Madame Bovary
Flaubert's story of the quest for fulfillment in love is an enduring classic. By marrying a local doctor, Emma Bovary feels that she will escape her provincial upbringing. But it is not long before she feels constrained and frustrated by married life, ignoring her devoted husband and daughter and immersing herself in romantic thoughts which lead, inevitably, to affairs.
- 1975-1975
- 1 season
- Masterpiece Theatre
- Drama
- TV-14
Flaubert's story of the quest for fulfillment in love is an enduring classic. By marrying a local doctor, Emma Bovary feels that she will escape her provincial upbringing. But it is not long before she feels constrained and frustrated by married life, ignoring her devoted husband and daughter and immersing herself in romantic thoughts which lead, inevitably, to affairs.
Season 1 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 1975
Episode 1
Marriage
Sun, Oct 10, 1976 75 mins
Emma Rouault, expelled from convent school, yearns to experience romance. When her widowed father breaks his leg, the handsome Dr Charles Bovary is called to attend. Emma's dreams come true and soon they marry. But the discovery that married life will not bring a continuing supply of new romantic stimulation comes hard to Emma. She cannot help herself as her affections begin to wander.
Episode 2
First Love
Sun, Oct 17, 1976 50 mins
A new start in Yonville coincides with the discovery that Emma is pregnant and the introduction of Leon, a handsome and passionate young law student who quickly becomes Emma's close companion and confidant.
Episode 3
Lost Love
Sun, Oct 24, 1976 51 mins
Initially, Emma is able to continue a double life of extreme contrasts stolen time spent with her lover, Rodolphe, writing to him or dreaming about him is the counterpoint to domesticity. Charles' love for Emma makes him oblivious to her faults and his pride obliges him to indulge her naïveté in purchasing clothes and trappings that are beyond their means. The Draper, M. Lheureux, supplier of these luxuries, increases his profits by luring customers into his web of usury. As Emma's spending expands into expensive presents for her lover, the debts to Lheureux mount. M. Homais, the local pharmacist, suggests to Emma that an opportunity for fame and fortune in the medical field awaits her husband, were he to be persuaded to pioneer an operation on the club-foot of the local ostler.
Episode 4
Judgement
Sun, Oct 31, 1976 53 mins
Emma sinks deeper into the spiral of deceit and, in order to finance presents and trysts in Rouen, deeper into debt with Lheureux. When, on the death of his uncle, Charles is left property, Emma conspires with Lheureux to obtain power of attorney over the estate. Despite fierce opposition from her mother-in-law, she achieves this and continues to fund the illicit meetings with Leon. But, as the debts mount, the love affair dwindles. Lheureux sells on the debt to another moneylender who gives Emma only two days to find enough money to keep him at bay. Recklessly she pawns her daughter's rattle for a night of wild revelry with Leon at the Rouen Carnival. She asks Leon to steal from his employer to pay her debts - he refuses her. In a desperate state Emma visits Lheureux's familiar the lawyer who drew up the power of attorney his answer is to offer her money for her body, which she refuses.
