"Madame Bovary" was published for the first time in Revue de Paris in 1856. The editorial requires layoffs and offers readers only fragments of the novel, but in 1857 Flaubert, together with the director and editors of the magazine, faces the French court, for "violating public and religious morals and violating the good manners". Flaubert is justified and the same version of the novel comes out the same year.

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The action develops in Rouen, northern France. Charles Bovary's ambitious mother sends him to study medicine and, against his will, marries him with an older woman. Charles is a man without ambitions, but with a good heart and has no courage to oppose his mother. A terrible incident sent him to look at a patient in a small village near Rouen and there he met Emma for the first time. The young maiden growing up in a monastery is a desperate romance who sincerely believes that the happy love described in the novels she read definitely exists. Emma marries Charles, who loves her and worships her. She hopes that through this marriage she will start to lead a more social and more exciting life, but it is very soon that she is overwhelmed by the enormous disappointment of ordinary rural life. Emma begins to understand that Charles's speech is flat as a street pavement, that he does not like theater and poetry, can not swim, nor shoot with a gun, learns nothing, knows nothing, does not want anything. In time, she starts to move away from her husband and asks, "Why, my God, have I married?" She can not be content with life, "cold as an attic room with a northern window, and with annoyance." The debilitating health of Mrs. Bovary and her constant depression make Charles, concerned about her health, make the decision to move to a bigger city. He believes that climate change will have a good effect on his wife. The two moved to Jonville, where they quickly became friends with pharmacist Ome and his family. The house of the Ome family lived and Leon - the assistant of the local notary who, like Emma, ​​is interested in music and literature. Emma falls in love with the young man but soon he leaves Paris and she remains alone.

Emma is becoming more and more desperate and dissatisfied with her existence. Even the birth of little Bert does not fill the gaps in her life. She continues to fall into depression and often changes her mood. To fill the void after Leo's departure, she began looking for comfort in shopping. The cunning merchant Lorjo takes advantage of this and she starts to get more and more debt. Later Emma met Rodolfo Boulanger, a wealthy landlord and bachelor. He comes to visit Charles, along with his rat who wants to give him blood. Rodolfo, an experienced female, immediately notices the beauty of Mrs. Bovary. Not long after, he manages to seduce her, and they start a secret relationship that turns Emma into insane love and intoxication. She continues to buy expensive and luxurious clothes and furniture, as well as gifts for her lover, which is even more indebted. The thought of destroying her husband does not frighten her. She plans to escape with Rodolfo, but shortly before she leaves, he sends her a letter saying goodbye to her. Broken with the news, she gets sick again. To comfort his wife, Charles decides to go to a theater in Rouen, where they accidentally meet Leon. After this meeting Emma begins an affair with Leon. Lying to Charles for going to piano lessons, she spends unforgettable moments with him. Meanwhile, the credits of the wicked merchant Lorjo are rising when he asks for the due, Emma goes into a stalemate. She is looking for help at Leon, who is afraid and can not help. Then, filled with the hope that he will save her, she goes to her first lover, Rodolfo, who also does not want or can not help her. This brings her to great disappointment and despair. She decides to put an end to her life by taking an arsenic from Ome's pharmacy. After severe pain and torture, Emma dies.

Charles does not manage to overcome the death of his beloved. Crushed by adultery, Charles finds Emma's letters with Rodolfo and Leon, but despite the shame and pain he finds himself able to forgive his wicked wife. His life without Emma is a series of downs and infinite loneliness. Soon Charles died, completely overwhelmed and helpless. Little Bert goes to her grandmother, who soon dies, too, and is sent to her aunt who is poor and sends the girl to work in a cotton yarn factory. In the novel "Madame Bovary" Flaubert distanced himself from the narrative in the first person, which prevails in the era of Romanticism. The narrator abstains from comments, assessments and conclusions, and presents the history of the Bovary family in the most objective way. Flaubert s realism comes from his love of details. The descriptions in the novel are so well composed, detailed and interrelated that the reader himself can draw conclusions about the characters and events in the work. This is understood at the beginning, when Flaubert describes Charles Bovary's hat that the reader feels he knows the person who carries it. It is an interesting fact that Flaubert categorically refuses to attribute his novel to the Age of Realism.

Autobiographical Elements

Surgery - Flaubert's father was a well-known and respected surgeon. Charles Bovary is also a doctor, but not famous. Childhood - Gustav Flaubert is an unwanted child in the family and never gets enough love. Bert Bovary is also a disappointment for Emma Bovary , who hopes to give birth to a boy. The girl spends more time with the donor and the servant and never gets enough sincere love from her mother. The law - Flaubert followed right, just like Emma Bovary's second lover - Leon. Mental Illness - Due to Epilepsy Disease, Gustav Flaubert interrupts his studies. The main heroine in the novel, Emma Bovary, also suffers from nervous disorders and depression. Rouen, the home town of Flaubert and the place of action in the Madame Bovary novel Together with the autobiographical elements, the novel also contains a number of references to actual places, faces and events. For example, in the name of Bovary, there is the name of the city of Ri, near Rouen, where she lived a woman of a doctor named Delphin Delmar. Her tragic destiny inspired Flaubert to create the novel "Madam Bovary".