Charles in Madame Bovary
Charles in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary represents a provincial archetype -- in fact, the exact sort of common countryside provincialism that his wife Emma comes to resent, find banal, and from which seek to escape. Yet, it is exactly this provincialism that allows Charles to remain grounded in his work and life: his "common sense" as it might be called keeps him, essentially, from becoming a "jealous type." Whether Emma (and the reader) would have benefited more had Charles become such a type, we may not say, but neither is it the course of the narrative to show. This paper will examine the precise reasons why Charles shows no human jealousy of Emma, even as she begins her adulterous way of living.
We can, to a certain degree, better understand Emma than we can Charles. Emma at least represents for us the modern consciousness -- bored, neglected, and dying to escape the banalities of the modern world. She has been raised, as Vladimir Nabokov points out, on romantic novels -- exceedingly popular in the 19th century and read by Emma "emotionally, in a shallow juvenile manner, putting herself in this or that female character's place" (136); in other words, she loves "romantic cliches" rather than the man who becomes her husband.
While such an analysis of Emma may afford us a better understanding of her character and role in the novel (and make us more sympathetic to her person and plight), it does not say much for the character and role of her husband. In fact, there is not much (at first glance) that may be said of her husband. He arrives on the scene of the novel as a "new fellow," marries at the bidding of his elders a woman who actually does become jealous of Charles (as Charles begins to notice Emma, the daughter of one of his patients). When his first wife dies, Charles courts Emma, they marry, and Emma realizes that she is not content to spend her time with a bumbling, provincial fool of a man -- even if he is kind-hearted. He is not the dashing, Byronic hero of whom she has read so much in her romantic novels.
As Emma begins her escapades outside the marriage contract, Charles fails to notice, "since as we are told, in a rare authorial intervention, he is not the jealous type" (Anderson 126). That this analysis of one his own main characters should necessitate an authorial intrusion speaks volumes of the precise nature of Charles: just as there is not much to him, there is not much that can be said of him; to get to the heart of him -- his sins, his weaknesses, his tendencies -- requires either the utmost scrutiny or else a god-like pronouncement or judgment of sorts -- in shot, an authorial interruption: "This is Charles: he is not jealous." Indeed, we might not be surprised by such an intrusion. After all, the subtitle of the novel is "Provincial Manners," reminding us that Madame Bovary is not strictly a novel about an adulterous woman. It is much more than that: it is a reflection of a particular time and way of life in 19th century France. More explicitly, it is a reflection of village-life in Normandy. Charles is the archetypal provincial: decent, hard-working, drawn to the more fascinating creatures of the world (like Emma) but not very bright when it comes to understanding them.
Instead, what we see in Charles is an intellect somewhat equal to Emma's. She is consumed by the passion of the Romantic era -- he, in turn, is consumed by the novelties of his wife. He does not understand her romance, but he finally allows it to seize possession of him: after her death, he begins to be reclusive; he neglects his estate; he allows all else to be sold off. Even after he realizes the true nature of his wife's infidelities, he forgives her and remains loyal to her vision of life. The vision, of course, is not healthy and all suffer for it -- even the daughter, who is finally sent to work in a cotton mill.
Perhaps if Charles had become aware -- or had become jealous -- life might have been different for all. Perhaps it would have been for Emma a new and romantic twist in her adventures: the jealous husband chapter of the romantic novel. Perhaps it would have been enough to bring her back to her senses and allow...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now