Who He Is
The first lover of Emma Bovary, whom she visits at dawn at La Huchette. He enters the scene bringing Charles a peasant who wants to be bled because he "felt tingling all over his body," and on the way back he decides on the seduction before exchanging a word with her alone.
She will be mine!
Trajectory
In Chapter 8 of Part II he courts Emma during the agricultural show, between the speech of councillor Lieuvain and the announcement of the prizes, and dismisses Lheureux, who tries to join the conversation.
Ah!, but there are two [...] the petty one, the conventional one, the one of men, which keeps changing and shouts so loudly that it stirs on the ground, earth to earth [...] But the other, the eternal one, encircles everything and rises above everything, like the landscape around us and the sky that lights us.
Rodolphe pressed her hand and felt it very hot and trembling, like a captive turtledove that wants to take flight again.
In Chapter 9 of Part II he stays away for six weeks, waiting for absence to work in his favor.
Well, if she loved me from the first day, out of impatience to see me again, she must love me even more. So, let us continue!
In the visit when he returns, still in her house, he says the phrase after which the text records that it was the first time Emma heard someone say such things to her; the surrender comes later, on the ride in the woods.
We are always carried away by what is beautiful, charming, lovely!
In Chapter 12 of Part II, over time, he stops distinguishing Emma from the other women he has had. He postpones the agreed flight week by week until it is set for September 4, and decides alone not to go. In Chapter 13 of Part II he writes the letter of rupture, testing phrases for their effect, and drips water on the ink to simulate a tear.
Fate is to blame!
After the letter, Emma faints when she sees his blue tilbury pass through the square.
In Chapter 8 of Part III Emma goes to La Huchette ready to ask him for what she refused Guillaumin. He receives her with staged affection and refuses with calm, and the narrator comments on the request.
I don't have them, my dear lady.
because a request for money is the coldest and most devastating of all the storms that can fall upon love.
In Chapter 11 of Part III, after Emma's death, Charles finds the letter of rupture fallen on the attic floor and, some time later, meets Rodolphe by chance and absolves him.
It was fate's fault!
Themes Embodied
The standard themes running through him are Desire and Language and narration. In Chapter 7 of Part III, his refusal can be read as an inverted mirror of Emma's refusal to Guillaumin:
The phrase of refusal to Guillaumin is the exact mirror of what Rodolphe will say a few pages later, but in reverse: she refuses to sell her body, he will refuse to lend the money.
The letter of rupture is read twice in the novel, by two people: Emma receives it and goes up to the attic, to the edge of the skylight; Charles finds it after her death and reads it as proof of a platonic love. The same text, written by testing phrases for their effect, produces opposite effects in its two readers.
Relationships
- Emma Bovary: the lover of Part II, to whom she asks for money in Chapter 8 of Part III, and who refuses.
- Léon: the other lover, who uses the same vocabulary.
- Charles Bovary: the husband, who reads his letter and absolves him.
- Lheureux: dismissed by him at the show; supplies the penknife that Emma gives him.
- Guillaumin: the notary of Chapter 7 of Part III; Emma's refusal of him is read as an inverted mirror of Rodolphe's refusal of her.