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Part 3, Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Madame Bovary, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience
The Sublime and the Mundane
Love and Desire
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom
Truth, Rhetoric, and Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
Emma’s stricken father comes to Yonville for the funeral. Hippolyte is there, wearing his “best new leg,” and Justin watches palely for a moment before hiding in the pharmacy. It is a beautiful, fragrant morning. Lheureux is present, lamenting to everyone who will listen. Emma’s father leaves after the funeral, deep in grief. Léon and Rodolphe are sleeping peacefully in their beds, but Justin sits crying at Emma’s grave.
Everything at the funeral is topsy-turvy. Lheureux, the person most directly responsible for Emma’s death, is grieving ostentatiously. Justin, who loved Emma innocently, is heartbroken with guilt. Hippolyte, whom Emma crippled indirectly, is paying his respects. Her two lovers don’t care at all. Nothing is as it appears, and nothing appears as it should.
Themes
