The Structure of "Madame Bovary"

Author(s): Keith Rinehart

Source: The French Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Feb., 1958), pp. 300-306
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/384167
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The Structure of "Madame Bovary"
by Keith Rinehart

F OR THOSE WHO LIKE to discover the secrets of novelists, the

most attractive feature of Madame Bovary may be that in this novel Flau-
bert has managed to express, impersonally, so much of himself. Lubbock
has noticed the skill with which Flaubert handles point of view, allowing
the inward feelings of the characters to blossom without sentimentality
and presenting the exterior impressions without cynicism. Toward the
title character, Emma Bovary, he seems most sympathetic even when he is
most disgusted. When Flaubert announces, as he does in a published letter,
that he is Madame Bovary, the psychological or autobiographical interest
in the novel is heightened: the sympathy and self-disgust unfold themselves
in the novel without special pleading. There are no concealed excuses. The
well-known mot juste embodies the right feelings, the true observation; and
Flaubert, though objective, is never disinterested-hence the psychological
tension.
But neither the skillful treatment of perspective nor the autobiographical
content is the chief merit of Madame Bovary. The psychological tension is
there, expanded like a rainbow around its hidden center, but the novel's
beauty-which is apparently so simple, like the rainbow's-is the product
of a structure not evident to the casual eye at all. The "center" has very
little to do with the structure, and if all we knew of Flaubert were Madame
Bovary, the novel would still stand as a classic. The secret lies in the art of
its construction.
Why is the title character not introduced in the first chapter? Why is the
reader given a rapid review of Charles' life and introduced to two other
Madame Bovarys-Charles' mother and the first wife-before meeting
Emma Bovary and beginning the action of the novel? The structural signif-
icance of the first chapter is to explain Charles' early life, chiefly the influ-
ence of women in his life, an influence that does so much to explain his
subsequent relationship with Emma. The first chapter is the first part of a
"framing device" within which the action of the novel-Emma Bovary's
action-is contained, but the "framing" nature of the first chapter is seen
only in retrospect from the last chapter of the novel. By itself, the first
chapter may seem to be a weak opening, having a mild interest of its own
but nothing of the strength that a plunge into the main action would have.
The use of a "complete frame" is unusual in novels, even those employing
300

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 MADAME BOVARY 301

what may be called a "

meticulous in wrapping
novels with immediate
serves as a "platform"
heroines has this function.
In the use of this device Flaubert exercises the same care that has been
so often noted in his choice of words. The first chapter runs quickly, though
not breathlessly, over the significant features of Charles' life before Emma.
It is closely packed; scenes and concrete details are judiciously interspersed
with paragraphs of exposition-his youth, his studies, his first marriage and
after practice as a physician. His character is firmly established by the end
of the first chapter. Emma is not introduced until the second chapter. The
first chapter of the novel is eleven pages long; the last chapter is also eleven
pages long. Although Emma dies two chapters before, she is not buried
until the next to the last chapter. The last chapter runs at about the same
speed and is as compact as the first. Before Emma, after Emma: Charles
is shown in prospect and retrospect, a secure foundation for the main action
and its significance.
This extraordinary use of the framing device as "platform" gives the first
clue to the structure of Madame Bovary. So careful of even physical sym-
metry-the number of pages used for both the opening and the concluding
chapters is identical-Flaubert shows the nature of his craftsmanship,
indicates that the structure of this novel may be seen even in its physical
proportions-so many pages to this, so many chapters to that, until it
seems that the physical symmetry is intentional and that physical structure
is correlated with literary structure. The three-part physical structure
suggests the triangle or pyramid, the key to the literary structure of the
narrative.
The three parts of Madame Bovary are separated from each other by a
change in scene. Part I gets the novel under way and shows the early
married life of Charles and Emma in Tostes. Part II gives the middle years
of their marriage in Yonville-L'Abbaye. Part III, the final years of the
marriage, shows Emma mainly in Rouen, though she resides with Charles
at Yonville and both end their lives there. In each case the change of scene
results from her illness-slight and capricious in the change from Tostes
to Yonville, more serious and deep-rooted in the change from Yonville to
Rouen. These moves make one uneasy, convey in terms of geographical
distance as well as literary structure-in the shift from part to part-the
unrest that Emma feels. The first move temporarily arouses hope: maybe
Emma will find a more satisfactory life in Yonville. The second suggests
desperation: Emma can only come to grief in Rouen-but she may yet
exemplify the romantic dictum, "The world well lost for love." The im-

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 302 FRENCH REVIEW

pending tragedy migh

over the petty bourg
revenge on the bodies
point, the illusion do
soaring into romance
Emma escape.
The main action of t
into a world that nev
has its own ironic hu
liberated from the fa
offer. She sees befor
folk and, not so clear
She drifts toward her
which the poets hav
withered bridal bouq
meets no correspondin
true lovers. Charles h
ness that it is require
tic, commonplace, de
to see what she can make of it.
The first attempt sees her flying high: an invitation to the chateau,
extended by its noble host and providing entree into noble society, sets a
kind of standard throughout the novel. Emma drags Charles along with
her, painfully aware of his social deficiencies. Flaubert shows Charles'
physical discomfort: the pants too tight across the belly; the trouser straps
awkward for dancing; the five hours bolt upright watching whist; and the
relief when Charles pulls his boots off and releases his feet. Emma, however,
waltzes for the first time, so beautifully that all notice it. Her partner, a
viscount, inspires in her the first stirrings of that rapture which she has
been looking for. The ball at the chateau completely unsettles her for her
daily life; she returns home to dismiss the old servant for "impertinence,"
to neglect her house, to coddle herself with little luxuries, and to moon
about the viscount, now in Paris. "She wished at the same time to die and
to live in Paris."
The ball, with its lingering memories of the viscount, is the most impor-
tant event in Part I. It has its parallel elsewhere-at the end of Part II
and in Part III, the theatre party in Rouen and the subsequent love affair
with Leon. But Part II shows more clearly the parallelism of structure; Part
II is a pyramid within the larger pyramid of the novel. In her flight from
the commonplace, Emma in Yonville meets the chief bourgeoisie of the
village. This first encounter, Chapter I, Part II, holds little promise for her,
but in Chapter II she meets a young man, Leon Dupuis, who seems like

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 MADAME BOVARY 303

herself to be romantic.
is given to lonely walks
into a sentimental frien
congenial soul available.
Emma feel more experi
danger of his getting out
sions. However, she is n
leads her to spend much
neighbors suspect that h
perienced to begin a lov
the friendship remains
in Paris.
This tender friendship is more serious than the chance acquaintance with
the viscount. There are many more opportunities for a clandestine affair:
Emma met the viscount only in Charles' presence, but with Leon she is
frequently alone. Neither Emma nor Leon lacks the will to love one another;
neither is restrained by anything so conventional as puritan principles;
they simply lack the skill to begin an affair. Yet one still feels sympathy
for Emma. She realizes her danger, though she is not entirely clear about
what it is. In Chapter VI she rushes to the priest only to find that he is a
clerical bourgeois without even the time, in the bustle of his numerous
duties, to hear her. The impulse to consult the priest passes by, and she
returns home in a state worse than before. The second main structural
episode is finished.
Part II is divided into fifteen chapters. Leon has left for Paris by th
end of Chapter VI. Chapter VII introduces a new man, older, experienced
cynical-one of the local gentry-Rodolphe Boulanger, who sees that
Emma is ripe for plucking. The pyramidal structure of Part II reaches it
apex in Chapter VIII, the middle chapter. Structually, it is the most inter
esting chapter in the novel. In it the several themes of the novel are br
liantly displayed through the shuttling sights and speeches of the provincial
agricultural show which Emma attends with Boulanger. Their conversa
tion stands out against the bourgeois background of the fair and provid
narrative continuity, romance standing apart from the heavy routine
speeches, the stolid actions of this bourgeois festival.
There are new notes as well. The absent Louis-Philippe, "to whom no
branch of public or private prosperity is a matter of indifference," enlarges
the bourgeois aura and epitomizes it. Balancing him, the novelist portrays
wholly admirable character, neither romantic nor bourgeois, who serv
within the structure as a moral standard. She is the measure of both Emma
and the society in which Emma finds herself. "Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth
Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerribre, for fifty-four years of service on the same

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 304 FRENCH REVIEW

farm, a silver medal-

stupidity, her awkwa
old peasant woman ac
bourgeois this half-cen
This is the moral ape
downhill. Within six
seduces her. At last s
poets, she thinks, but
balanced his cynicism
The next structural e
to professional eminen
earlier in Part II that
was impelled by the d
Charles so that she w
the appalling result
polyte's club foot ter
Emma's resultant atti
The pyramidal struct
as Part II continues. E
recalls her increasing
there is balanced by
her. Charles once agai
cannot leave Yonville
within his power. The
chateau in Part I, whe
was magnified by the
with Boulanger, has b
interest in life is now
Yonville.
Part III shows a degraded Emma, playing a curiously masculine role as
her desires become less "romantic" and more aggressively physical. Leon
re-enters her life at the Rouen theater; the subsequent liaison is reminiscent
of the Boulanger affair, but this time Emma is Boulanger, less cynical yet
resourceful and insatiable, and Leon is a more prudent, pallid Emma: "He
was rather becoming her mistress than she his." His romantic temper
weakens as he grows toward his profession, "Every notary bears within
him the d6bris of a poet." Emma ultimately finds him "incapable of hero-
ism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a woman, avaricious too, and cow-
ardly." Yet the affair has become a necessity for her, a narcotic, a desperate
refuge, and it is he who finally ends it, leaving her to face the consequences
of her recklessness.
Emma's ruin is not that of the romantic heroine who, having lost honor,

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 MADAME BOVARY 305

has lost all. She has lo

Charles', their inheritan
home. There follows a
Lheureux, to Monsieur
offers "love" as the pri
estate. She asks Boulan
he refuses. The tale of h
isode with the viscount,
earlier, is balanced by th
The last episode repres
structure. There remai
her marriage. There is
one over against the pa
entered into the main
it. Perhaps the structu
(Louis-Philippe) - (Catherine Leroux)
The agricultural fair; the Boulanger seduction

Leon innocent- - -Leon guilty

The viscount- - - - -Frantic attempts to

borrow money:
Lheureux, Guillaumin,
Boulanger

marriage- - - - - - - --suicide and funeral

------ --.--Charles----------
The diagram, however, is not to be confused with a plot c
were the whole story, the novel would be far less wonderful
would be a trite morality on an ever-recurrent theme: "The
is death." The pyramid may be an enduring monument, but
fairly stodgy one. Emma climbs no laborious steps up one sur
to disaster down the other. Her movement is quite different
herself, she soars in perpetual quest for genuine romance. But
her is double; seen with the crabbed eyes of her bourgeois r
neighbors, she pursues a steadily downward course-her prof
from Tostes and Yonville, her loathing of her bourgeois surro
disregard for her husband and child, the climax of her egois
From this view, bourgeois morality is thoroughly vindicated
lot," the end of her career might have been prognosticated
beginnings.

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306 FRENCH REVIEW

But there is one more el

and shows the entire edif
VIII, Part III. In Chapte
of the novel, Charles em
Emma had sought was
she had been unable to
the bourgeois affection
sorry figure as son, scho
distinguished from his b
but in one respect his c
wife's affection for hims
of his belief in her chast
she exercises her spell up
to share it with, he fin
To Charles, Emma's sin
love with her. Perfect
it? Had she been able, E
husband. Were this not
Although the action of
chapters are needed to
if guessed at all, would
In these last three cha
glorious radiance of the
bourgeois. Though Char
The base of the pyram
structure of the novel
exemplifies his role. He
peasant at the apex of th
farm, a silver medal-
bourgeois are wrong. It
which gives whatever
significance of the struc
CENTRAL WASHINGTON

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