The Theme in the Work
Money enters the novel before Emma Bovary. In Chapter 2 of Part I, the announced fortune of Héloïse, the first wife of Charles Bovary, turns out to be a lie when the notary who held it runs off with the office money and the house in Dieppe appears mortgaged to the foundations. In Chapter 8, the ball at La Vaubyessard shows Emma wealth as spectacle: the iced champagne, the pomegranates she had never seen, and the pineapples she had never tasted.
In Part II the man who will decide the plot appears. Lheureux visits Emma in Chapter 5 with the box of fabrics, does not insist on the sale, and sows credit. In Chapter 12 the bill of two hundred and seventy francs arrives for the gifts she gives Rodolphe Boulanger, and in Chapter 14 Charles signs a note for the items of the flight that never happened and, in borrowing one thousand francs, another that takes the debt to one thousand two hundred and fifty francs.
In Part III the debt takes over the book. In Chapter 2, in the midst of mourning for Charles's father, Lheureux suggests the power of attorney; in Chapter 4, Emma buys curtains on credit; in Chapter 5, she signs four notes of one thousand francs, and Lheureux brings her one thousand eight hundred francs instead of two thousand, because the banker Vinçart kept two hundred; in Chapter 6, the summons for eight thousand francs in twenty-four hours arrives, and Lheureux shuts the door. In Chapter 7 the bailiff makes the inventory of the house, and Emma knocks in vain at the doors of Léon, of the notary Guillaumin, and of Binet; in Chapter 8, Rodolphe refuses the three thousand francs, and she eats the arsenic. In Chapter 11, Charles sells the silver and the furniture, Berthe Bovary ends up in a spinning mill, and Homais receives the Legion of Honor.
Lheureux never discusses morals, and it is he, not a betrayed husband nor a priest, who leads Emma to death. Exaltation and debt grow together: the credit that buys the scenery of love is the same that kills her, and the request for money to Rodolphe is the proof that romantic love cannot bear. The ending distributes the money with irony: the daughter of the woman who spent on luxury will earn her living in a spinning mill, and the man who never risked anything is decorated.
Where It Appears
- Part I, Chapter 2: The notary who kept Héloïse's estate runs off with the office money, and the announced fortune of Charles's first wife turns out to be a lie.
- Part I, Chapter 8: At the castle, Emma sees for the first time iced champagne, pomegranates, and pineapples, along with portraits of lineages centuries old and of a duke who lived at court.
- Part II, Chapter 5: Lheureux visits Emma with the box of fabrics and, as she buys nothing, does not insist and offers her credit for whenever she wishes.
- Part II, Chapter 12: Emma showers Rodolphe with gifts bought on credit from Lheureux and receives a bill for two hundred and seventy francs when her drawers are empty.
- Part II, Chapter 14: Charles accepts from Lheureux the cloak, the sleeping bag, and the trunks that Emma had ordered for the flight, and signs a note and a promissory note totaling one thousand two hundred and fifty francs.
- Part III, Chapter 2: In full mourning, Lheureux hints that Charles should give Emma a power of attorney, and she brings her husband the model of a general authorization to manage the couple's affairs.
- Part III, Chapter 4: Counting on money, Emma buys yellow curtains for the bedroom on credit from Lheureux and dreams of a carpet.
- Part III, Chapter 5: Lheureux has Emma sign four bills of one thousand francs, which the banker Vinçart discounts, and brings her only one thousand eight hundred francs instead of two thousand, because Vinçart kept two hundred.
- Part III, Chapter 6: Emma finds in Yonville a summons to pay eight thousand francs in twenty-four hours and, looking for Lheureux, hears from him that there is no grace period at all.
- Part III, Chapter 7: The bailiff Hareng inventories the goods, and Emma runs around Rouen looking for money, but the bankers refuse and Léon cannot raise the three thousand francs.
- Part III, Chapter 8: Rodolphe refuses the three thousand francs Emma asks of him, saying he does not have them, and she, back in Yonville, eats the arsenic from the blue flask.
- Part III, Chapter 11: In debt, Charles sells the silver and the furniture, Berthe goes to a poor aunt who puts her in a spinning mill, and Homais ends up receiving the Legion of Honor.
Passages
Lheureux's credit begins as kindness.
- A trifle - he replied - a trifle, but there is no hurry; whenever you wish, we are not Jews!
The power of attorney enters the book as advice.
Lheureux plants the power of attorney between one kindness and another:
with a power of attorney it would be simple, and then we could do some little deals
The inventory exposes Emma's life like an open body.
and her life, down to its most intimate corners, was, like a corpse undergoing autopsy, laid open wide to the gaze of those three men.
The narrator says what the request for money does to love.
because a request for money is the coldest and most devastating of all the storms that can fall upon love.
The last bill is paid by the daughter.
That aunt is poor and sends the little girl to work in a spinning mill to earn her living.