Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary a novel about a woman living in nineteenth century and is bored with both her life and her marriage to her husband Charles, and seeks the comfort of other men while in a sense ruining the name of her family and finally ending her own life. Written by Gustave Flauber, published in 1856.





Plot Summary
The novel opens with a mother doing everything that she can to provide a good life for her son, Charles who ambles through life and has an average career and no ambition and a grumpy wife. Several years into their marriage she dies and leaves Charles free to remarry. Whilst helping a patient that lives in the country with a broken leg he falls for the man’s charming and educated daughter Emma Rouault. Emma being a convent-educated farm girl who dreams\ of romantic fantasies and ideas and the hopes of getting off of her fathers’ farm, she and Charles soon wed. The newlyweds then move to the town of Tostes, where Charles’ was a lower than average doctor, sets up a medical practice. The couple attends a ball given by a local aristocrat and Emma catches a glimpse of the marvelous life she has dreamed. Her depression worsens after this life-altering event and the couple decides to relocate to a larger town, Yonville-l’Abbay. During the move Emma, discovers she is pregnant with the couples’ first child and becomes soothed by her friendship to another young person Leon Dupuis, a clerk in Yonville. Leon lives with Monsieur Homais, the local town pharmacist. After the birth of Berth, the Bovary’s daughter Emma and Leon grow even closer and slowly they realize that they are in love but are both too shy to admit it. Leon goes away to study in Paris and Emma falls back into her depression. Emma’s depression doesn’t last long this time when she meets another handsome bachelor, Rodolphe Boulanger, who is a womanizer and decides to take Emma as his mistress. It doesn’t take too much convincing and shortly after she succumbs to the temptations of adultery. They have a tumultuous relationship for two years, but eventually it comes to a dramatic stop. Rodolphe becomes bored with Emma and abandons her just as they are supposed to run away together. He writes her a break-up and has it delivered to her. This devastates her greatly and her health begins to rapidly decline. Her husband Charles’ oblivious to the real reason behind her sickness has no idea what to do and prescribes useless and odd medicines. Emma slowly starts to recover and Monsieur Homais suggests that Charles takes the lady to an opera in Rouen, which turns out to be a horrible trip. While at the opera the Bovarys’ run into Leon who has now graduated from school and he and Emma resume their affair, however this relationship falls apart plunged into debt and with nowhere to turn she poisons herself with arsenic leaving her husband and daughter to fend for themselves.

Characters

 * Emma Bovary
 * The main character of the novel hince the name "Madame Bovary"
 * Charles Bovary
 * The husband of the main character
 * Leon Dupis
 * Emma’s friend in Yonville, who later becomes her lover.
 * Berthe Bovary
 * Daughter of Emma and Charles.
 * Rodolphe Boulanger de la Huchette
 * Emma’s first lover, a wealthy landowner with an estate near Yonville.
 * Abbé Bournisien
 * The priest in Yonville
 * Binet
 * The tax collector in Yonville
 * Rouault
 * Emma’s father
 * Heloise Dubuc
 * Charles’s first wife.
 * Justin
 * Assistant to Homais
 * Hippolyte
 * The crippled servant at the inn in Yonville.
 * Guillaumin
 * Leon’s first employer, the well-to-do lawyer in Yonville

Themes
Some themes in the novel are the inadequacy of language where the author fails to fully capture the essence of human life. The powerlessness of women where in the novel Emma Bovary was hoping for a son instead of a daughter, saying ‘a woman is hampered’. The final theme I found was the failure of the Bourgeoise; Emma’s disappointments came greatly from her dissatisfaction with her life.

Symbols
Some symbols that appeared in the novel were the blind beggar, dried flowers, and the lathe.

Significant Quotes

 * "But it was above all the meal-times that were unbearable to her, in this small room on the ground floor, with its smoking stove, its creaking door, the walls that sweated, the damp flags; all the bitterness in life seemed served up on her plate, and with smoke of the boiled beef there rose from her secret soul whiffs of sickliness. Charles was a slow eater; she played with a few nuts, or, leaning on her elbow, amused herself with drawing lines along the oilcloth table cover with the point of her knife."
 * This passage illustrates Flaubert’s combination of realism and emotional subjectivity. The passage exemplifies realism because it pays attention to tiny details, no matter how unpleasant. On the other hand, the writing maintains a subjective tone in that it leads us to feel Emma’s disgust and frustration.
 * "She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past. 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. Being inert as well as pliable, she has against her the weakness of the flesh and the inequity of the law. Like the veil held to her hat by a ribbon, her will flutters in every breeze; she is always drawn by some desire, restrained by some rule of conduct."
 * The passage claims that a woman is powerless not only over her financial -situation, but also over her emotions. A double bind occurs when a woman’s involuntary emotions conflict with inescapable external circumstances. Her only choice is to behave within the confines of her fixed station in class and the family.
 * "The whitish light of the window-panes was softly wavering. The pieces of furniture seemed more frozen in their places, about to lose themselves in the shadow as in an ocean of darkness. The fire was out, the clock went on ticking, and Emma vaguely wondered at this calm of all things while within herself there was such a tumult."
 * This passage describes Emma Bovary’s overriding frustration—that the outside world doesn’t match up with her inner world