Madame Bovary
Questions
The most common questions about Madame Bovary, answered from the book.
- Who Is Emma Bovary?Emma Bovary is the protagonist of the novel: daughter of old Rouault and wife of Charles Bovary, a health officer in a provincial village, a woman...
- What is the summary of Madame Bovary?Madame Bovary tells the story of Emma, the wife of a provincial health officer, who tries to live the love she knew from books, betrays her husband...
- How Does Madame Bovary End?Madame Bovary ends with Homais's victory: after Emma's suicide and Charles's death, the pharmacist prospers in Yonville, and the last sentence of the...
- Why does Emma Bovary poison herself?Emma poisons herself because she is ruined: her debt to the merchant Lheureux has become a summons for eight thousand francs within twenty-four...
- What is the theme of Madame Bovary?The central theme of Madame Bovary is the desire of a woman educated by novels, who expects from life what exists only in books, and the bill that...
- Who Is Charles Bovary?Charles Bovary is Emma's husband, a provincial health officer, good and devoted, whom his wife considers mediocre, who loves her without...
- Who is Rodolphe in Madame Bovary?Rodolphe Boulanger is Emma's first lover: a landowner of thirty-four, owner of the castle of La Huchette, near Yonville, an experienced seducer who...
- Who is Léon in Madame Bovary?Léon Dupuis is Emma's second lover: in Part II, a young clerk of the notary Guillaumin in Yonville, who loves her without declaring himself; in Part...
- Who is Homais in Madame Bovary?Homais is the pharmacist of Yonville, the Bovarys' neighbor: talkative, anticlerical, correspondent for the newspaper Le Fanal de Rouen, and the...
- Who is Lheureux in Madame Bovary?Lheureux is the cloth merchant of Yonville who sells Emma on credit, unhurriedly finances both of her affairs and, in the end, collects the debt that...
- What is the difference between Rodolphe and Léon?Rodolphe is the seducer who calculates: experienced, a landowner, he plans to win Emma soon after meeting her and abandons her when love becomes a...
- What role does money play in Madame Bovary?In Madame Bovary, money decides the ending: Emma's romanticism is paid for on credit, the debt grows at the same pace as the tedium of her love...
- What happens at the agricultural show in Madame Bovary?At the agricultural show, in chapter 8 of Part II, Rodolphe courts Emma in the council room of the Town Hall while, outside, the councillor Lieuvain...
- What happens in the cab scene in Madame Bovary?In the cab scene, in chapter 1 of Part III, the novel suggests the beginning of Emma's affair with Léon: the two spend hours inside a hired carriage...
- What does the ball at Vaubyessard mean in Madame Bovary?The ball at the château of Vaubyessard, the home of a marquis, in Part I, is the night Emma sees the world of the nobility up close and, not knowing...