The Theme in the Work
The novel's first desire is that of Charles Bovary, who in Chapter 2 of Part I begins returning to Bertaux without asking himself why he goes with pleasure, and in Chapter 3, already a widower, ends up asking the farmer's daughter to marry him. That of Emma Bovary takes shape at the ball at La Vaubyessard, in Chapter 8: the portraits of lineage, the duke who lived at court, the iced champagne, the pomegranates, the waltz with the Viscount. Back at Tostes, in Chapter 9, she sniffs the lining of the cigar case found on the road (see the green cigar case), traces a map of Paris with her finger, and subscribes to fashion magazines.
In Part II the desire changes object without changing form. In Chapter 3 Emma wants a son, and the text calls this wish a revenge for all her past frustrations; in Chapter 5, while Yonville admires her as an exemplary wife and mother, her husband's tenderness incites her to adulterous desires. When Léon leaves, in Chapter 7, she recreates him in memory as more beautiful than he was, and in the same chapter Rodolphe Boulanger, who has just met her, decides to seduce her, certain that she longs for love the way a carp longs for water. The show of Chapter 8 and the ride of Chapter 9 fulfill the plan, and before the mirror Emma repeats that she has a lover.
In Part III, the cab (see the cab) of Chapter 1 carries desire inside a carriage with lowered blinds that circles Rouen until six in the evening. The last scene of the theme is the extreme unction of Chapter 8: the priest anoints the eyes that coveted the splendors of the earth, the nostrils, the mouth, the hands, and the feet that ran to satisfy desires.
Emma's desire never settles on a person: it settles on an image (the Viscount, Paris, the passionate woman of novels), and it yields more in absence than in presence, as the Léon recreated in Chapter 7 of Part II shows. That is why every man she attains disappoints, and satisfaction recedes to the next one. Flaubert does not close this desire with a sermon; he closes it in the body, in the unction that goes through each organ by which it entered.
Where It Appears
- Part I, Chapter 2: Charles returns to Bertaux with pleasure twice a week, and more, moved by a desire he does not yet recognize, without asking himself why he goes.
- Part I, Chapter 3: Emma serves curaçao to Charles in the kitchen and licks the bottom of her own glass, and farmer Rouault notices his blush and decides to accept the proposal.
- Part I, Chapter 8: At the ball at La Vaubyessard, Emma tastes iced champagne, pomegranates, and pineapples she had never seen, and dances a waltz she did not know how to dance, dizzy, with her head on the chest of a stranger.
- Part I, Chapter 9: Emma sniffs the lining of the cigar case, wonders whether it belonged to the Viscount, invents a love story for its owner, and traces a map of Paris with her finger.
- Part II, Chapter 3: Emma wanted a son, who would be called Georges, as a revenge for all her frustrations, and faints on learning that a girl was born.
- Part II, Chapter 5: Emma, an exemplary wife on the outside, is incited by domestic mediocrity to luxurious fantasies, and by marital tenderness to adulterous desires.
- Part II, Chapter 7: With Léon absent, Emma curses herself for not having loved him and recreates him higher and more beautiful, while Rodolphe decides to seduce her.
- Part II, Chapter 8: At the show, Rodolphe holds Emma's hand and feels it very hot and trembling, like a captive turtledove that wants to take flight again.
- Part II, Chapter 9: After yielding to Rodolphe in the forest, Emma repeats before the mirror "I have a lover! A lover!", delighting as if a new puberty had arrived.
- Part III, Chapter 1: When Emma says it is not decent, Léon replies that it is common in Paris and pushes her into the cab, which circles Rouen with closed blinds.
- Part III, Chapter 8: In extreme unction, Father Bournisien anoints the eyes that coveted, the nostrils avid for amorous perfumes, the mouth, the hands, and the feet, which ran to satisfy desires.
Passages
Charles's desire comes before Emma's, and it comes without a name.
The reason for his visits is a desire that Charles does not yet recognize.Quant à Charles, il ne chercha point à se demander pourquoi il venait aux Bertaux avec plaisir, as for Charles, he did not try to ask himself why he went to the Bertaux with pleasure.
The night of the ball is the measure of everything Emma will want afterward.
Son voyage à la Vaubyessard avait fait un trou dans sa vie, à la manière de ces grandes crevasses qu’un orage, en une seule nuit, creuse quelquefois dans les montagnes, her trip to Vaubyessard (see La Vaubyessard) had opened a hole in her life, like one of those great crevasses that a storm sometimes carves into the mountains in a single night.
The desire for a male child says what Emma believes is missing from a woman's life.
She wanted a boy; he would be strong and dark, he would be called Georges, and this idea of having a male child was a kind of revenge for all her past frustrations. A man, at least, is free; he can explore every passion and every land, overcome obstacles, taste the joys of the most distant pleasures. But a woman is continually hindered in everything.
The respectable façade feeds the desire it pretends to contain.
Domestic mediocrity incited her to luxurious fantasies; marital tenderness, to adulterous desires.
The final unction takes an inventory of desire through the body.
first the eyes, which had so coveted all earthly splendors; then the nostrils, eager for warm breezes and amorous perfumes; then the mouth, which opened to lies, which had moaned with pride and cried out with lust; then the hands, which had delighted in tender touches; and finally the soles of the feet, once so swift when they ran to satisfy her desires, and which would walk no more.