There are, in fact, three Madame Bovarys in Madame Bovary, all of whom bear some relation to Charles Bovary, the character who begins the novel as its protagonist and whose life is, in large part, defined and dictated by the three women who share the eponymous moniker. The first two are his mother and first wife, who oversee his transition from shy country boy to competent if not brilliant country doctor. After his first wife’s death, Charles remarries a young woman named Emma, the daughter of a patient, with whom he has grown smitten.
It is this Madame Bovary who becomes the focus of the novel, usurping it from her well-meaning but bumbling husband, for whom she feels more pity than love—that is, until the former emotion sours into contempt. Educated in a convent and devoted to stories of high romance, Emma chafed against the banality of life as a country doctor’s wif,e taking solace in affairs and exuberant spending, which together prove her ruin and that of her husband.
Though very much Emma’s story, the novel is populated with other memorable characters who, though not broad enough to be caricatures, are penned with enough acid to satirize provincial life. There’s Homais, the conceited pharmacist, who speaks in soliloquies and fancies himself an expert in everything; Lheureux, the scheming merchant, who gouges everyone in town and finds a pair of ideal marks in Charles and Emma; Rodolphe Boulange, the wealthy Don Juan who seduces Emma as easily as he eventually discards her.
The writing is elegant and teeming with detail. While I lack a refined ear for style in French, I know enough to appreciate the fluidity of Flaubert’s prose, and though his vocabularity strained the limits of my knowledge, his writing was clear enough to comprehend with only accasion dips into the dictionary. It took me a while to finish, but it was never less than enjoyable to read.