Gustave Flaubert’s debut novel Madame Bovary is a work of literary realism in which Flaubert brings out the provincial life of the protagonists in a little french village. In the novel, Flaubert moves away from the romantic literary traditions of his time and writes a tale that is rooted in reality. In the novel, Emma’s romantic nature and actions become a stark contrast to the very normal existence of her husband Charles. Although the novel centers around Emma or Madame Bovary, the role her husband charles plays in her life cannot be underestimated. Emma grows up reading a lot of romantic novels and her life in a way is conditioned by it. She grows tired of her marriage with Charles as she sees him through the eyes of the rest of the people, Charles is as a clumsy, bungling man who cannot become a rich man nor cater to the romantic desires of Emma. Emma falls in love with and has affairs with Rodolphe Boulanger and Leon Dupuis. In her pursuit for a romantic life and a more interesting life away from her marital home, Emma fails to realize the true love that her husband has for her. The romantic notions of love and life that Emma has proves to be too shallow in the face of the realistic love that Charles has for her. Charles’s love for Emma might not have the flowers, gardens, mountains, balls and horses that she dreams of, but it is rooted in reality. In this sense, the novel can be seen as breaking away from the romanticism of the period in which it was written. It could very well be a satire on the whole genre. Rodolphe and Leon both satisfy Emma’s desire for the romantic, they are rich, dashing and tell her exactly what she wants to heat but leave her when she is being real. They continue with their affair as long as Emma fulfills her role of a romantic but leave her when she wants them to be there for her. The romantic men in the novel do not want to deal with the sobbing and needy heroine. Charles on the other hand stays with her throughout and his love for her blinds him to whatever she does. Even after she dies and he learns about her debts, Charles does not hate her. Rather he tries to create a life that would have pleased her even if it leads to his eventual death and ruin. It is not the guilt of the affairs that force Emma to kill herself eventually but it is the inability to face Charles and his forgiveness. Emma knows Charles would forgive her but she cannot take it.Charles is no romantic but he loves his wife with all his heart, trying more than his best to please her and make her happy. His love for her is not based on some romantic notion of love but is rooted in reality. Contrary to the need for drama in the case of Emma, Charles is grounded and yet his love is the greatest of them all. Charles’s love is real compared to the shallow romantic notions of love that Emma harbours throughout her life.
Emma always dreams of a better, richer life than the one that she currently leads. Although she is well educated, her education by no means equips her with rational thought or critical thinking. Having read romantic novels throughout her growing years, she fails to separate reality and fantasy and that eventually leads to her ruin. In order to lead the life she wants, Emma keeps getting deeper into debt and there comes a time when nothing she can do can save her from financial ruin. When the debt collectors take away all her belongings, she is despaired but in the midst of her suffering, she imagines how Charles would react when he learns about her and how she had squandered away all his wealth. She imagines herself telling Charles to “Go away!”“This carpet on which you are walking is no longer ours. In your own house you do not possess a chair, a pin, a straw, and it is I, poor man, who have ruined you.” Emma is quite familiar with how he would react to her and imagines that, “there would be a great sob; next he would weep abundantly, and at last, the surprise past, he would forgive her” ( Flaubert 329). Although Emma imagines this, nothing can be further from the truth. Charles’s love for her is real that not only would he have understood but would have also forgiven her. Charles’s forgiving nature inspires contempt, guilt and shame in Emma than her lovers’ disdain. Even in her deathbed Emma remains a romantic and has a flair for drama. Rather than accept reality and make Charles happy eventually, she chooses to die. She cannot see Charles’s magnanimity but rather sees it as oppression and would rather die than go on living with him. Charles on the other hand is happy with her and would go to great lengths to see that she is okay. He does not restrict her but does what he can to make her happy. His life is devoid of drama and does what any person in love would have done. His love is simple, the kind that may not cause knees to buckle or create butterfly flutters in the stomach,but the kinds that makes everyday life bearable. Emma having been consumed by romantic notions of love does not understand it. Both Charles and Emma are dreamers. However the difference lies in the fact that Charles is satisfied by the reality but Emma isn't. Emma’s love is self absorbed while Charles's love for her. While Emma’s love and idealistic nature causes sufferings to other people, Charles’s love causes suffering only to himself and he chooses it.
Henry James in his book, French Poets and Novelists, says that Charles Bovary is “the only good person of the book” with the rejoinder that “he is stupidly, helplessly good (James 263).”Flaubert does not pass judgement on the characters in his novel. He is unapologetic about their behavior. He tells it as it is. However a reader of the novel is likely to think of Emma as the tragic, long suffering heroine who is trapped in her marriage and Charles as the villain. Flaubert does not call Charles as good but it is quite evident in the story that he is the one good person in the whole drama. The oppressiveness and helplessness that Emma suffers in her marriage and provincial life is of her own doing and has nothing to do with Charles. It is Emma’s inability to appreciate and reciprocate Charles’s goodness that contributes to her suffering and eventual ruin and death. If anything, it is Charles who is the tragic figure and not Emma. Charles is everything that Emma and her lovers aren’t. He is simple, true and is willing to do anything for love. Emma’s suicide is her own folly, for if she had lived she would have realized Charles’s love for her and could have perhaps finally let go of her romantic leanings and come to reality. Although it is Emma who wants badly to get out of the provincial life and its norms, it is in fact Charles who takes all the actions. He moves to a bigger town when he realizes Emma is not happy and tries to do things he is not accustomed to for her happiness. He also flouts conventions if that would mean Emma is healthy and happy. When Rodolphe who takes a fancy to Emma asks her out for a horse ride with him, Emma is reluctant. Emma tells Charles that it would appear odd to the neighbors if a married woman goes out horseriding alone with another man. However Charles says, “What the deuce do I care for that?” “Health before everything! You are wrong”( Flaubert 170). This incident proves that Charles is not oppressive or even remotely jealous. If anything he is too good and naive. He insists that Emma rides with Rodolphe and is just worried about his wife and not what the people would think of them. He does a similar thing with Leon. He lets Emma stay in rouen a day longer even it would mean that people could talk about them. He also pays for Emma’s piano lessons thinking that it would take her mind off of her problems at home.
Charles might come across to the readers as being awkwards,lacking in social graces and of being a mediocre man. But it these weaknesses that make his sublimity to shine through. Charles is more perceptive and forgiving of the others in the novel. Even after he discovers Emma’s love letters stuffed in her drawer, Charles could only feel sympathy for her He is not angered by her infidelity but rather tries to understand the pain that she had gone through. Even when he meets Rodolphe after Emma’s death, Charles does not create a scene. He agrees to have a drink with him and tells Rodolphe that he does not hold him responsible. Charles is subtle and nuanced in his behavior towards the person who had cuckolded him and is not egocentric. Rodolphe on the other hand cannot understand Charles's Subtleties and good heart and can only look at the situation through his own behavior. He calls Charles’s behavior vile while it is his behavior that is less than exemplary. Charles might not have had the charm of Emma’s lovers but he is the only person who's kind and accepting and willing to break conventions so that the person he loves could be happy. Jacques Ranciere, the French philosopher argues that Emma, “is sentenced as a bad artist,who handles in the wrong way the equivalence of art and non art.” In try to literalize art and romance, Emma ends up cheapening her life and that of Charles. It is because she is so consumed by her notions of what life and love should be that she becomes insensible to Charles’s love for her, “in the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, his conceptions, nor of his suffering (Flaubert 208).” Charles has a lot of empathy compared to the failure and lack of imagination in Emma and her lovers. Itis only when she is dying that Emma realizes that she is incapable of experiencing happiness. When Leon leaves her for good, she admits to herself the vicariousness of desire. She says, “Every smile hid a yawn of ennui, every joy a curse, all pleasure, satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon the lips only an unattainable desire for a greater delight ( Flaubert 307).” Living on, instead of killing herself would have forced Emma to deal with her delusions about romantic love and reality. Instead of coming to terms with reality, she chooses to escape it as she always does.
Emma is a victim of her own romantic ideals. She constantly strives to get out of the provincial life that she so despises. She fails to compartmentalize her fantasy readings and her reality. She expects her life to be what she had read in her novels and expects her men to be the same. It is only after her affairs that she realizes that her life and pursuits have been empty and that she had achieved nothing. Charles on the other hand harbours no such romantic ideals. There is no pomp and drama about him. He is a simple man but in the best way possible. He might not have swept Emma of her feet by declaring his undying love for her nor does he try to impress her by talking about arts and literature. He loves her truly in a realistic way. He understands that he cannot provide her with everything but that does not stop him from encouraging her to find happiness. He flouts the norms of the society that they live in when he asks Emma to go on the horseback ride or when he asks her to stay for an extra night in rouen. He is also not in the least jealous or suspicious of what his wife might be up to when he is not around. He is simple and good. Charles might not be the typical hero of the romantic novels that Emma had been reading about and dreaming of her entire life but he is a real hero who puts his wife’s happiness in front of his. The readers might view him as a character that is blind to his wife’s faults or stupid to have encouraged her to follow her happiness. But Charles is the only character who is good in the novel. He is the only one who is not constrained by the society in which he lives in. The rest are vain. They are frustrated in their lack of happiness in what they have, put up appearances or try to get more than what they have. Charles gives and keeps giving even after Emma dies. It is not a stupid, blind love but a love that is very much steeped in reality. The novel might be about Madame Bovary but it is Charles who is the real hero for he is ever grounded in reality. In Madame Bovary Flaubert brings out the shallowness inherent in romanticism and by portraying the intricate, mundane details of the main characters and other townspeople he makes his work quite realistic. Through Charles, the readers also understand that it isn’t romantic gestures that make for true love but a good heart and acceptance.
Works Cited
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Trans. Lydia Davis. New York: Penguin Classics. 2011.
James, Henry. French poets and Novelists. London: Macmillan and Co. 1878.
Ranciere, Jacques. Why Emma Bovary Had to Be Killed. Critical Inquiry 34.2 (2008): 240.
