Plot+Summary

Charles Bovary, a recently widowed doctor, meets Emma, the beautiful young daughter of Monsieur Rouault, when he is called to heal Rouault's broken leg. They marry in a lavish ceremony, and settle in a small French town. Emma expects married life to be exciting and passionate, but discovers her duties as a housewife to be dull. She becomes disgusted with her husband's mediocrity and neglects her responsibilities as a mother to Berthe, her only daughter. In her dejected boredom, Emma becomes ill and Charles decides to move the family to a different town in the hopes of reviving Emma's spirit. In Yonville, Emma meets Monsieur Lheureux, an evil money-lender who constantly cajoles her into making some extravagant purchase. She also meets Monsieur Homais, the town's prideful apothecary, and his lawyer friend Leon. Sexual tensions arises between Emma and Leon, but out of caution, Emma rejects Leon's affection. Leon moves away to Paris to study law and Emma focuses on domestic life.

After Leon leaves, Emma is seduced by Rodolphe Boulanger, a wealthy and pompous landowner. Emma throws herself at him, and their relationship quickly becomes too clingy for the freelance Rodolphe. One day he disappears, leaving Emma sick with heartbreak. Charles is anxious with concern over his lovely wife's health, and hopes to enliven her with an opera performance out of town. At the opera house, the Bovarys run into Leon, who has returned from Paris more handsome and confident than before. This time Emma embraces her attraction to Leon, and they carry on a secret affair for some time. Meanwhile, Charles struggles to pay the bills and Emma finds herself in a serious financial dilemma. Lheureux has presented Madame with several past-due promissory notes, and he's demanding immediate payment, but by now the interest on those loans has inflated Emma's debt to an enormous amount. She panics in her desperation, and even attempts to prostitute herself for money to pay off the creditors. The stakes are high - her affair with Leon is turning sour, Charles is still ignorant as ever, and the court is about to confiscate all their property. What will Madame Bovary do?

...SPOILER!!! (scroll down)

Emma sneaks into the apothecary's cellar and kills herself by eating arsenic. The doctors come too late to save her. Leon and Rodolphe are long gone away, and Emma's financial creditors seize the Bovary estate. Charles dies soon afterward, and Berthe comes under the guardianship of an aunt, who forces her to work in a factory to survive.