Madame Bovary: Parts II and III

Madame Bovary: Parts II & III

The theme of love as an illness has continuously appeared in the reading we’ve done so far. After receiving Rodolphe’s letter, Charles is certain that the apricots initially brought on Emma’s illness. For the next few months, Emma is on the brink of death, afflicted by some psychosomatic disease. She only begins to come out of it when she attempts to fill the void that Rodolphe left with religion. At one point in Act II, the narrator describes her faith as a sort of romance in itself: “When she knelt at her Gothic prie-dieu, she would address the Lord with the same sweet words she used to murmur to her lover in the ecstatic transports of her adultery.” (p.188)

As Emma began to feel better, Charles resolved to take her to the Opera to lift her spirits. The choice of opera was interesting, because Lucia Di Lammermoor is a story about a woman who marries the wrong man and ultimately kills her husband and herself and her lover commits suicide. I thought this was kind of a neat way for Flaubert to drop a hint to foreshadow Emma’s suicide.

The blind beggar appears several times throughout the novel; I took him to be a representation of what Emma had become on the inside. He sings of ‘birds, sunshine, and green leaves’ but the song is coming from a scary place, much like Emma has beautiful and decadent dreams, but they originate in a part of her that might be a bit darker than the rest. His blindness conveys Emma’s inability to see the effect she is having on the people around her – she is a woman controlled by desire. I found his last song as Emma dies especially interesting,

“How the warmth of the sun above

Makes a pretty young girl dream of love.”

The warmth and the sun are representative of the light at the end of the tunnel – relief after years of being confined to a dark, unalterable path. She was so consumed by the weight of her desires that the only way she could see to relieve the pain was death. Only in death, upon the release of her desires, is Emma able to dream of love again. Charles has Emma buried in her wedding dress, a reminder that the first time she put the dress on, she started dying. It’s only fitting that she wear it to the grave.

Charles and Justin react very emotionally to Emma’s death; both weep at length. These characters were the two that never obtained their object of desire and satiated their thirst. Charles was far too plain to capture his wife’s attention and Justin spent years watching from the sidelines, never having the courage to approach Emma about his affection. Their strong response is a sharp contrast to the lackluster reactions of Rodolphe and Leon, both of whom had acquired Emma’s love. Neither cried and both got a full night’s sleep after they were told of her death.

This showcases the elusive nature of desire. Rodolphe and Leon have both realized how empty the illusion of Emma Bovary is and feel no despair at the loss. Justin and Charles, however, are still clinging to that illusion. They will be haunted by a certain sense of melancholia long after she’s gone. Charles discovers Rodolphe’s letter to Emma and discounts it. When he finds the rest of the incriminating letters between Emma and her lovers, he does not resent her for it, but rather blames it on fate. In Charles’ eyes, Emma Bovary walks on clouds and can do no wrong, even long after her death.