Reading the Work 5
Back in Part Two, Rodolphe eventually got bored with Emma's romanticism and left her. Â Emma has also amassed a large amount of debt from Monsieur L'Heureux (heureux=happy, ironically). Â So, in Part Three, Emma has rekindled her affair with Leon from Part One. Â Charles's father has died, so in his grief, he agrees (stupidly) to send Emma to Rouen with Leon to sign some papers. This essentially gives Emma and Leon a three-day honeymoon. Â All the while, Emma is gaining more debt and L'Heureux convinces her to borrow more money from him to pay it off. Â Charles's mother becomes suspicious, but Charles is blind to the truth. Â He doesn't realize that Emma's "weekly piano lessons" are just a way for her to see Leon in Rouen. Â However, Leon, much like Rodolphe, begins to tire of her company. Â
Emma's morals have completely gone out the window. Â She is borrowing more than she can afford, and hanging out with shady people to try to rectify this situation. Â She also appears to be delusional (along with Leon), as they believe themselves to be characters in a romance novel. Â I'm not sure if this a break in the fourth wall, or possibly a comment by Flaubert on the excessive romanticism of the 19th century. Â Emma lives in a time where her only power is sex, but she wants more. Â She wants to be surrounded by wealth and beauty, but her only means of attaining them is, in fact, sex. Â However, she refuses to acknowledge this. Â She continues to delude herself, thinking that romance will save her.
