The Theme in the Work
Emma Bovary's repertoire is formed at the convent, in chapter 6 of Part I: the novels that an old seamstress smuggles into the convent, Walter Scott, the keepsake books with engravings. Before that the reader has already seen her want to be married at midnight, by torchlight, in chapter 3. Married, in chapter 7 she imagines the honeymoon she never had, in lands with sonorous names, and after the ball at La Vaubyessard, in chapter 8, the fantasy acquires objects: in chapter 9 the cigar case (see the green cigar case) becomes a love story embroidered by a mistress, Paris becomes a map traced with a finger, the Viscount becomes a face.
In Part II, the dinner with Léon in chapter 2 is an exchange of commonplaces from reading, and Emma concludes that a new place is bound to bring a better life. In chapter 4 she expects love to arrive like a storm; in chapter 7, with Léon gone, she recreates him higher and vaguer. After yielding to Rodolphe Boulanger, in chapter 9, she remembers the adulterous heroines of the books she had read, and in chapter 10 she tallies the illusions spent. In chapter 12 she dreams of flight at a gallop to a new country, while Charles Bovary, beside her, dreams of his daughter's future. In chapter 15, at the opera, she recognizes herself in Lucie de Lammermoor and imagines a life of love with the tenor.
In Part III the fantasy does not disappear with the new lover. In chapter 3, by moonlight, Emma sings in the boat; in chapter 5, Rouen seen from above is a Babylon of passions that she attributes to the city's hundred and twenty thousand souls; in chapter 6, writing to Léon, she already sees another man, made of memories and readings.
Emma Bovary's boredom is already installed before any lover and continues after all of them. In chapter 7 of Part I, after comparing her own life with that of the convent schoolmates who live in the city, the narrator says that her life is cold as an attic whose skylight faces north and that boredom, a silent spider, weaves its web in every corner of the heart. In chapter 9, after the ball at La Vaubyessard, she gives up drawing, embroidery and the piano, because without an audience she sees no point in playing, and spends her days gazing at the solitude of life like sailors in distress who search the horizon for a white sail: she does not know what event will come or from where, but she expects it every morning and is astonished that it does not arrive. Charles Bovary reads the ailment as a nervous illness caused by the air of Tostes and moves the family to Yonville. In Yonville the boredom changes form, not nature: in chapter 5 of Part II, the narrator says that domestic mediocrity incites Emma to luxurious fantasies, and her husband's tenderness to adulterous desires, and in chapter 6 she goes to church ready for any devotion that might absorb her soul and make her forget existence, and finds a priest who attributes her anguish to indigestion. Already Léon's mistress, in chapter 6 of Part III, the narrator says that she finds in adultery all the insipidity of marriage, because the two already know each other too well for the surprises of possession.
Emma's boredom is the other side of the dream: she dreams because the life before her eyes gives her nothing to look forward to, and waiting without knowing for what makes anything that comes from outside (a cigar case found on the road, a tenor, a lover) seem the white sail she searches for on the horizon. That is why changing house, man or devotion cures nothing: the boredom goes with her from Tostes to Yonville and enters adultery itself, where the narrator names it as insipidity. The ailment is not in the village or the husband, it lies in waiting for an event to come and give meaning to the days.
Emma's fantasy is not an occasional escape, it is the way she perceives everything: she does not see what is before her eyes, she sees what she has read. The novel shows the cost through alternation, dream and disavowal, disavowal and a greater dream, and the disavowal never teaches anything. The phantom of chapter 6 of Part III is the point of arrival: the ideal lover no longer needs a body, and no real man can compete with him.
Where It Appears
- Part I, Chapter 3: Emma wanted a midnight wedding by torchlight, which her father does not understand.
- Part I, Chapter 6: At the convent, Emma reads the cheap novels that an old seamstress smuggles into the dormitory, in addition to Walter Scott and keepsake books, without distinguishing the romantic from the devotional.
- Part I, Chapter 7: Emma imagines the honeymoon she never had and compares her own life to that of her convent schoolmates.
- Part I, Chapter 7: Emma compares life in Tostes with that of her convent schoolmates, and the narrator says that this life is cold as an attic where boredom, a silent spider, weaves its web in every corner of her heart.
- Part I, Chapter 8: After the ball at La Vaubyessard, Emma feels that the trip has opened a hole in her life, like the fissures a storm opens in the mountains in a single night.
- Part I, Chapter 9: Emma invents a love story for the owner of the cigar case, perhaps a gift embroidered by his mistress, and traces a map of Paris with her finger.
- Part I, Chapter 9: After the ball, Emma gives up the piano, drawing and tapestry because she has no audience, and gazes at the solitude of life like sailors in distress searching the distance for a white sail, not knowing what event will come.
- Part II, Chapter 2: In the new house at Yonville, Emma concludes that, since the part already lived was bad, the part left to live will surely be better.
- Part II, Chapter 4: Emma believes that love must appear suddenly, like a storm from the heavens, and does not even ask herself whether she loves Léon, to whom she grows close at the evenings at the pharmacist's house, among exchanged books and small favors.
- Part II, Chapter 5: Emma becomes an exemplary wife and mother, but the narrator says that domestic mediocrity incites her to luxurious fantasies, and her husband's tenderness to adulterous desires.
- Part II, Chapter 7: After Léon's departure, Emma spends weeks in mourning and in caprices and recreates him in memory taller, more handsome and vaguer.
- Part II, Chapter 9: After yielding to Rodolphe, Emma sees herself within the type of passionate woman she had so envied in novels and repeats before the mirror that she has a lover.
- Part II, Chapter 10: On reading Father Rouault's letter, Emma counts the illusions she has spent on virginity, marriage and love, like a traveler who leaves wealth at every inn.
- Part II, Chapter 12: Emma asks Rodolphe to run away together and orders from Lheureux a cloak, a trunk and a sleeping bag for the journey, but he decides alone that he will not leave.
- Part II, Chapter 15: At the opera Lucie de Lammermoor, Emma recognizes herself in the heroine and imagines a life of love with the tenor Lagardy, who does not even know she exists.
- Part III, Chapter 3: Emma and Léon spend three days in Rouen, with a boat, an island and a song by moonlight, and she shudders when the boatman mentions a man called Adolphe.
- Part III, Chapter 5: Rouen, seen from above, looks to Emma like a Babylon: she feels in the city's hundred and twenty thousand souls the vapor of the passions she attributed to them.
- Part III, Chapter 6: Emma finds in adultery with Léon all the insipidity of marriage, because the two already know each other too well for the surprises of possession.
- Part III, Chapter 6: In her letters to Léon, Emma sees another man, a phantom built from her most ardent memories, her most beautiful readings and her strongest desires.
Passages
The temperament that the convent forms seeks emotion, not the world.
Il fallait qu’elle pût retirer des choses une sorte de profit personnel; et elle rejetait comme inutile tout ce qui ne contribuait pas à la consommation immédiate de son cœur [...] étant de tempérament plus sentimentale qu’artiste, cherchant des émotions et non des paysages, she needed to be able to draw from things some kind of personal profit, and she rejected as useless everything that did not contribute to the immediate consumption of her heart, being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions, not landscapes.
An object found on the road is enough for Emma to invent an entire passion.
Un souffle d’amour avait passé parmi les mailles du canevas; chaque coup d’aiguille avait fixé là une espérance ou un souvenir, et tous ces fils de soie entrelacés n’étaient que la continuité de la même passion silencieuse, a breath of love had passed through the mesh of the canvas; each stitch of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all those interlaced silk threads were only the continuity of the same silent passion.
The tally of illusions comes with the image of the traveler who pays at every inn.
What an abundance of illusions! Now she had none left! She had spent them all on the adventures of her soul, in all the successive conditions, in virginity, in marriage and in love, thus losing them continually throughout her life, like a traveler who leaves part of his wealth at every inn along the way.
At the opera, the fantasy no longer even needs the other to know that she exists.
Carry me off, take me away, let us flee! To you, to you!, all my ardors and all my dreams!
The ideal lover of the letters is made of what Emma has read and desired.
In the letters she keeps writing to Léon, the addressee is already someone else:
she saw another man, a phantom built from her most ardent memories, her most beautiful readings, her strongest desires