Madame Bovary Part 3, Ch. 9-10

1. viscous (page 306) : having an adhesive quality

2. Charles is of course in shock because of Emma's death, he plans an elaborate funeral and demands that she be buried in her wedding dress and covered in velvet. Although Charles knows he cannot afford this, he only wants the best for his wife. In order to cover up the fact that Emma's death was a suicide they invent the story that she had mistaken poison for sugar when she was creating a vanilla cream. When Charles is saying his final goodbyes to her, a black liquid pours out of her mouth, he then commands Homais to cut off a lock of Emma's hair as a keepsake. Emma's father heard that Emma was ill so he came down to visit, when he arrived, however, he discovered that she was dead. He attended the funeral with the rest of the town, except for Justin. He could not bring himself to go to the funeral so instead he paid a visit to her grave in the middle of the night. Creditors again pay a visit to the Bovary home in order to collect debt from Charles, but he discovers that Emma has already received the money he thought patients owed him, he is forced to sell more of his possessions. He learns that Leon is engaged, and sends him a letter telling him that Emma would be so happy for him. He then finds the letter from Rodolphe, and assumes that it was a love that lacked intimacy. Meanwhile, Homais is creating a petition in order to get the blind man expelled from the town. Charles finds more letters from Rodolphe and also from Leon, he is finally forced to realize his wife's affair. He goes to Rouen to sell his horse, where he finds Rodolphe. At first it is awkward, but then they sit down for a drink and they decide that neither one of them is to blame for Emma's death, that fate was again to blame. Charles is so heartbroken and depressed, when he goes out to the garden the next day, he dies. Whatever Charles had left was sold to creditors. Berthe is sent to live with the elder Madame Bovary until her death, and then she is sent to live with a poor aunt and is forced to work in a mill.

3. When we first started the novel, I was a firm believer that Charles did not love Emma that he was merely infatuated with the excitement that she brought. Also, that he was merely lusting over her physical attractiveness. Now, however, I am thinking that he did really love her. When he discovers the letter from Rodolphe, his love for his wife was blinding him from seeing what really took place. Page 316 reads, " He remembered Rodolphe's assiduous attentions, his sudden disappearance, and his air of constraint the two or three times they had met since. But the respectful tone of the letter fooled him." "Maybe he they loved each other platonically," he told himself. I find it ironic that the letter not only fooled Emma into thinking that Rodolphe loved her, but it fooled Charles into thinking that he did not love her, or that their love lacked intimacy. Continuing with the irony, is Flaubert using it to show the difference between Emma and her daughter? It seems to me that Emma's constant desire for a life of aristocracy forced Berthe to be imprisoned in a lower class life. After the death of his wife, Charles was heartbroken, depressed, and very unhappy with his life, just like Emma. Except for Charles, suicide wasn't an option. He loved her so much that he couldn't live without her, so he died.

4. a) I think that when Rodolphe and Charles decide that fate is to blame for Emma's death, it is merely an excuse for what actually lead to her suicide. But if fate did not cause it, then what did?

b) At first, I did not take Justin's love for Emma seriously, but after reading about the scene where he weeps at her grave- it shows just how much he did love her. Is Flaubert again trying to point out the fact that Rodolphe and Leon are not at all shaken up by her death and did not really love her but Emma was oblivious to who really did care about her?

c) In the first and last chapters of the book, it is about Charles. Also, it starts off that Emma thinks she is in love with Charles, then in the end she is so unhappy with her life that she commits suicide. In Emma's life she "fell in love" with a man, then it went wrong, then she was left wallowing in self-pity. Is there significance to the fact that the book is written in somewhat of a pattern, and Emma's life was a pattern?