“An
infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small
space.”
Gustave
Flaubert is the name of the 19th century French novelist. He has
occupied a vast area in the field of literature by writing some exclusive and
comprehensive creations. He is popularly well-known as a novelist speciallly
for writing Salammbo and Sentimental Education. At
the same time he is famous for his famous novel Madame Bovary
that dug in to all sorts interesting themes in complex ways. The novel was
first published in 1856.
Madame
Bovery is an autobiographical novel. The personal feelings and emotion are
found in this novel. The title of this novel has been named according to the
name of its heroine. It is a heroine dominated novel.
At
the very beginning of the novel we come to know that one night, a messenger
comes to call Charles to the house of a Monsieur Rouault, who has broken his
leg. There, Charles meets Rouault’s daughter, the young and pretty Emma
Rouault. She fascinates him with her beauty, elegance and artlessness. Charles,
who for weeks has been trying to work up the courage to ask Emma, finally
proposes, and Emma accepts.
After
the wedding Emma’s relationship with her mother-in-law isn’t off to a good
start. Charles feels like a new person after his wedding night. Emma’s initial
enthusiasm for Charles wanes rather quickly, as she finds that life with him
doesn’t correspond to her romantic childhood dreams of happiness and
passion.
“She
was the lover in every novel, the heroine in every play, the ‘vague she’ in
every volume of poetry.”
Emma
is bored with her monotonous life. She wants travel, explore foreign places and
instill some romance into her marriage. Once she was invited by the Marquis
d’Andervilliers to Vaubyessard. She spends the evening dancing with various
partners and pretty much forgets that she came with Charles. Charles, on the
other hand, is only too glad finally to return to Tostes.
Emma
is terribly bored, longs to return to the world of the ball, and devours novels
and women’s magazines. Her feelings for her husband have turned into mild
disdain. She despises him for his mediocrity and lack of vision and ambition.
“But
she – her life was cold as a garret whose dormer-window looks on the
north, and ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the darkness in
every corner of her heart.”
A year comes and goes.
Emma falls ill; a deep melancholy and despair strike her down. Charles
suspects that there’s a physical reason for it, but she refuses any
medication. He thinks that maybe a change of location might help. When they
leave to the village, Emma is pregnant.
There is an important
character whose name is Leon Dupuis. When Charles and Emma visit the village, Emma
starts talking to the young Leon Dupuis, who works as a clerk in the
village. They get on extremely well, and their conversation flows easily from
topic to topic. Both are fascinated with and drawn to all things new, and it
almost seems like they have found soul mates in each other.
Charles
and Emma’s first child named Berthe is born and Emma soon grows tired of her
and gives her over to a nursemaid in the village. Leon feels more and more
drawn to Emma, who to him seems to be so different from all the other
people in the village. One day, Emma receives a visit from the cunning
shopkeeper Lherueux, who shows her his goods and assures her that he can
get whatever luxury item she desires. Heartbroken by Emma’s apparent
indifference, Leon decides to leave the village to finish his studies in Paris.
He says,
“Ah,
good-day! What! you here?”
One
day, a Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger appears at their house to ask Charles
to bleed one of his farmers, who suffers from tingling sensations. When
Rodolphe sees Emma, he is struck by her looks. The experienced womanizer
decides to seduce her. He gathers that her life with her boring husband must be
devoid of passion and excitement, and he starts to execute his plan carefully.
At
an agricultural fair, Rodolphe seeks out her company and then leads her into a
room in the town hall, from which they watch the ceremony. After the
encounter, he stays away for weeks. As expected, his absence kindles Emma’s
passion. When he finally arrives again at her house, he plays the
desperate, unrequited love. He tells her that he believes fate has brought them
together.
Emma
still resists Rodolphe’s advances but is secretly desperate to have some time
along alone with him. The opportunity comes when the naive Charles gives
his consent to Emma going horseback riding with Rodolphe. She finally has a
lover like all the heroines in her romantic novels. Over the next days and
months, Rodolphe and Emma meet regularly, and Emma, recklessly, even starts
visiting Rodolphe in his house early in the mornings.
Emma
becomes obsessed with Rodolphe. To please and excite him, she dresses in the
latest fashion and jewelry from Lherueux. According to Emma’s wish, he agrees
to her plan to run away together. At their last meeting before their
agreed departure, Rodolphe promises Emma that he will be at the coach, but in
reality, he already knows that he won’t go through with the plan. He spills a
drop of water on the paper so Emma will think he cried when he wrote it
– and sends it to her.
When
Emma receives the letter, she breaks down. For the first time in her life, she
considers suicide, and a long illness follows. Charles is worried sick about
her – and for more than a month doesn’t leave her side.
“She
wished at the same time to die and to live in Paris.”
Faced
with severe money troubles, Charles takes out a loan with Lheureux with
extortionate repayment conditions. Emma starts to improve slowly and begins to
turn back to her religious upbringing. When Emma is finally well enough, Homais
suggests that Charles take her to Rouen for a day to visit the opera, and
Charles agrees – anything to cheer up Emma.
Leon
follows Emma and Charles to their hotel, planning to seek her out in the
morning. Emma pretends reluctance but eventually agrees to a meeting in the
cathedral the next day. Leon persuades her to join him in a carriage, and they
set off on a tour around the city – with the curtains drawn. Whenever the
driver tries to stop, the only thing he hears is Léon’s command to “keep
moving!”
Lherueux
starts to hassle her to pay back the money she and Charles have borrowed. When
she tells him that she doesn’t have the money at the moment, he suggests
that she sell a property that used to belong to Charles’s father. With her
power of attorney, she agrees to the sale, but instead of taking her money to
pay off the bills, Lherueux proposes that she might want to keep hold of it and
pay back the money in six months’ time. Emma agrees and continues to live
beyond her means, spending money and visiting Leon regularly. But their
feelings for each other begin to grow stale.
“Never
touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.”
The
next day, the bailiff and two witnesses come to Emma and Charles’s house to
value their possessions. Emma tries to convince Leon to get a loan of
3,000 francs for her. He is unsuccessful.
At
the end of her tether, Emma goes to the apothecary’s house and begs the young
clerk Justin, who is secretly in love with her, to let her in. She claims
she requires rat poison and, unable to deny her anything, he lets her in
without telling Homais. She opens the cupboard, grabs a bottle of arsenic and
drinks it. She returns home, writes a letter to Charles – who by now knows
that the house is up for auction. The poison works slowly, and Emma is in agony
for hours. All of Charles’s attempts to rescue her fail, and after a grueling
struggle, she dies.
“To
please her, as though she were still alive, he adopted her predilections, her
ideas… He put cosmetics on his moustache , and, like her, signed notes of
hand. She corrupted him from beyond the grave.
Charles
is inconsolable. He stops working and keeps Emma’s bedroom almost as a shrine.
The very same day, Berthe finds him sitting on the bench in the garden – dead.
Eventually, we can
comment that Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is a tragic novel
as we have seen the tragic death of our beloved heroine.
