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Devon Dykes
Dr. Natalie Schroeder
English 392
6 March 2012
In Madame Bovarys Mind
There are a plethora of themes in Gustave Flauberts Madame Bovary ranging from the
desire for passion in a loveless marriage to pompous acts that spark death. The characters in the
novel are used to guide the audience through all the digressions of turmoil and lust that steadily
have a pattern of repeating to the main character Madame Bovary. The storyline revolves around
her appetite for romantic love while forgoing all morals and ethics to achieve her yearning for
infinite ecstasy. Madame Bovary uses all of her resources to fulfill her need to live in a world of
unattainable zeal that concludes in the loss of her own sanity.
A predominant character in Madame Emma Bovarys life is her husband Charles Bovary
who is a practicing physician to provide her with a middle class lifestyle. Greed and the
indulgence of material items begin to crumble the foundation of their marriage. While Emma is
pregnant, she is looking to purchase items that she wants her baby to have instead of the baby
actually needing the merchandise. Emma initiates one of her many spending escapades.
Emma at first felt a great astonishment, then she was eager to be delivered, to know
what it was like to be a mother. But, unable to spend as much as she would have liked, on a
swing-boat cradle with pink silk curtains and embroidered baby-bonnets, she gave up the layette
in an outburst of bitterness, and ordered it in one go from a village dressmaker, without choosing
or discussing anything. (82)
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Before Emma becomes involved in her love affairs, she initiates deceit by spending
beyond her and her husbands financial means. By assuring Charles that they can afford it she is
not being entirely honest within her marriage. She is instead putting herself as the priority instead
of giving equal respect to her husband along with herself. Charles already has a lack of
confidence and self-assurance about himself. He risks his profession and financial stability by
moving to Yonville to cure Emma of her depression He also tends to believe anything Emma
directs towards him and only slightly hesitates to question her actions.
Charles is not the only Bovary to be shafted by Emmas self-absorbed motives. Her
daughter Berthe is heavily impacted by her mothers unruly decisions of spending the
nonexistent fortune they did not contain. After becoming an orphan, Berthe is sent to live with
her grandmother then a distant aunt where she is put work to provide for the household. Along
with her abandonment, Emma does not desire the materials just for her daughter. She instead
wants them because she believes that what it must feel like to be a mother rather than showing
her child true nurture and compassion. Emma also insists on having a wet nurse to take care of
Berthe when Emma is in need of her own time. This proves her lack of responsibility for
motherhood and still continuing the phase of her own selfishness.
Madame Bovary also risks losing everything over the affairs she has with Leon and
Rodolphe. As a young girl from the Catholic convent it would be assumed that Emma would be a
faithful bride and be unquestionably devoted to her husband especially during the time period
Madame Bovary took place. However Emma does the unthinkable and has affairs with both of
the men throughout different time frames. Leon is a younger and more impressionable fellow to
her, while Rodolphe uses his prevalent seduction and certainly knows of his sexual legacy
throughout France.
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Leon and Emmas intimate and passionate love affair began once they both began
exchanging stories at dinner on the first night of the Bovarys arrival in Yonville. This ignited
the relationship since Emma is one who cannot resist a challenge neither a physical experience
that appeared to be offered for the taking. The physical affair later erupts between the two
youthful lovers as they can no longer reside their feelings for one another when the two are seen
publically together without any caution that may have seen their publicly aloneness. Their love
affair is numerical and timed strategically whenever they can be alone such as the time when
Emma travels to Rouen to receive her weekly piano lesson.
From the dense-packed humanity she inhaled something vertiginous, and it gorged her
heart, as though hundred and twenty thousand souls pulsing down there had discharged all
together the fumes of the passions she imagined theirs. Her love unfurled across vast space,
dilated to a chaos by the vague murmur rising from below. (245)
This quote told of what Emma experienced with Leon while they were alone together
while in Rouen. She would get incredibly enthralled in the sexual relationship that she could
validate why she was having the affair to begin with. These adventures excited Emma and gave
her a stimulated feeling in her life from what she considered her boring marriage to Charles.
With these overpowering feelings in existence, it does not matter what happens to Charles,
Berthe, or anyone else who comes in the way of her pleasure. Emma is opted into risking it all
for the grasp of something that is sultry and thrilling.
Emmas other man in her life that she finds warmth in is Rodolphe who has wealth and
experience. It does not take much time or skill to seduce Emma into becoming physical with
Rodolphe after the horse ride in the woods. She is attracted to his youth, fortune, and talent of
enticement that takes her over to wanting to leave with him. Emma is willing to abandon her life
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as Madame Bovary and leave with Rodolphe while even bringing daughter Berthe.
Unfortunately for Emma Rodolphe does not see that can happen since he is not one be plastered
down to simply one woman. Emmas heart and soul yearn for someone such as Rodolphe to be
in her life. The reader does have to wander if Emma would get bored with him like she did
Charles. It is simple to imagine oneself in a passionate love affair to a husband, but one must ask
how long can would last with an elevated personality.
Emma is a spirit that tries to take control to alternate her life from the way it is like
leaving with Rodolphe escaping from her world of saddened solitude. She finds a way to fulfill
her emptiness by lavishly spending money as if they have it in the bank. The character Lhereux
is a seller of goods that Emma meets through buying her pretty things she feels are necessities.
He convinces her to spend more each time and justifies her purchasing this money. Emma did
not come from wealth, so she is not all that knowledgeable about the linguistics of financials. By
the time she realizes she is in the hole financially, she feels it is too late to come out alive.
She awoke, at nine oclock in the morning, to the sound of voices does in the square.
There was a crowd gathered in the market to read a large notice pasted up on one of the pillars,
and she Justin, who was standing up on a stone and tearing it down. But, just at that moment, the
village policeman took hold of him by the collar. (281)
In this scene this is when Emma sees that all of her gambling with her marriage and
money has caught up with her. She is humiliated about the precautions that were taken to
publically indicate her failure to pay her debts while also been given the ultimatum that they will
sell her all of her belongings. Emma puts what limited pride she has left to ask her lovers and
Guillaumin for them to solve her debt dilemma. With no help from anyone and completely
relying on herself, she feels her only alternative option is suicide. When she goes to retrieve
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arsenic from Justin he is hesitant and insists that she cannot have it. Once Emma gets her hands
on the poison she throws it back into her throat and waits for it to travel through her body. Emma
has lost control all of these situations and even her life. She is in despair that feels her only
option is death and that nothing positive can relinquish from her past acts, however she does not
seem regretful in her acquaintances she was involved.
The end of the novel is solemn in that Emma dies in a horrific way that could have been
prevented leaving a broken hearted husband and an orphaned child. In the end is when the
audience sees what kind of love Charles and Emma could have had. They were affectionate to
one another in Emmas final hours trying to cure her of the illness she could not shake away.
Charles was enamored by Emma, and although he was not as bright with common sense he did
have a heart that craved to please Emma. Knowing that his money is gone and that he is way in
debt he continues to try and give his former wife what she would have wanted.
I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with white shoes and a crown of flowers.
Her hair is to be arranged loosely about her shoulders: three coffins, one of oak, one of
mahogany, one of lead. Let no one speak to me and I shall manage. Such is my wish. Let it be
done. (307)
Charles requested this for his wifes funeral and wrote a request of what was needed for
Emmas arrangements. This goes to prove his sincerity even after death and how important
Emma was to him. It also reflects his descent into madness much like hers. The order he wishes
for is somewhat overbearing and ridiculous when there are no funds to support this order. The
consequences that deem from this are not put on Charles instead it is bestowed on Berthe leaving
her even more without security and solidity in her young life.
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To reflect on the woman Madame Emma Bovary, she is one that dreams of enchantment
and courtship from a man. She receives this from multiple men who she become involved with.
These feelings are never enough because they are not grounded by a solid foundation. Her
random flings and meetings that turn into occasional affairs are only temporary. The only aspect
of her life that is grounded and written in ink is her marriage to her flimsy husband Charles.
Emma is not satisfied with how her life ended with a mundane husband and baby girl.
It is extremely despairing to witness the obstacles she faces to attempt to make her life
more meaningful. Although she did choose Charles as her husband and was not forced, she was
young and was glazed by the idea of eternal, non-stop romance. Everyone deserves the right to
happiness, and she simply felt it a way to achieve that was secretly from her love affairs. The
audience must also be aware of the time period that this took place in. Women did not have a
substantial amount of options to leave their parents home and be on their own. Emma took
opportunity when it approached her. She just most likely took it too early and could have waited
for her true love. It is also evident that Emmas state of mind was not always present, and that
depression played a pattern throughout the novel to the end when she poisoned herself.
Emma Bovary attempted to play life as a game by stretching her means while sacrificing
her very mind and life. This novel asks readers to question their morals and challenges their
ideas of what people desire in life. Once Charles did find out about Emmas lovers he seemed
not as bothered as expected. It could have been for the best that he did not know, and that fate
was used appropriately in the text. Emma was a product of her environment that led to her
feeding off her feelings and emotions rather than her mind and rationality.


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Work Cited
Flaubert , Gustave . Madame Bovary. Canada: Bantam Books, 1966.