The lead character Emma finds life very boring in spite of eventually marrying the man she falls in love with. Flaubert’s debut novel explores in a third person narrative how far she goes in search of romance and passion that she found only in books or rather imagined.
Each of her romantic escapades brings to fore the oft-repeated question, can true love exist ever? Rodolphe lures and manipulates her purely for her beauty, and is very soon bored with her idealization, and plots an emotional excuse to not elope with her. Leon garners a thought about courting other interesting women, and Emma just remains an option. The emotional confusions of Emma on her infidelity, the passion she tries to control and which in turn ends up devouring her peace are so thornily described, that her character comes across as that of a highly stupid and stupefied woman.
The novel starts introducing Charles and ends with his demise, making him the main character while Emma's introduction and demise falls in between though she is the title character. There is a mild confusion on whom the title refers since the first part has in it Charles’s mother and his first wife, both addressed as Madame Bovary.
Charles is spoilt by Sr Madame Bovary who marries him to the much elder widow Heloise Dubuc who is more controlling and constantly nagging. Charles is smitten by Emma while Heloise is still alive, and so drifts away. But before he starts his affair, Heloise loses her inheritance and dies, making it easy for him to marry Emma. Charles probably grows into a completely dull person due to the overpowering influence of Madame Bovary Sr and his first wife, the other Madame Bovary, and end up uninteresting to Emma. Nevertheless, Charles tries to take his first wife's side when she loses her inheritance though weakly. He mourns her death. His love for Emma and blind trust in her are subtly outlined and his feelings when he realizes that he has indeed been cheated towards the end sounds tragic.
A great classic and obviously a good read. But I couldn't find any strong reason for Emma to so swiftly drift away from Charles and find him so boring the very next chapter after she falls in love with him and marries him! Too quick for such a long text with protracted descriptions about almost everything from flowers to fountains.
