempts to seduce him, but Binet is uninterested. Finally, Emma desperately decides to visit Rodolphe, hoping he will still feel love for her and will help her if she offers herself to him. Chapter VIII Although Rodolphe is still very attracted to Emma, he becomes distant upon discovering why she is visiting. He tells her he cannot help her because he does not have the available funds. Emma is horrified and leaves in anger, finally realizing that her situation is truly desperate. Having determined that she simply cannot face this terrible reality, Emma heads straight for the apothecary shop. She convinces Justin to allow her access to the cabinet with the arsenic. Without hesitation, Emma eats a large handful of it and heads directly home, feeling at peace with her decision and imagining how simple a death she will have. By this point, Charles has discovered the scheduled auction. He searches the house for Emma. After he discovers her in bed, Emma dramatically hands him a letter, directing him not to read it until the following day. While waiting for the poison to take hold, Emma does not feel a thing. She believes she will simply fall asleep and never wake up. Soon, she discovers how wrong she is. As the torture of the arsenic begins, she begins to taste something inky, an unbearable pain develops in her stomach, and she becomes violently ill. Concerned over her health and what she might have done to herself, Charles opens the letter and discovers that she has eaten arsenic. In desperation, he and Homais try to decide what to do and how to save her. Meanwhile, Emma behaves extremely kindly to Charles and asks to see their daughter, Berthe. Homais considers that the best course of action would be to create an antidote, but with little time, they call in doctors from Rouen, including the well known Larivière. However, none can help her, and the priest soon arrives to give her the final sacrament. In Emma's final moments, her husband weeps by her bedside, and she cries with him, finally realizing how much he truly loved her. As she dies, the last thing Madame Bovary hears is the sound of the haunting, blind beggar singing on the street below. Chapter IX Despite his recently discovered debt, Charles plans an expensive funeral for Emma. He makes sure she will be interred wearing her wedding dress and will be laid inside three coffins. Charles stays by Emma's body, and Homais and the priest Bournisien join him. The two visitors engage in discussion about the importance of prayer, and Charles speaks out angrily against God. As the maid is dressing Emma in her wedding gown, she shifts the body, causing black liquid to pour from Emma's mouth. Later, Charles lifts the veil to look at Emma's face, and he cries out in horror. Then, he asks Homais to cut a lock of her hair for him to keep as a token of her beauty and as a way to hold on to her forever. Chapter X During Emma's struggle with the arsenic, her father Rouault was informed of her illness. Now, after her death, he arrives in Yonville to discover that his only daughter has died. Rouault is devastated and attends the funeral, along with the rest of the town, including even Hippolyte. But Justin is too pained at Emma's death and cannot bring himself to see her buried. Later, in the middle of the night, Justin visits her grave to say goodbye. Chapter XI Creditor after creditor contacts Charles asking for payment of excessive amounts of money. Charles decides to collect on his patients' bills, but he discovers that Emma already did so. Thus, his only options are to continue to borrow, placing himself in increasing debt, and to sell things from his home. Although he is faced with the results of Emma's outlandish behavior, he only remembers her as pure, good, and lovely. Ironically, when he discovers Leon is engaged, he writes a letter to congratulate him. One day, he happens upon the letter from Rodolphe that Emma dropped in the attic on the day she was meant to elope, but Charles convinces himself that the love expressed therein must have been simply platonic. As time passes, Charles's life grows more solitary. Homais visits him less, in part because he is spending so much time trying to rid Yonville of the nuisance of the blind beggar. One day, Charles finally decides to go through Emma's personal items and opens her desk. That is where, he finds, Emma stored all her love letters from Rodolphe and Leon. Charles reads them all, finally discovering and acknowledging her infidelity. As his perfect image of his wife crashes down around him, Charles sinks into a deep depression and becomes a true recluse. At the same time, he is forced to sell almost everything he owns to keep creditors away. To sell his horse, Charles travels to Rouen and he runs into Rodolphe. The two men have a drink together, and Rodolphe apologizes for his role in the awful turns that Charles's life has taken. Charles explains that he knows of Rodolphe and Emma's affair, but he offers that since fate is to blame, he does not harbor a personal resentment. The next day, however, Charles dies quite suddenly in his garden. All of his remaining possessions are given to his creditors, and Berthe is sent to live with his mother. Unfortunately, Charles's mother then dies herself, and Berthe is sent to live with an impoverished aunt and forced to work in a cotton mill. In contrast, Homais unexpectedly meets great success and is eventually awarded the Legion of Honor medal. AnalysisChapters VII-VIII As the book comes to the climax of Emma's death, her illicit behavior and her spiraling financial ruin become too much for her to bear. Their reality finally overtakes all of her efforts to remain in a world of fantastic romantic unreality. In her final pleas for help, Emma finally offers to whore herself in order to pay her debts. She does refuse the lawyer, but his offer puts that option on the table. Very soon, she attempts to seduce Binet and Rodolphe. Emma's behavior grows increasingly desperate, and in her panic she loses all moral fortitude. Even in this state, though, she is thoughtlessly acting on impulse; Flaubert writes that she is "not in the least conscious of her prostitution." We observe that Emma's extravagant lifestyle has finally overtaken her. She can no longer push away the looming debt or live in her imagined fantasies. She tries desperately, impulsively, frantically to prevent total bankruptcy, but she can do nothing more to hold it off. None of her love interests will help her, and she has no available means for manipulation. Once reality breaks into her life with an intense rush of pain and promises of further pain, it becomes impossible for Emma to brace herself for the worst. She has no real experience standing strong in the face of disaster; she has always taken an easier path. Emma also fears that she might lose the love of Charles, once he discovers her affairs and debts. Soon to have no possessions or property to her name--the opposite of the rich lifestyle she has always wanted--and faced with the prospect of having nothing and no reasonable hope for the future, Emma decides in a rush that her only option is to kill herself. Figuratively, Emma's suicide is tied to her obsession with consumption, in that she eats the powder directly. Ultimately, her addiction to consumption is what kills her. Her suicide is her final attempt at a romantic, novelistic life. She believes that the arsenic will allow her a dramatic yet painless death, but she once again proves wrong. Emma suffers incredibly in her final hours, begging for death and screaming in anguish. Although Emma's troubles are almost entirely her own fault, some critics have focused on the limits on women in Emma's town. Emma resists what she perceives as a boring existence as wife and mother, but she has never been given a realistic alternative except the even more boring life, as she sees it, of the convent. Men exercise the main financial power in the town, and they are good at manipulating Emma's desires. When Emma gains significant power over Charles's fortune, she does not use it wisely. Since Emma's perspective on the world is thoroughly romanticized, she only has power over other romantics. Thus, Emma's only real power is sexual, and this power is what she finally uses in manipulating Justin into giving her access to the arsenic. The realists deny Emma's offers of sexual favors. Throughout Emma's death scene, Flaubert provides further commentary on Emma's world. Most notably, he again demonstrates disgust for Homais's bourgeois pretensions when Homais tells Larivière that he "delicately introduced a tube" in order to analyze Emma's state. The doctor mocks Homais, saying, "you would have done better to introduce your fingers into her throat." Homais, who believes that he is highly knowledgeable, is made to look a fool, and the idiocy of his statement is made immediately clear. Chapters IX-XI The chapters following Emma's death demonstrate how her careless lifestyle has finally affected all of those who truly cared for her. At first, Charles maintains an idealistic view of his late wife, but as he falls into poverty and discovers her infidelity, his spirit is broken. Charles cannot remain alive once he meets Rodolphe and suffers through another reappraisal of Emma's actions. In contrast, Leon and Rodolphe do not weep for Emma at the time of her funeral, while Justin, the innocent young boy who loved her deeply, sobs over her grave. Rodolphe's and even Leon's reactions show that her relationships with the two men were superficial, as we already inferred. These men cannot properly mourn for the woman of their affairs. After Charles's death, the devastation of Emma's family continues. Berthe starts to live a life that would have horrified Emma. The girl is forced to live in poverty with a lower-class aunt and must work as a laborer in a mill. Berthe's new life contrasts sharply with the relative comfort and privilege that Emma knew but never appreciated. Emma's excessive, unreasonable dissatisfaction with her life sent her husband and child into abject misery. Thus Madame Bovary comes full circle; Emma is absent from both the first and last chapters of the book. Ultimately the perspective in the novel is broader than Emma's alone. Although in her world the goal was to live dramatically, romantically, somehow like the viscount, as though the world could be centered around her, the real life of the town goes on. Madame Bovary becomes a social-class tragedy only because Emma refuses to be satisfied with a status system that seems to be acceptable to everyone else. Yet, Emma is not in the least a worthy figure of intelligent resistance, being obsessively focused on herself and her unrealistic loves and lovers. Flaubert's last sentence, which elaborates Homais's medal of honor, offers a final swipe at bourgeois mediocrity.
ClassicNote on Madame Bovary
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