Madame Bovary Part Three
Since leaving Rouen, Leon had increasingly thought less about Emma but all of his earlier obsession with her returned upon meeting her at the theatre. He was eager to meet her again, without Charles, and so he secretly followed the couple back to their hotel to discover where they were lodging. The following day, he returned to their hotel and happily discovered that Charles had returned to Yonville, while Emma had remained behind. He presented himself at her door, and she was quite relieved as she wasn’t aware of his address. Leon takes the opportunity to confess his feelings of love for her and learns that Emma had been aware of his true feelings for her. They talked late into the night and did not go to the theatre, but Emma rebuffed his attempts to be amorous. He leaves reluctantly but extracts a promise that she would come to see him the following day at the church. However, Emma changed her mind just as soon as Leon had left her room. She regretfully pens a letter of apology explaining her desire to end their acquaintance due to Leon’s feelings for her. She realizes that she still does not know where he resides, so she can’t send him the letter but that she would have to go to the church to hand it to him.
Leon spends the whole night and the following day in anticipation of their meeting. He goes to the church and begins to wait for her, growing ever more restless as Emma’s arrival is delayed. Finally, Emma arrives but she is reluctant to be on her own with Leon, and they take a tour of the church from the rather insistent church caretaker. Emma attempts to find her resolve in religion, but the caretaker is far more fixated on the architectural aspects of the building’s construction rather than paying heed to Emma’s distressed spiritual condition. Leon acts like an impatient child, as he repeatedly tries to extricate Emma away from the tour. He finally succeeds and rushes her into a carriage. Emma and Leon then rode the carriage throughout the city for the rest of the day with the curtains drawn. The cab driver noticed Emma throw out some torn pieces of paper during the initial half of the trip. Emma is dropped close to her hotel at the end of the day, and she rushes back to Yonville. Before she can reach her house, she learns from Homais that Charles’s father has passed away. She finds him in a terrible state upon her return, and the next few days are spent organizing the arrangements for Monsieur Bovary’s death.
Under the guidance of Lhereux, Madame Bovary convinces her husband to give her the power of attorney for his inheritance from his deceased father. She claims that they should have someone else look over the paperwork besides the local lawyer, and Leon’s name is suggested. Appearing reluctant, Emma agrees to go to Rouen and confer with Leon about the legal proceedings. Emma goes to Rouen for three days and spends a veritable honeymoon with the young man, who is thoroughly charmed by Emma’s feminine nature. She returns to Yonville after ensuring that all the arrangements for the transfer of power of attorney had been made. Leon is overcome by her presence in his life, and his focus begins to slip away from his work as he spends hours daydreaming about her. During their time apart, the lovers composed several letters for one another. Leon could not stand being away from her for her too long, and so one day he decided to visit Yonville just to see her. She promises him that she will come up with an arrangement that would allow them to meet often.
Emma then sets about blackmailing and emotionally manipulating Charles into agreeing to piano classes that they truly can’t afford. Emma uses the ruse of piano lessons to spend every Thursday with Leon. They take a room at a luxurious hotel, and they live together in a room like a married couple. At first, the affair seems to improve Emma’s disposition towards Charles, but this is a temporary change that soon recedes. Emma spends lavishly on her days with Leon, as they dine on the most exquisite foods, and drinks. Emma continually runs out of money, which is why she turns to Lhereux for further sums, and under his guidance she initiates the sale of Charles’s property without him being any the wiser. Charles’s mother attempts to wrest the power of attorney away from her, but Emma causes Charles to distance himself from his mother.
The dynamic between Leon and Emma shifts slowly but surely, and he begins to play the role of her mistress. She demands that he play the perfect lover, and even dismisses his concerns about his work and the extravagance of their weekly rendezvous. Emma’s feelings for Leon begin to diminish and she begins to believe that he isn’t the man she had thought him to be. Her financial largesse finally begins to catch up to her as a debt collector presents himself at her door. She can satisfy the debt collector by taking yet another loan from Lhereux. Despite the increasingly evident nature of her finances, Emma refuses to dial down her extravagance for her weekly Rouen splurges. Eventually, they are both bored of the affair and Emma begins partying with rowdier members of the society. One night, she returns home from a masquerade party and finds a court order asking her to pay 8000 francs.
Emma is surprised by the extravagance of the sum, and she goes to Lheurex for aid, but he refuses to lend her any further money. Lheurex wishes to foreclose on Charles’s property and gain the sum for further investment. The following day, auction officers inventory the Bovary belongings to calculate what can be recovered against Emma’s debt.
She schemes to raise the money to repay the debt before Charles can learn about the details of her financial blunder. She goes to Leon and asks him to arrange the money by either asking a friend or borrowing it from his employer. Leon is no longer interested in Emma and so he doesn’t truly endeavor to aid her but puts her off instead. Emma returns to Yonville to find flyers advertising the auction of her things, and the maid suggests that she seek the help of the local lawyer. The lawyer in question turns out to have sexual desires for Emma, and it is strongly implied that he would help her if she were to fulfill those desires. Emma feels deeply insulted and she storms out of the lawyer's house. Desperately, Emma turns her feet towards Rodolphe’s house, and she finds him seated in his study. Initially, he is affectionate towards her and even apologetic for things between them had ended. However, his tone changes drastically as he discovers that she is in dire need of a large sum. He refuses her outright and refuses to engage with her any further.
Emma insults Rodolphe and attempts to return to her house. Before she can reach home, Emma concludes that she would poison herself rather than admit to what she had done to Charles. She goes to the apothecary, and forces the helper, Justin, to aid her in unlocking the store room. She eats arsenic and returns home to write a letter. Charles returns home clearly distressed, but Emma hands him the letter and tells him that he should read it in the morning. She also insists that he pose her no questions until the following morning. Emma had intended to sleep through the night and slip peacefully into death. The poison betrays her as it works its way through her system by causing her immense pain. Unable to bear Emma’s pain, he opens the letter and discovers that she had poisoned herself. His pain is unparalleled, and although several calls for help are sent out, Emma’s death is known to be certain. In those final moments of her life, Emma is deeply affectionate towards Charles and Berthe. She passes away after she is given a sacrament by the priest.
Charles orders three caskets to be made for Emma and ignores the import of his financial condition in preparing her for burial. Following her funeral, Charles falls into further debt in trying to repay all of Emma’s debts. Yet, he continues to idolize her so much so that when he finds the letter of apology from Rodolphe, he assumes that they had loved one another platonically. He learns of Leon’s marriage and sends him a letter of congratulations as he lives alone with the memories of his wife. Later, he comes across a whole drawer of love letters shared between Rodolphe and Leon that finally makes him realize that she had been unfaithful. He sinks into depression and happens to meet Rodolphe in Rouen. Charles informs the man that he could understand why he would have wished to be with Emma and departs. The following day, Charles is found dead sitting in the arbor at his property. Berthe is sent to Charles’s mother, who soon passes away, and then Berthe is sent to live with an impoverished aunt, who forces her to work in a cotton mill. Meanwhile, Homais becomes an important and influential man in Yonville, eventually, he is awarded a medal of the Legion of Honor.
Analysis
The final part of the novel features Emma’s second extramarital affair, and it is evident that she has failed to learn from her experience with Rodolphe. Emma is quite unable to recognize that Leon is just as hollow in his feeling of love as Rodolphe. The readers recognize this in Leon as he often congratulates himself for having used a romantic phrase, just as Rodolphe does when he is composing the letter of apology for Emma. Through Emma, Flaubert argues that certain people are very easily influenced by the literature they consume. She has been so thoroughly entranced by the fantasy of love in her romance novels that she begins to associate the tropes in these novels as indicators of love. This is why she fails to recognize and be satisfied with the simple and unwavering love that Charles showers on her, and instead assumes that Rodolphe and Leon experience true love for her.
Leon’s carriage ride with Emma through the streets of Rouen is one of the most famous examples of Synecdoche. It is a concept in which a part of something stands for its entirety. In the referenced scene, the carriage movements represent the movement of Emma and Leon’s bodies as they make love.
Eventually, Emma’s relationship with Leon begins to crumble and they become disgusted with one another. However, Emma attempts to smother all sense of guilt by steeping herself further into pleasure. Flaubert uses Emma’s financial health to represent the state of her morality, so as Emma’s debt rises, does her moral depravity. In the final chapters of the novel, Emma becomes offended when the lawyer tries to treat her like a prostitute, yet she easily adopts the role when she goes to Rodolphe for his aid. By the end of the novel, Emma has attempted all that she can conceive to avoid having to face the consequences of her actions. She decides that she cannot stand to have Charles look at her as his moral inferior and so decides to consume poison. Yet again, reality fails to live up to Emma’s fantasy as she suffers terrible pain before dying rather than passing quietly in her sleep, which is what she had imagined would occur. In the end, Emma doesn’t ever face the consequences of her immoral behavior, but her loved ones are forced to contend with the difficulties that she had created. Charles loses his life, and Berthe loses the opportunity for a safe childhood.
