Madame Bovary · Chapter
The Deepening Affair and Plans for Escape explained
Emma and Rodolphe's affair intensifies, with Emma's obsession growing as her disgust for Charles deepens.
What happens
Emma and Rodolphe's affair intensifies, with Emma's obsession growing as her disgust for Charles deepens. She lavishes attention on her appearance for Rodolphe, and their secret communications via Justin become routine. Emma's extravagant spending and scandalous behavior (like wearing a man's waistcoat) provoke a quarrel with Charles's mother, who visits. After a reconciliation, Emma, in despair, signals for Rodolphe, and they begin to plan an elaborate escape to Italy. Meanwhile, Charles dreams of a modest, happy future for their daughter Berthe, starkly contrasting Emma's grandiose, romantic fantasies of flight.
Themes in this chapter
Romanticism vs. Reality
Emma's elaborate, clichéd fantasies of escape to an exotic land (with citron trees, gondolas, and storks) starkly contrast Charles's mundane dreams of Berthe's future and the practical, sordid details of the affair.
Dissatisfaction and Boredom
Emma's stated reason for summoning Rodolphe is her boredom and frightful life. Her affair and planned escape are direct responses to this profound ennui.
Consumerism and Debt
Emma's preparation for flight involves ordering expensive goods (cloak, trunk) from Lheureux, continuing her pattern of using material acquisition to fuel her fantasies, with Charles footing the bill.
Characters to notice
- Emma Bovary
Her passion for Rodolphe becomes all-consuming, fueling her disgust for Charles. She plans an elaborate escape, orders travel items from Lheureux, and lives in vivid romantic fantasies.
- Rodolphe Boulanger
Grows impatient with Emma's intensity and sees her love as commonplace. He cynically enjoys the corruption of her innocence and agrees to plans for their flight.
- Charles Bovary
Remains oblivious, paying for Emma's extravagances (like Hippolyte's leg). He dreams of a simple, domestic future for Berthe, highlighting his profound disconnect from Emma's reality.
- Justin
Serves as a messenger for Emma and Rodolphe. He lingers in the kitchen with Félicité, fascinated by Emma's clothes and cleaning the mud from her rendezvous boots.
- Monsieur Lheureux
Emma orders a cloak, trunk, and bag from him, using her watch as payment. He correctly intuits 'there's a row on here,' seeing her preparations for flight.
- Félicité
Constantly washing and ironing Emma's linens, annoyed by Justin's presence. Her own romantic life with Theodore is hinted at.
Key passages
“Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion to her husband. The more she gave up herself to the one, the more she loathed the other.”
Emma's love for Rodolphe and hatred for Charles fed off each other in a vicious cycle.
Highlights the destructive, zero-sum nature of her passions.
“human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars.”
Language is an inadequate tool, capable only of crude expression when we desire to convey sublime feelings.
A narrative meditation on the failure of cliché to express genuine emotion, explaining Rodolphe's cynicism.
“He pictured her to himself working in the evening by their side beneath the light of the lamp; she would embroider him slippers...”
Charles imagined a future where Berthe would grow into a domestic, charming companion for him and Emma.
Illustrates Charles's simple, sentimental, and utterly conventional vision of happiness, opposed to Emma's.
