58 pages • 1-hour read
Madame Bovary
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Character Analysis
Emma Bovary
Content Warning: This section discusses suicide, racism, and domestic violence.
Emma Bovary is the titular character of the novel. She is the main protagonist of the novel, whose character development represents the ways in which women in the 19th century had little to no autonomy and struggled to adapt to the expectations of the time. Her personal desires, ambitions, and overactive imagination bring about her own downfall and the destruction of her family. Emma is raised an average girl of some means, neither poor nor wealthy. She spends her formative years studying in a convent, surrounded by other girls and women. Her experiences in the convent jumpstart her active fantasy life because her first exposure to the magic of storytelling is within the stories of the saints. Emma moves from the convent to her father’s house, sequestered yet again from the world she wishes to be a part of. Because Emma is a woman who is not allowed to engage with the world around her, she goes on her own adventures through the novels she reads. Further, since Emma is inexperienced with the real world, these novels give Emma a false narrative about what the real world is like. She marries Charles quickly because she wants to get out of her father’s house and experience love, but she quickly learns that she is not in love with Charles. Trapped in this marriage and spoiled by Charles’s unconditional love for her, Emma creates an opulent household that the Bovarys cannot afford. She becomes a mother but is apathetic about her daughter. Instead, Emma dives further into her fantasies. She carries on two affairs, one with Rodolphe and one with Léon, because affairs are her only opportunity to seek out happiness and self-worth. Meanwhile, Emma puts her family into financial ruin by signing on for loans for luxury goods they can’t afford. Emma’s biggest flaw is that she can’t reconcile the reality of the world with her fantasies, and she never learns how to engage with the real world. Emma dies by suicide because she can’t bear to face the consequences of her actions. She is a tragic figure whose hamartia is both her own responsibility and a product of her society’s subjugation of women. Because Emma is intelligent and wants intellectual stimulation that she is not allowed to have, she seeks stimulation and inspiration in the wrong places, ultimately leading to her downfall.
Charles Bovary
Charles Bovary is Emma’s husband. He is utterly devoted to her to the point of problematic obliviousness. Charles is characterized by his extremely average qualities. Charles is a good man, a doctor who is fine but not great at his job and is stable but boring. He loves Emma passionately, in part because marrying Emma is the first decision he makes without the permission or intervention of his parents. Charles works hard to keep up with Emma’s expensive demands, but he largely doesn’t analyze or confront the truth about Emma’s philandering ways, over-opulent lifestyle, and general dissatisfaction. Whenever Emma becomes ill from her depression, Charles does everything in his power to make her feel better, even moving to give her a new setting even though it comes at the cost of his career and financial stability. Even when Emma drags the family into financial ruin, Charles can’t find fault within her. After her death, Charles discovers evidence of Emma’s affairs, and yet he still puts her on a pedestal. Charles leans into his obliviousness as a way of escaping the reality that his love for Emma was not only unreciprocated but also taken advantage of. Charles ultimately dies of heartbreak.
Monsieur Homais
Monsieur Homais is the town’s pharmacist and busybody. He is involved in all things public. He is practicing medicine in his pharmacy even though he is not a doctor, and he covers up this illicit activity by ingratiating himself with Charles Bovary. Monsieur Homais is an extremely social man who has his hands in all the pots around town. He is a pontificator who loves to engage in philosophical debates about topics he doesn’t really know a lot about. He is an ardent criticizer of the Catholic church and, therefore, becomes the character Flaubert uses to articulate his own criticisms of the moral hypocrisies of organized and institutionalized religion. Monsieur Homais becomes a public intellectual, which is ironic given his lack of experience and knowledge. Monsieur Homais knows how to use speech to convince others of an expertise that doesn’t exist. Monsieur Homais is awarded France’s prestigious Legion of Honour, which presents Flaubert’s critique of the gullibility of French society.
Rodolphe
Rodolphe is the first man Emma has an affair with. He is a wealthy bachelor who loves seducing women. He seduces Emma with lies about being in love with her. They have a passionate affair that Rodolphe fully controls. He builds power over Emma through his false promises of love and a future together. Rodolphe leaves Emma on the eve that they are to run away together, which devastates Emma. Rodolphe is Emma’s first heartbreak. He successfully convinces her of their love, and therefore puts her in a vulnerable and disastrously emotional place. Rodolphe has no concern or respect for women. Emma is just another woman for him. Rodolphe’s affair with Emma highlights how Emma can’t see the signs of reality because she is so desperate to make her fantasies a reality. This affair is also significant because it marks a character shift in Emma, who resisted her feelings for Léon but caved with Rodolphe because of both his practiced charms and persistence.
Léon
Léon is the second man Emma has an affair with. He is a handsome young man who is well-educated. When Léon first falls in love with Emma, he doesn’t act on his feelings because he respects the moral codes of his society. He leaves Yonville-l’Abbaye so that he can put distance between himself and Emma. Like Emma, Léon craves an exciting and passionate life. They connect on their mutual love for literature and desire for stimulation in an otherwise boring world. When Léon and Emma meet again years later, they begin a passionate affair. Emma holds the power in her affair with Léon, and he becomes so oppressed by the affair that his mother and his boss encourage him to break it off. Léon is in a toxic cycle with Emma in which he can’t break up with her but also fears her increasingly irrational ideas and behavior.
Monsieur Lheureux
Monsieur Lheureux is an antagonist in the novel. He runs a pawn shop and a loan service. In Emma, Monsieur Lheureux sees an opportunity to make money. He correctly reads into Emma’s obsession with material goods, and the loans he convinces her to sign on to make her more financially reliant on him. He takes advantage of Emma’s naivete and lack of experience dealing with money. He moves her toward poverty because he has her sign on for loans that he knows—but she doesn’t—she can’t pay off. Monsieur Lheureux also discovers Emma’s affair with Léon, which he uses against her. Monsieur Lheureux represents the seedy, insidious, and dishonest nature of the money-lending and debt business. Flaubert uses this character to articulate his critique about his society’s management of debt, money, and perceptions of wealth.
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