Madame Bovary · Chapter
The Funeral explained
The chapter details Emma Bovary's funeral.
What happens
The chapter details Emma Bovary's funeral. Père Rouault arrives in anguish after receiving a vague letter about Emma's condition. The funeral service and burial procession are described, highlighting the grief of Charles and her father, the hypocritical observations of Homais, and the quiet mourning of Justin at her grave. The chapter ends with the characters returning to their lives, marked by loss.
Themes in this chapter
Romanticism vs. Reality
The stark, tedious reality of the funeral ritual (the endless chanting, the physicality of the grave) clashes with Charles's romantic visions of Emma on a journey and his intense, despairing grief.
Religion and Hypocrisy
The funeral service is performed mechanically by Bournisien. Homais uses the event not for genuine mourning but to judge others' decorum and promote his own enlightened philosophy, highlighting societal hypocrisy.
Characters to notice
- Charles Bovary
Consumed by despair and rage during the funeral; experiences hallucinations and a desire to join Emma in the grave.
- Père Rouault
Rides frantically to Yonville after a vague letter; devastated by his daughter's death; leaves after the funeral, turning back for a final look.
- Monsieur Homais
Orchestrates the funeral details, offers unsolicited philosophical advice, and makes critical, hypocritical observations about the attendees' propriety.
- Monsieur Bournisien
Conducts the funeral service in a shrill voice, performing the rites of burial.
- Justin
Found weeping alone at Emma's grave at night, his heart rent by an 'immense regret'; is later discovered by Lestiboudois.
- Hippolyte Tautain
Attends the funeral, kneeling painfully with his new leg, a reminder of the Bovarys' past failures.
Key passages
“He remembered that once, in the early times, they had been to mass together, and they had sat down on the other side, on the right, by the wall.”
Charles recalls attending church with Emma early in their marriage, a memory that contrasts with his present grief at her funeral.
Highlights the theme of lost happiness and the painful contrast between past and present.
“"Oh, make haste! I am in pain!" cried Bovary, angrily throwing him a five-franc piece.”
Charles, agonized by the slow, drawn-out service, angrily pays the chorister to hurry the collection.
Illustrates the intensity of Charles's suffering and his inability to bear the formalities of mourning.
“Rodolphe... was sleeping quietly in his château, and Léon, down yonder, always slept. There was another who at that hour was not asleep.”
While Emma's lovers sleep peacefully, Justin is awake, weeping at her graveside.
Contrasts the profound, silent grief of the innocent Justin with the obliviousness of the men who caused her ruin.
“Homais in his innermost conscience thought not quite the thing.”
Homais privately disapproves of Père Rouault smoking a pipe so soon after his daughter's burial.
Exemplifies Homais's preoccupation with superficial propriety over genuine human emotion.