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Fallen Women: What Destroyed Madame Bovary?

The concept of the fallen woman is a common one and has pervaded literary works
since the biblical story of Adam and Eve. These are the women who lose their innocence and
gain a kind of knowledge (usually through a loss of chastity) that ostracizes them and somehow
makes them unclean. The fallen woman was a major thread in 19th century literature, driving
the plot of such masterpieces as Les Miserables, Anna Karenina, and Madame Bovary. Madame
Bovary, written by French native Gustave Flaubert in 1857, is a portrait of a woman who falls
from grace by having multiple extramarital affairs that culminate in her tragic suicide by
poisoning. In the 1800s, the stereotypical woman was a homemaker; she was expected to be a
mother and a wife, and that was all. When women fell out of that stereotype, they were frowned
upon and even shamed by the public at large. Flauberts heroine (if one uses the term loosely)
Emma is one such woman whose reputation was destroyed. Her undoing and ultimate demise
was influenced by her own suppositions of the world, the actions of her lovers, and the
coordination of certain circumstances beyond her control (one could even call it Fate).
Emmas inability to interpret the reality around her is due to her habit of projecting her
skewed realisms on other people and herself. When she first meets Charles Bovary, she is already
bored of her surroundings. She sees herself as aristocrat living the country life; she longs to live
away in Paris, to enjoy riches and spontaneity wherever she goes. So when a new face arrives in
town (with a respected title of doctor, no less), her imagination runs wild. She can see herself
finally achieving the kind of life she always wanted. Because she is so convinced that she was
born for better things, she lives above her station once she marries Bovary (which brings on the
couples poverty later on). She sees Bovary as the young, exciting, brilliant man she wanted to be
swept off her feet by. In reality, she is a farmers daughter who is only as rich as her dowry

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allows. And Bovary is not nearly as interesting as she expected; he never graduated medical
school. Once married, Emma realizes her mistake and began searching for the felicity, passion
and rapture, which had seemed so fine on the pages of the books (33).
Emma is also highly romantic with a very weak concept of what love is. She expects
grand gestures, hand-written sonnets, and all the drama of a play. The day she marries Charles,
she yearned to be married at midnight, by torchlight (24). She wears a long trained dress fit
for a cathedral, and continuously picks burrs from the field off it. Emma wants the relationship of
a pair of lovers, a love that burns hot and passionate before it quickly fizzles out. Unfortunately,
she chose to marry, and marriage is an institution that takes work and cooperation from both
sides. Emma could have had a love for Bovary that would burn for a lifetime; however, she
didnt put in the effort to make the marriage work. She simply expected her new husband to read
her wants and needs and became hostile when he didnt. Her idea of the perfect lovers would be
gentlemen brave as lions, tender as lambs, virtuous as a dream, always well-dressed, and
weeping pints (31), just like the men in her romance novels.
Her first physical confrontation with one of her so-called lovers was with a man who
seemed to embody all of those characteristics she had been searching for. Rodolphe was very
well-dressed and smooth-talking; he knew exactly what to say to Emma to get her to become his
mistress. He almost speaks in prose, coming to her at night and proclaiming his love for her
literally on his knees. He flatters her, compliments her, and degrades himself in the process. He
represents the humility of the heroes in Emmas novels. Rodolphe actually grovels, weeping and
spewing odes in her name. It is everything Emma has been waiting to hear for so long, and her
vanitymelted open, softly and fully, at the warm touch of his words (144). Although she is
just a conquest to him, her perception of him is the perfect man. She falls for Rodolphes

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scheme partly because he is a practiced actor, but also due to her eagerness and unconscious
willingness to play along.
Emmas other lover (whom she met before Rodolphe but physically consummated the
relationship after Rodolphe leaves her) contributed to both the affair with Rodolphe and the
rekindling of his and Emmas relationship. When she first meets Len, she is already questioning
her fidelity to her husband. Although their original conversation is not very deep, she shows
interest for him in a childish sense of friendship. They do not get together before he leaves for
Rouen because he is too innocent and sweet for Emma. He doesnt have the courage to come to
her himself; he is neither worldly nor manly enough to completely convince her. Len lacks
conviction, and despite a new job and higher education, he doesnt lose that cowardly streak
when they meet again. Between their meetings, Emma meets and falls in love with Rodolphe.
When she actually sleeps with Len, she is the seasoned adulterer of the two and almost treats
him as the mistress. She sees him as her innocent lover, but he didnt really save himself for her.
Ultimately, the ardor between them burns out just as it had with Rodolphe: with Emma weeping
famously and the gentleman at a loss for compassion. Len was bored when Emma, suddenly,
wept upon his breast; and his heart like people who can only tolerate a certain dose of music, was
sluggishly indifferent to the tumult of a love whose refinements he no longer appreciated (271).
Emma again projects an image of virtuous perfection on a man who is not interested in being
perfect for her.
Besides her own misconceptions and the actions of her respective lovers, Emmas
circumstances were set up in such a way that is was near impossible to escape her fate. On
Charles side, there were two failed marriages in the family. His mother and his father did not get
along; his father was a mean drunk and his mother overcompensated for his cruelty by spoiling

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Charles. His first marriage to Madame Dubuc was unhappy; she was constantly clamoring for
attention and wasnt very physically attractive either. When Charles remarried, all he wanted was
a peaceful marriage to a beautiful woman. On Emmas side, she had no mother and a largely
absent father. She was sent to the church for formal education, where she learned all she knew
about love from romantic fictions the nuns carried around. The nuns sent her home because she
was insincere about education in Gods Word; she was more interested in the pictures and
mystique of the church itself than the love and belief in God. The insincerity seemed to run on
both sides, when she went to see her local cur after considering adultery with Len the first
time. Instead of listening to her plight, the man just brushes her off with comments about the
weather and her digestive health. When Emma married, she wanted the perfect man the books
told her about to give her affection and adventure. Already, they were looking for different things
in a life partner than what the other was. Perhaps that was a projection of unreality on Charles
part, as well.
Emma Bovary was the epitome of the fallen woman in realist literature. Her tragic
suicide by arsenic following two torrid love affairs was a result of multiple factors. First was her
clear inability to separate her fantasies from the reality of her life. She projects what she wants
and expects onto the men in her life, and actually becomes physically ill when they do not
measure up. Second was the actions of her so-called lovers, who could barely be called that as
neither really loved her in the way she needed. Rodolphe certainly looked and acted the part of
the suave gentleman who was tender only for Emma, but he was a rake. He was able to take
advantage of Emmas weak constitution because he knew what she was looking for and had
practice doing it. Len was sweet enough for her to consider an adulterous relationship, but he
was not enough for her. When he goes away to a job and better education, he finds his new

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relationship with Emma tiring and he uses her as effectively as Rodolphe did. Third, the past
circumstances of both Emma and Charles set them up for failure as a couple. Charles came from
a home of stressful relationships and failed marriages; all he wanted from life was a stable home
with a routine. Emma came from a motherless parentage and a short education in a church out in
the country; she had no one to teach her what love really was, and the only thing the church
impressed on her young mind was its physical splendor. Emma wanted a mans man who wasnt
afraid to be emotional or proclaim his ardor profusely and vociferously. What finally destroys
Madame Bovary is a combination of her shallow mind, her bogus lovers, and a twist of fate.

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Works Cited
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives. Trans. Geoffrey Wall and Michele
Roberts. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.