History Literature / MadameBovary

* WrongGenreSavvy: Emma wants the world to be like romance novels, and acts as if it is. This ends up leading to her ruin, since she's actually in a very cynical SpiritualAntithesis to them.

* RealityEnsues: Emma ThinksLikeARomanceNovel. Reality is quick to correct her.
** Emma attempts to have a lover outside of her marriage, but the man she attempts to woo doesn't have time to indulge in her fantasies, and she ends up miserable.
** When Emma attempts to convince Lheureux to extend her debt period, she puts her hand on his knee, and he is repulsed with disgust.
** Emma and her husband are invited to a ball. Her husband, not knowing anything about social graces, turns everyone off with his behavior, and Emma's social life gets worse as a result.
** When she can't maintain her lifestyle anymore, Emma decides to kill herself by taking a large dose of arsenic, expecting a quick, romantic, and painless demise. She instead suffers a slow, painful, gruesome death from the poison.

* TheCasanova: Rodolphe.

* DeathByDespair: Charles' first wife.
* DescriptionPorn: Lots of it: see PurpleProse below. During the ball in the middle of the book author even describes the fake roses in the jackets with drops of ''artificial water'' to make them look more natural.

* DrivenToSuicide: Because it's so ''romantic''...
* ExtremeDoormat: Charles for Emma, so very much. She despises him for it.

* ProtagonistTitle: Guess.
* PurpleProse: An exceptionally well done example.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Hippolyte, a stablehand for Yonville's inn, has a clubfoot but still gets around better than most people with normal feet. With Homais' encouragement, Charles attempts a surgical procedure on Hippolyte, a local stablehand, to cure his clubfoot. However, the operation goes wrong and Hippolyte loses his leg to gangrene.

* YourCheatingHeart: [[RuleOfThree Emma]], multiple times. [[DownerEnding It doesn't end well]].

** Charles Bovary (and later Emma, when she takes his name) has a name that, even in story, clearly evokes cattle, and not to their benefit.

* ASimplePlan: Homais’ idea to try to cure clubfoot is meant to be just a simple procedure of cutting the errant tendon for Charles. Then the foot grows gangrenous and the limb ends up having to be amputated. NiceJobBreakingItHero

* ASimplePlan: Homais’ idea to try to cure clubfoot is meant to be just a simple procedure of cutting the errant tendon for Charles. Then the foot grows gangrenous and the limb ends up having to be amputated. NiceJobBreakingItHero!

* ASimplePlan: Homais’ idea to try to cure clubfoot is meant to be just a simple procedure of cutting the errant tendon for Charles. Then the foot grows gangrenous and the limb ends up having to be amputated. {{NiceJobBreakingItHero}}!

* NotDistractedByTheSexy: When Bovary attempts to convince Lheureux to extend her debt period, she puts her hand on his knee and is repulsed with disgust.
* PairTheSpares: Felicite, the servant of Emma, and Justin, the apprentice of Madame Homais, are implied, but never outright confirmed, to be in a relationship.
* ParentalNeglect: Emma hardly cares at all about their daughter, leaving the nurse and her husband to care for her. Having said that, it wasn't all that uncommon at the time amongst lower middle class.

* PornStash: Homais discovers Justin ordering the book ''Conjugal Love'', which includes illustrated engravings.

** When Bovary attempts to convince Lheureux to extend her debt period, she puts her hand on his knee and is repulsed with disgust.

** When she can't maintain her lifestyle anymore, Emma decides to kill herself by taking a large dose of arsenic, expecting a quick, romantic, and painless demise. She instead suffers a slow, painful, gruesome death at the hands of being poisoned.

* RunningGag: Homais’ attempts to get the Imperial Cross. [[spoiler: eventually, he succeeds.]]
* ASimplePlan: Homais’ idea to try to cure clubfoot is meant to be just a simple exercise in cutting the errant tendon for Charles. Then the foot grows gangrenous and the limb ends up having to be amputated.

* TranquilFury: Charles enters one [[spoiler: when he finally confronts Rodolphe after his wife’s suicide but it doesn’t last.]]

* DescriptionPorn: Lots of it: see PurpleProse below. During the ball in the middle of the book author even describes the fake roses in the jackets with drops of ''artificial water'' to make them look more natural.

* {{Deconstruction}}: Flaubert wrote this in response to a dare to write a story that differed from the romantic works he'd written before - Emma is a woman trying to live her life by the tropes of her favorite romantic novels, and utterly failing.

* SpiritualAntithesis: See {{Deconstruction}} above.

* OneOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: After Homais succeeds in getting a homeless leper locked away through his press campaign, he turns his attention to other matters like ''social reform, morality in the poor, fish breeding, rubber, railroads''.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Emma wants the world to be like romance novels, and acts as if it is. This ends up leading to her ruin, since she's actually in a realistic and very cynical deconstruction of them.

** Emma and her husband are invited to a ball. Her husband, not knowing anything about social grace,s turns everyone off with his behavior, and Emma's social life gets worse as a result.

* ASimplePlan: Homais’ idea to try to cure clubfoot is meant to be just a simple exercise in cutting the errant tendon for Charles. Then the foot grows gangrenous and the limb ends up having to be amputated.

* {{Foil}}: Homais and his family end up as counter-foils for Charles Bovary. They’re both medical practitioners of average skill in slightly different fields, yet while Charles was married to the beautiful, strong Emma, Homais had a plain, steadfast wife. By the end of the novel [[spoiler: Charles’ household is bankrupted by Emma’s lavish spending and they die within a year of each other, while Homais is still prosperous and happily married with three children, and ended up with an Imperial Cross.]]

Creator/GustaveFlaubert's ''uber''-detailed {{novel}} about the eponymous Madame Emma Bovary, a middle-class doctor's wife who has the imagination to want more out of life, but not the cleverness to avoid unrealistic romantic fantasies. When first her stolid husband and then her adulterous lovers refuse to behave as they do in her favourite novels, the betrayal leads her to violent dissatisfaction, ruinously extravagant debt, and finally suicide.

* RealityEnsues: Emma ThinkLikeARomanceNovel. Reality is quick to correct her.

* RelationshipSue: What Emma seems to look for from her experience of romance novels, and is disappointed when she can’t find anything like that in real life.

* ThinksLikeARomanceNovel: Emma.

* ExtremeDoormat: Charles for Emma, so very much.

* PretentiousLatinMotto: One is put onto the [[spoiler: Emma’s tomb]] by Homais. He has racked his brains to come up with ''Sta Viator amabilem conjugem calcas''.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Emma wants the world to be like romance novels, and acts as if it is. It doesn't end well.

* MsImagination: Oh, Emma! She was a victim of this trope, being an intelligent and beautiful woman with vivid imagination who lacked common sense. She imagined herself as an aristocrat or at least a noble city dweller. She a farmer's daughter who married a stupid middle class doctor and they live in a small town. She suffers terribly, and her family even more so.

** Madame. Bovary's [[spoiler:lover, M. Leon, marries a woman by the name of "Leboeuf"]] which reflects this nicely.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: Both Bournisien, the local priest, and the chemist Homais frequently quote Bible in their religious arguments.

* AnAesop: Be thankful for what you have. Cause sometimes what you want might not turn out well for you in the end.

* PerfectPoison: Averted, and how. The death by poison is long, drawn out, and disgusting -- the final betrayal of Emma's romantic fantasies.