“Realism” is an intellectual code word for “depressing.” It is ever the pose of the aesthete to view life as ineffably tragic. The characters in realistic fiction either learn some hard lesson or they don’t; it makes little difference since all will come to a bad end. In the “real world” of the realistic novel, only venality is rewarded, for selfishness is seen as the most authentic of human qualities.
For this great Amazon of tears that runs through the Western canon, we have Gustave Flaubert to thank. It was he who dared to tell the truth about the stifling mores of the provincial bourgeois and of French society as a whole. It was he who dared to punish virtue and reward wickedness, to make dullness a cardinal sin, and to explore the living hell of crushing disappointment that opens up to swallow anyone who dares to hope, to dream, or to love. He did so in one of the greatest novels ever written, Madame Bovary, which is also surely the gloomiest.
For a Happy Ending Project, ours or anyone else’s, to tackle Madame Bovary is not just a challenge — it is an obligation. Fortunately, the task of giving the book a happier ending is a relatively simple one, merely a matter of allowing one of the main characters to live happily ever after. In our case, though, we aim for not just a happier ending but a truly happy one. As to whether we have accomplished that aim, we shall leave it up to the reader to decide.
MADAME BOVARY
As a child, and later when he grows into a young man, Charles Bovary is mediocre and dull. He fails his first medical exam and only barely manages to become a second-rate country doctor. His mother marries him off to a widow who dies soon afterward, leaving Charles much less money than he expected.
Charles soon falls in love with Emma, the daughter of a patient, and the two decide to marry. After an elaborate wedding, they set up house in Tostes, where Charles has his practice. But marriage doesn’t live up to Emma’s romantic expectations. Ever since she lived in a convent as a young girl, she has dreamed of love and marriage as a solution to all her problems. After she attends an extravagant ball at the home of a wealthy nobleman, she begins to dream constantly of a more sophisticated life. She grows bored and depressed when she compares her fantasies to the humdrum reality of village life, and eventually her listlessness makes her ill. When Emma becomes pregnant, Charles decides to move to a different town in hopes of reviving her health.
In the new town of Yonville, the Bovary’s meet Homais, the town pharmacist, a pompous windbag who loves to hear himself speak. Emma also meets Leon, a law clerk, who, like her, is bored with rural life and loves to escape through romantic novels. When Emma gives birth to her daughter Berthe, motherhood disappoints her—she had desired a son—and she continues to be despondent. Romantic feelings blossom between Emma and Leon. However, when Emma realizes that Leon loves her, she feels guilty and throws herself into the role of a dutiful wife. Leon grows tired of waiting and, believing that he can never possess Emma, departs to study law in Paris. His departure makes Emma miserable.
Soon, at an agricultural fair, a wealthy neighbor named Rodolphe, who is attracted by Emma’s beauty, declares his love to her. He seduces her, and they begin having a passionate affair. Emma is often indiscreet, and the townspeople all gossip about her. Charles, however, suspects nothing. His adoration for his wife and his stupidity combine to blind him to her indiscretions. His professional reputation, meanwhile, suffers a severe blow when he and Homais attempt an experimental surgical technique to treat a club-footed man named Hippolyte and end up having to call in another doctor to amputate the leg. Disgusted with her husband’s incompetence, Emma throws herself even more passionately into her affair with Rodolphe. She borrows money to buy him gifts and suggests that they run off together and take little Berthe with them. Soon enough, though, the jaded and worldly Rodolphe has grown bored of Emma’s demanding affections. Refusing to elope with her, he leaves her. Heartbroken, Emma grows desperately ill and nearly dies.
By the time Emma recovers, Charles is in financial trouble from having to borrow money to pay off Emma’s debts and to pay for her treatment. Still, he decides to take Emma to the opera in the nearby city of Rouen. There, they encounter Leon. This meeting rekindles the old romantic flame between Emma and Leon, and this time the two embark on a love affair. As Emma continues sneaking off to Rouen to meet Leon, she also grows deeper and deeper in debt to the moneylender Lheureux, who lends her more and more money at exaggerated interest rates.
Over time, Emma grows bored with Leon. Not knowing how to abandon him, she instead becomes increasingly demanding. Meanwhile, her debts mount daily. Eventually, Lheureux orders the seizure of Emma’s property to compensate for the debt she has accumulated. Terrified of Charles finding out, she frantically tries to raise the money that she needs, appealing to Leon and to all the town’s businessmen. Eventually, she even attempts to prostitute herself by offering to get back together with Rodolphe if he will give her the money she needs. He refuses, and, driven to despair, she attempts suicide by eating arsenic.
The blundering Homais, however, has mixed up the ingredients in his potions and Emma has actually ingested the rye fungus ergot. The toxin causes intense hallucinations in which Emma sees the error of her ways symbolized by an enormous jolly cochon (pig) singing arias and eating cookies shaped like fleur de lis. When she awakes she realizes enough is enough; she will end her affair with Leon. A visit to the grasping Lleureux and a threat to expose his homosexual affair with the one legged Hippolyte yields forgiveness of all her debts and a generous income of 4000 francs a year.
Meanwhile, Rodolphe has been beset by guilt over his affair with Emma. He persuades Charles to join him on a joint campaign for personal improvement. Diet, exercise, and a fearless spiritual personal inventory amount to nothing short of a Yonville edition of an extreme smackdown makeover. When Emma views the newly vigorous Charles, her passion is kindled anew and this time toward its proper object. The new Dr. Bovary returns from a final detoxifying hike up Mont Blanc fully ripped and decked out in taught green blouson and high-riding hunting shorts that reveal twenty-one centimeters of uncut spiced Gallic viand with his auburn mane feathered and blunt–cut in the careless, jaunty fashion of the day. The novel ends with the still hardbodied Emma straddling her new steed, bucking herself to bourgeois ecstasy.
THE END
