Madame Bovary 445while Dick wants to put himself first. Once Dick
and Nicole are named doctor and patient respec-
tively, they cannot end their repetitive love until
Rosemary Hoyt comes between them.
While Dick and Nicole’s love is characterized
by repetition and fusion, Dick and Rosemary’s love
can only be termed transformative. Through the
six years of the Divers’ marriage there have been
other young women who needed saving and Dick’s
rescue mind-set certainly obliged. His relationship
with Rosemary begins much the same way as it had
with Nicole and with the others who succeeded her.
Like his initial transference with Nicole, Rosemary
quickly falls in love with Dick as she watches him on
the beach. She idealizes him instantly and, unaware
of his marital displeasure, sees him as perfect, omni-
scient, and perceptive. When she announces that
she is in love with both him and Nicole, Dick dully
mumbles that he has heard this admission many
times before. Rosemary shares many similarities
with Nicole. She is roughly the same age Nicole was
when she met Dick, both of their fathers are doctors,
and both seek men from whom to garner their own
strength. Compelled by her idealization of him and
similarity to Nicole, Dick begins to fall in love with
Rosemary. Superficially, their relationship resembles
his early bond with Nicole, but it soon becomes a
transformative love instead.
While Dick and Nicole find themselves in a
repetitive love dependent on the adherence to old
roles, Rosemary represents something new altogether.
Nicole allows herself to be saved by Dick over and
over, but Rosemary does not and refuses Dick’s plea to
rescue her. This refusal represents a turning point in
Dick’s life because for once he does not have to doctor
a romantic interest. Paradoxically, young Rosemary
decides to “give up” Dick, despite her feelings of love.
Sensing the impossibility of a sustained relationship,
Rosemary pulls back and relinquishes her claims on
him. When she pulls back, she pulls back with love,
but she pulls back at a time when Dick has opened
himself to love her back. This movement leaves him
with his own pulsing desire. For once, it has no obvi-
ous outlet, either with Nicole and her sporadic moods
or with another young female desperate for his res-
cue. The passionless solitary kiss between Dick and
Rosemary is emblematic of this strong renunciation.
Rosemary walks away, despite Dick’s desire, and in so
doing, she opens his life to its greatest transformation.
The metamorphosis first pulls him away from Nicole
and then toward himself and his desires: personal,
professional, and romantic.
Erica D. GaliotoFLaubErT, guSTavE Madame Bovary
(1857)
Madame Bovary was controversial from the moment
it was serialized in 1856. First published in book
form in 1857 (and only after its author, Gustave
Flaubert, was tried for obscenity), it remains one of
the most important novels of all time. It is the story
of a young French woman who quickly regrets her
marriage to a provincial doctor and engages in two
unsatisfying affairs before taking her own life.
The novel begins by depicting Charles Bovary,
but shifts its focus to Emma once the two are
married. Emma quickly decides he is hopelessly
dull. Her first words in the novel are striking: “Oh,
why, dear God, did I marry him?” Longing for the
romantic fantasies that she has read of in literature,
Emma Bovary dreads her daily life and fills her time
buying various luxuries. She finds a kindred spirit in
Léon Dupuis, a handsome young clerk. They flirt
and fall in love, but they do not realize each other’s
feelings. Emma is seduced by Rodolphe Boulanger,
a man who has had a number of affairs. When
Rodolphe begins to tire of the affair, he dumps
Emma in a contrived letter. She is heartbroken and
nearly commits suicide; afterward she collapses into
illness. After her recovery, a chance meeting with
Léon leads to a second affair. When her debts over-
whelm her and none of her lovers can save her, she
commits suicide. The novel ends with the death of
Charles, and their child Berthe consigned to labor in
a cotton-mill. Through these depressing (but often
comic) twists, Flaubert explores a number of impor-
tant themes, particularly love, fate, freedom,
gender, and commerce.
James FordFate in Madame Bovary
Fate plays a curious role in Madame Bovary. The
characters often speak of fate and bemoan the role