Story summary
Madame Bovary 줄거리
- 8분 읽기
- 7 parts
- 오디오 곧 공개
A farmer's daughter raised on romances marries a country doctor and waits for her life to turn into a love story.
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Madame Bovary 한눈에 보기
요약: 읽는 데 8 min 소요
- 읽는 시간
- 약 7 h 40 min6 h 5 min fast, 9 h 5 min slow
- 길이
- 109,300단어15 chapters
- 쪽수
- 321쪽485 in large print
- 도서관 난이도
- 보통 longer sentences, everyday words
- 최초 출간
- 1856by Gustave Flaubert
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 고전을 읽는 데 걸리는 시간 · 업데이트
3개월 무료
Madame Bovary의 전체 요약을 무료로 받아보세요
- 200,000+권의 고전을 전자책, 오디오북, 15분 요약으로 즐기고, 종이책과 큰글자책은 인쇄 비용만으로 만나요
- 요금제 하나로 가족 최대 5명이 함께 읽어요
Madame Bovary in short
Madame Bovary follows one woman's attempt to turn her life into the novels she loves. Emma marries Charles hoping for passion, finds routine, then looks for it in a ball, a landowner and a clerk. Each hope ends in disappointment, while money troubles quietly pile up behind her.
What Madame Bovary is about
A new boy walks into a classroom holding a ridiculous cap, drops it to the class's laughter, and cannot even say his name clearly. That boy is Charles Bovary, and his clumsy start sets the tone for a novel about the gap between what people hope for and what life gives them.
Gustave Flaubert published Madame Bovary in 1857 after about five years of patient work, hunting the exact word and reading his sentences aloud. It follows Emma, a farmer's daughter raised on romances, who marries a kind, dull country doctor and expects ordinary life to turn into a love story. Its frank treatment of adultery brought its author to court, and he was acquitted. You will meet a village full of sharp portraits, and you will watch money rise under the story like water under a floor.
이런 분께 적합해요. You will love this book if you enjoy sharp portraits of ordinary people, stories about marriage and money, or fiction where every object and gesture counts.
The story in 7 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A shy schoolboy grows into a country doctor
The story opens in a school classroom. The new boy, Charles Bovary, stands in a country jacket, clutching a huge cap of fur, velvet, braid and cardboard. When the teacher asks his name, he shouts it so badly that the class hears Charbovari and howls with laughter. He is ordered to conjugate a Latin phrase twenty times.
Flaubert then explains where such a boy comes from. His father is a handsome former army surgeon who spent his wife's dowry and failed at farming. His mother pours all her hopes into her son and dreams of seeing him a lawyer. The father wants him raised tough, while the mother feeds him jam and tells him stories.
Charles is sent to Rouen to study medicine, but he does not understand the lectures. He discovers dominoes and taverns and fails his first examination. On a second try he passes and becomes a small-town doctor at Tostes. His mother then chooses a wife for him, an older, sharp-tongued widow who rules his days and opens his letters. Her fortune is largely an illusion. Charles puts up with it all, because nobody has ever taught him to do otherwise.
He is led by his father, then his mother, then his wife. His kindness is real, but he never asks what he wants himself.
Charles drifts through life because he lets other people steer.
- 2무료로 시작해 읽기
Charles meets Emma at a farm and marries her
One night Charles is called out to the Bertaux farm to set the broken leg of a farmer named Rouault.
- 3무료로 시작해 읽기
Convent novels teach Emma to expect too much
Flaubert goes back to Emma's girlhood.
- 4무료로 시작해 읽기
One night at Vaubyessard makes home feel small
A grateful nobleman, the Marquis d'Andervilliers, invites the Bovarys to his château at Vaubyessard after Charles cures him of an abscess.
- 5무료로 시작해 읽기
Yonville brings new neighbors and a new longing
When Emma falls ill from boredom, Charles moves them to Yonville, a market town where she gives birth to a daughter, Berthe.
- 6무료로 시작해 읽기
Rodolphe seduces Emma during the agricultural show
Rodolphe Boulanger, a landowner with a keen eye for women, brings a farmhand to Charles for bloodletting.
- 7무료로 시작해 읽기
Debts and a second love tighten the trap
Rodolphe sends a note hidden in a basket of apricots, and the escape never happens.
Read all 7 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Emma Bovary A farmer's daughter raised on romantic novels who wants a life of passion and luxury and cannot accept the dull one she has.
- Charles Bovary A gentle, slow country doctor who adores his wife and never understands what she feels.
- Rodolphe Boulanger A wealthy local landowner and practiced seducer who enjoys Emma's attention until she asks too much of him.
- Léon Dupuis A young law clerk with a love of poetry and music who admires Emma from the start.
- Monsieur Homais The Yonville chemist, talkative and proud, who loves science, scorns the Church and longs for a medal.
- Monsieur Lheureux A smiling draper and moneylender who sells Emma luxuries on credit and tightens his hold on her.
- Abbé Bournisien The Yonville priest, good-natured but too busy with his parish routines to hear what Emma is really asking.
- Berthe Bovary The Bovarys' young daughter, whom her mother loves in moods and forgets in others.
How it ends (spoiler)
Ruined by debts and refused help by Léon, the notary and finally Rodolphe, Emma swallows arsenic from the chemist's storeroom and dies in agony after a last visit from the priest. Charles, heartbroken, finds her lovers' letters and dies soon after. Their daughter Berthe is sent to work in a cotton mill. Homais, still ambitious, finally receives the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
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Madame Bovary에 관한 질문
What is Madame Bovary about?
It tells of Emma, a farmer's daughter who marries a country doctor and, bored by small-town life, looks for passion through love affairs and spending, while debts gather around her and her husband stays unaware.
Why was Madame Bovary put on trial?
After it appeared in a magazine, prosecutors charged Flaubert with offending public morals over its treatment of adultery, before its book publication in 1857. He was acquitted, and the trial added to the book's fame.
Who are Charles, Homais and Lheureux?
Charles is Emma's kind, plodding husband and a country doctor. Homais is the town chemist who loves speeches and honors. Lheureux is the draper who sells Emma goods on credit and later lends her money.
Is Madame Bovary based on a true story?
It is fiction set in Normandy, written over several years and published in 1857. Flaubert drew on provincial life and on newspaper stories of his time, but Emma and the town of Yonville are invented.
Is Madame Bovary easy to follow?
Yes, in the sense that matters: the story moves in clear scenes, such as a school, a wedding, a ball and a country fair. Short chapters and vivid details make each episode easy to picture and remember.
이 판본 인용하기
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/madame-bovary.
Flaubert, G. (2026). Madame Bovary. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/madame-bovary (Original work published 1856)
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/madame-bovary.
@book{flaubert2026madame,
author = {Flaubert, Gustave},
title = {Madame Bovary},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/madame-bovary},
note = {First published 1856}
}
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The Picture of Dorian Gray3개월 무료
Madame Bovary의 전체 요약을 무료로 받아보세요
- 200,000+권의 고전을 전자책, 오디오북, 15분 요약으로 즐기고, 종이책과 큰글자책은 인쇄 비용만으로 만나요
- 요금제 하나로 가족 최대 5명이 함께 읽어요
