Charles Bovaryste: Romantic Prefiguration in Madame Bovary

Author(s): Phillip A. Duncan

Source: South Atlantic Bulletin , Nov., 1979, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 11-19
Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3198980

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Charles Bovaryste: Romantic Prefiguration
in Madame Bovary
Phillip A. Duncan

EMMA'S ACCEPTANCE OF CHARLES BOVARY as her "con-

sort" is baffling. How could poor Charles, who is initially equ
with his styleless, heavy, nail-studded shoes, appeal to the rom
que Emma? He did, certainly, offer liberation from an intole
rural environment, but Emma chose the liberator as well as t
opportunity to escape. Critics have generally passed over t
parent unlikeliness of the match to concentrate on the au
preoccupation with Charles' function as a "regard."' Ch
serves as a convenient bridge from the detached observer of
one to the consciousness of Emma herself. But there are characteris-
tics of Charles-mediator which harmonize with Emma's mania
for veiling reality with her dream of the unrealizable and Charl
is a psychological preface to Emma as well as the reader's camera
lens.

That Charles has a latent capacity for creating an imaginar

world and living a dream is clear at the end of the novel where,
as Flaubert says, Emma "le corrompait par dela le tombeau."2 The
loss of Emma precipitates in Charles a detachment from realit
In her absence Emma seems all the more beautiful to him: "il en
conCut un desir permanent, furieux, qui enflammait son desespoir
et qui n'avait pas de limites, parce qu'il 6tait maintenant irr6alis-
able" (Bov., p. 472). To preserve the illusion of her presence he
goes deeply into debt just as Emma had in order to create the
illusion of luxury: "Charles s'engagea pour des sommes exorbitantes;
car jamais il ne voulut consentir a laisser vendre le moindre des
meubles qui lui avaient appartenu" (Bov., p. 470). Surrendering
to the illusion that she somehow existed still, Charles tried to dress,
act and think in a manner that would please her: "il adopta ses
predilections, ses iddes; il s'acheta des bottes vernies, il prit l'usage
des cravates blanches. Il mettait du cosm6tique a ses moustaches, il

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12 Gustave Flaubert

souscrivit comme elle des billets at ordre" (Bov. p

author to give these tendencies to Charles after Emm
vites the reader to search the early chapters for sig
"bovarysme." And, it was surely this tendency that
to Emma, this inclination to which Emma respon
gives versimilitude to the Bovary marriage.

From the moment of their first appearances in the

and Emma are related superficially. Both have rur
were raised by families that pampered them as child
defined first in terms of their dress and external features. But
Charles is conceived to lead the reader to Emma in other, more
essential ways. When, in retrospect, we follow Emma's experience
at the convent school, the reader first clearly understands her
nature and surmises what she must become. Her dreams of exotic
places and times, her sensuality and its curious association with
mystical experience, her egotism, her notions of romantic love, her
rococo aesthetic and literary tastes, all the trappings of saccharine
Romanticism are displayed in Chapter VI as the author forms his
heroine. But while Romantic extravagance flourishes in Emma's
schoolgirl dreams, it has already entered the novel with the ado-
lescent Charles.

At the convent school Emma isolated herself in a fantasy of

pleasure and adventure stimulated by "chanson galantes" sung
by a lady of the nobility, by the stories this same lady told, by the
novels which she loaned the girls, and by Keepsake volumes. Like
that gentlewoman, Charles' mother tempted her son with lyric
distractions from reality: "Elle lui dcoupait des cartons, lui ra-
contait des histoires, s'entretenait avec lui dans des monologues
sans fin, pleins de gaietes m6lancoliques . . . et meme lui enseigna,
sur un vieux piano qu'elle avait, a chanter deux ou trois petites
romances" (Bov., pp. 7-8). Charles is, of course, too leaden to
take flight as Emma does. He sinks into his environment until, as
a student later in Rouen, he sits by his window and finds himself
longing for the unseen, dreaming of his home, a place and life more
perfect than his drab chamber and the routine of his days. Then
he begins to lose interest in his studies and "il prit l'habitude du
cabaret" (Bov., p. 12). Charles has his moment of exaltation, "il
apprit par coeur des couplets qu'il chantait aux bienvenues,
s'enthousiasma pour Beranger, sut faire du punch et connut enfin
l'amour" (Bov., p. 12). Charles' outburst of Romantic taste and
behavior was even more exaggerated in an earlier draft in which
"il buvait du punch dans une tete de mort, se couchait maintenant
a minuit, ne respectait plus rien."3

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 SAB 13

The scene at the window in Rouen

parallel scenes involving Emma and
motifs associated with her. The nume
and doors in the novel signal altern
emotional or spiritual dilation follo
panding perimeter of her consciousne
the confines of a shabby provincial
anticipates his future companion as h
boundary of his small world and year
afterwards Flaubert confirms Char
horizons when the latter takes up g
beaucoup de choses comprimees en lui
12). It is this dilation and contracti
in successive concentric circles which Thibaudet and Poulet note
as a primary structural pattern of the novel.4 This repeated soaring
outward of her thoughts which presses the circumference of the
experience to the edge of the infinite and then, in turn, the in-
evitable deflation and turning back to a hated point of departure
creates a double circularity-that of the alternately enlarged and
reduced perimeter and that of the curve outward and back to the
place of beginning. Thus Flaubert states Emma's fated condition,
her mystical longing to dissolve the finite and temporal self in an
absolute vastness and her condemnation to a banal contingency-
a cycle that only death will break. Thoughout the novel the author
locates circular forms in a kind of decorative frieze to remind the
reader of the design concealed in the heroine's struggle.
Already in the first few pages of the novel the frieze commences,
but, surprisingly, the circular forms relate to Charles. There is
the outrageous cap with its "boudins circulaires" and the ceaseless
revolution of his labor: "il accomplissait sa petite tache quotidienne
i la mani&re du cheval de manege, qui tourne en place les yeux
bandes . .." (Bov., pp. 10-11). Then follows his Romantic flower-
ing and the dilation of things repressed negated by an abrupt re-
turn to an unpleasant reality: failure at his examinations. Later
when the thought of Emma and the prospect of a fateful marriage
become an obsession for Charles, the circular motif returns: "quel-
que chose de monotone comme le ronflement d'une toupie bour-
donnait a ses oreilles . .." (Bov., p. 31). One inevitably thinks of
Binet's lathe whose sound harasses Emma later in the novel.
Charles, impatient, opens his window, turns in the direction of
Emma's farm and dreams in that pose that is to become so charac-
teristic of Emma.

The sensation of breaking through the screen of objective reality,

the circular prison, into a limitless expanse is associated with a

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14 Gustave Flaubert

powerful sexual and emotional experience in the

bert, such climactic moments involve an impressio
tion of the personality as is illustrated in the f
from a letter in which he describes to Louise Co
his relationship with (apparently) Harriet Collie
etions seuls, assis sur un canapl, elle me prit la ma
doigts dans les miens . . .et elle me regarda avec
qui me fait froid encore.... Je suis sur que la pauvr
laiss6e aller a un moment de tendresse invincible
fadeurs de l'ame oiu il semble que tout ce qu'on a e
fie et se dissout ...." The liquefaction which Cha
impart to the exterior world must issue from a com
melting away. The self and nature fragment an
remains is the "tendresse invincible" that tends tow
One such privileged moment occurs in Chapter
leaving les Bertaux one day: "Une fois, par un
l'ecorce des arbres suintait dans la cour, la neige sur
des batiments se fondait. Elle etait sur le seuil; elle
son ombrelle, elle l'ouvrit. L'ombrelle de soie gorge
traversait le soleil, eclairait de reflets mobiles la
sa figure. Elle souriait la-dessous a la chaleur tiede;
les gouttes d'eau, une a une, tomber sur la moir
pp. 22-23). The trees, the snow ooze their substa
atmosphere ("la chaleur tiede"). Emma's face seems
in the "reflets mobiles." The sunlight is scattered
tions and refracted in nuanced stains as it passes t
gorge de pigeon" and "la moire tendue" of the
essence of the moment is contained in the final se
the emotion, echoed in nature, climaxes in the
fecundity of the ripened drops of water splashing
Charles is the observer serving still as a center
which leads the reader gradually to a coincidenc
of the heroine, we must believe that it is the "tend
of Charles which transforms nature in this scene. But who is stand-
ing on the threshold of the open door and its promise of release
and fulfillment? Surely Charles, but just as surely, Emma. For
whom does the eternally closed periphery of the umbrella signal
that the promise is only illusion? For Emma who stands at its pivot
or for Charles who perceives it? Apparently both. At such a moment
the two subjectivities are equated and at such a moment the transi-
tion of orientation from Charles to Emma is on the point of being
accomplished. Then the two personalities separate and it is as
though Charles has passed on to Emma his own illusion of tran-
scending particularity. From this point on, for example, it is Emma

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 SAB 15

alone whose passion softens and deco

with Leon, in the forest with Rodolp

Dreaming, Emma recomposes the dr

Her preference for the sentimental,
doomed to frustration in a life with C
who sinks into invulnerable ordinari
of Emma's wanton behavior. Here,
type. Previously, he had found him
suffocated his life. The widow Dubuc was "laide, s&che comme un
cotret (Bov., p. 13). Et puis la veuve etait maigre; elle avait les dents
longues; elle portait en toute saison un petit chale noir dont la
pointe lui descendait entre les omoplates; sa taille dure etait en-
gainee dans des robes en facon de fourreau, trop courtes, qui de-
couvraient ses chevilles avec les rubans de ses souliers larges s'entre-
croisant sur des bas gris" (Bov., p. 24). These large shoes, the ill-
fitting clothing, her ungainliness make her the physical counterpart
of Charles. In their relationship, it is Charles who is the more sensi-
tive, who senses the dessication of his life and begins to dream of
a companion at once more voluptuous and more refined. In a pas-
sage which Flaubert omitted from the final draft, the author speaks
of his hero in terms appropriate to Emma in her tendency to senti-
mental-sensual reveries: "Pour Charles en effet c'6tait la premiere
belle jeune femme [Emma] qu'il eut connue.... Son coeur d6licat
se prenait de mollesses a ces el6gances de la jeune fille. Son d6sir
nouveau n6 s'y dorlotait dessus, les yeux clos; elles l'imbibaient son
desir, d'emanations plus profondes, a la maniere des sachets de
camphre dans les vetements qu'on porte" (Inedits, p. 71). Charles'
wife is rightfully jealous of Emma with her "belle 6ducation" and
accuses Charles of wanting to frequent les Bertaux to visit "une
personne, quelqu'un qui savait causer, une brodeuse, un bel esprit"
(Bov., p. 23). That's what he wanted, she complained, a city girl.
There is a curious passage, suppressed in the final edition, which
further emphasizes the affinity of Emma and Charles and their
superiority to their provincial surroundings:

Charles etait pour elle [Emma] le seul etre avec qui il [sic
pour elle] put echanger un mot, dans le desert ofu elle
vivait.... Comme il devait avoir du gout, elle le consulta
une fois sur une garniture a mettre au bas d'une robe et
elle lui demandait en d6jeunant son avis sur les feuilletons
de Journal. Car au milieu de leur societe de la campagne,
ils etaient tous deux l'un pour l'autre, une societe plus
intime, que liaient encore plus des communaut6s d'edu-
cation, si ce n'est d'instinct. Ils savaient autre chose enfin

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16 Gustave Flaubert

que les paysans. Ils pouvaient parler sans qu'on

prit, s'apprdcier, s'estimer plus, se mettre a part
s'aimer" (Inedits, pp. 71-72).
The reproaches of the widow Dubuc contribute to
of isolation. His estrangement from others is est
first scene of the novel when as a new boy he is jeer
Now he is hounded by a plaintive and shrewish wif
be excluded from Emma's world. Coarsened in the definitive text,
Charles fully emerges as an inarticulate boor soon after the mar-
riage and is dismissed from Emma's affections. His isolation an-
nounces Emma's subsequent alienation. Emma, by her instinct and
by her education, is unable to come to terms with life as it actually
is. She cuts herself off from reality, replacing it with a kind of
private theater. Charles and Emma are equally, if differently, de-
tached from Tostes and Yonville.

The soaring flight from a desolate present is a rare occasion and

the mournful and lonely descent into Yuk's domain of "ce qui est"
the normal state for Charles in the first chapters and for Emma
later. The tedium of Charles' existence before he meets Emma
infects the countryside he meanders through on his way to les Ber-
taux for the first time. "Ces trous entourds d'Cpines" which re-
peatedly block the route of his mount serve as a reminder of
Charles' situation-an emptiness surrounded (once again the cir-
cular reference) by an impenetrable barrier. "La plate compagne
s'6talait i perte de vue," monotonous, endless, a perspective strewn
with "des pommiers sans feuilles," forlorn and destitute where "des
oiseaux se tenaient immobiles"-in sum, nature's statement of hope-
lessness. Clumps of trees are isolated one from another by the vast
grey surface of the earth which fuses with the "ton morne du ciel," a
limitless, neutral medium, a spatial ennui which extends Charles'
inner "landscape." Time periods fuse together also as Charles'
groggy mind blends the smell of the dew with the memory of the
hospital and its odor of bandages; the metallic sound of curtain
rings being pulled along rods between the patients' beds meshes
with the jangle of his wife's bed springs-an ennui that is the
common denominator of the present and the past completes the
multi-dimensional projection of the doctor's psychological state
(Bov., pp. 17-18).
Emma's susceptibility to ennui is so intrinsic and evident that
it is scarcely necessary to draw attention to it. A single example
may suffice. For months Emma awaits a second invitation to la
Vaubyessard. It never came: "son coeur, de nouveau, resta vide,
et alors la serie des memes journmes recommen^a" (Bov., p. 87).
Here Emma's distress is essentially the distress of Charles on the

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 SAB 17

road to les Bertaux. If there is a differ

her desolation, "au fond de son ame . . attendait un ev6nement"
(Bov., pp. 86-87) while Charles had no expectations.
As time passed and inconclusive events came and went, Emma
tried to create an appropriate physical setting for these events or
disguise what she thought cheap and vulgar in her surroundings.
She bought fine clothing, furnishings, gifts and she financed trips
to Rouen. She tried to overlay tangible mediocrity with a rich
mask, to purchase stage props for the drama of escape. She be-
lieved that "certains lieux sur la terre devaient produire du bon-
heur, comme une plante particuliere au sol et qui pousse mal tout
autre part" (Bov., p. 56). While awaiting the adventure which
would transport her to a storied land and bliss, Emma arranged an
alternative site where happiness might germinate. The debts she
contracted in this enterprise, the prospect of being reduced to liv-
ing on without the veneer of finery destroyed her. In an earlier
draft of the novel, debts had been a problem for Charles. When as
a student he acquired the dissipated habits of a young dandy, his
funds dissipated as well: "les depenses s'accumulaient. Charles avait
beau en remettre le paiement de semaine en semaine, esperant qu'il
pourrait au moins se lib6rer par de petits accomptes, comme la con-
sommation continuait toujours son train, la note s'allongeait sans
fin. Donc, le maitre de cafe perdit patience et le menasa d'ecrire a
sa famille. Charles supplia encore d'attendre un mois. Mais au bout
du mois, l'argent n'etant pas venu, une note de 75 francs, envoyee
par la poste, tomba un bon matin comme une bombe dans la maison
Bovary" (Inedits, p. 38). Thus Charles, incontinent, faced the same
kind of financial crisis as Emma as the price of his escapism. Unlike
Emma, he had to deal only with the manageable sum of 75 francs.
Like everything else in his life, Charles' debts did not reach heroic
proportions.

It is clear that in the earlier versions of the first three chapters of

Madame Bovary, Flaubert explicitly stressed the affinity of Charles
and Emma. For example, one last, Proustian image drawn from
these pages accents Charles' susceptibility to reverie, a temptation
which is at the heart of Emma's aberration:

II se trouvait aussi, que les autres femmes a prdsent tenaient

pour lui plus de place dans le monde. E,spac6es en des
plans secondaires diff6rents, elles se rattachaient a Mlle
Rouault par des rapports de figure, d'attitude ou de cos-
tume. Elles avaient plus ou moins quelque chose des linda-
ments de son visage, des bruits de sa robe, de l'odeur de
ses cheveux. Soit donc qu'il voulut se rappeler les femmes

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 18 Gustave Flaubert

qu'il avait rencontrees, ou qu'il contemplat ce

passaient maintenant elles ne lui servaient a la
le faire penser a une seule, et c'6taient comme des
inattendus par oiu sa reverie les yeux fermes d
jusqu'a elle (Inedits, p. 96).
In the revision of the text, much of this intentio
Charles as a primitive Emma has disappeared. Still, a
portant themes that attach to Emma remain in the
as issuing, however tentatively, from Charles: a rejec
diate reality and a search for escape into dream o
elsewhere, the inclination to romantic love as a vehi
the alternate dilation and deflation of the conscious
isolation, ennui-all except the tendency to indebt
Charles exhibits only after Emma's death. In the fin
Flaubert attenuated the initial similarity o,f these t
poetization of Charles must be sufficient to account f
and, finally, the consent of Emma, but too slight to
disaffection when the "habit de velours noir a longu
the "bottes molles" of her fantasy do not suit the awk
the countryman. Once Charles' dream of love has be
he coincides with himself; Romantic aspiration is
the dull, contented bovine of the central chapters. H
portrait of Charles "fantaisiste" in the earlier draft
chapters is significant as it establishes clearly the co
role as transition to Emma's consciousness. Had the author re-
solved to deny Charles this function, there would not remain the
perceptible Romantic element which makes him the tentative in-
itiator of Emma's psychological malady.
Such a reading of the early chapters, then, explains and justifies
Charles' conduct after Emma's death. Flaubert speaks of Emma's
corruption of her husband beyond the grave. An obvious example
are his relatively baroque specifications for the funeral. But this
romanesque Charles is not a startling metamorphosis; he was there
all along. His youthful, somewhat hesitant sallies against the pro-
vincial keep had ceased and, being weak, he had allowed himself to
be molded into one of the typical representatives of that same pro-
vincial environment. If his Romanticism persists, it is in his venera-
tion of Emma. WNhen Emma disappears we see Charles resuming
once again a former self to perpetuate that spirit (Emma's) which
had been the animus of his existence. He tries desperately to sus-
tain his Romantic posture as testimony of Emma's continuing pres-
ence, for without her he will cease to exist as did Emma when her
fragile world of illusion collapsed.

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 SAB 19

Probably there was no one single re

as a psychological preparation for
from one of the early drafts sugge
milieu de leur societe de la campag
pour l'autre, une societd plus intim
communaut6s d'6ducation, si ce n'e
Flaubert, by creating shared characte
bility which makes Emma's attraction to Charles more believable.
And, for Charles to serve as a credible screen through which we
perceive Emma at the outset, he must be capable of responding to
Emma's Romantic nature. Without such a resonance, the author
has lost the mechanism by which he enters the situation and his
optic must remain external. Flaubert's internal vision in the novel
depends on the bovarism of Charles, exaggerated in the early
drafts, but scrupulously, if discreetly, maintained in the definitive
text.

The University of Kentucky

NOTES

'Among others: Jean Rousset, Forme et signification (Paris: Corti

pp. 116-117 and Victor Brombert, The Novels of Flaubert (Princeton: P
Univ. Press, 1966), p. 72.
2Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Paris: Conard, 1902), p. 472.
3Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Ebauches et Fragments ined
G. Leleu (Paris: Conard, 1936), I, 37.
4Albert Thibaudet, Gustave Flaubert (Paris: Gallimard, 1936), pp
Georges Poulet, Les Mdtamorphoses du cercle (Paris: Plon, 1961), Cha
5Gustave Flaubert, Correspondance (Paris: Conard, 1910), I, 248-249

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