Irony v naturalism in Madame Bovary

The (near) conclusion of Flaubert's Madame Bovary is I'm sure often discussed as an example of irony: a few instances thereof: beautiful and sensuous woman dies as her body essentially disintegrates around her because of ingestion of arsenic; husband whom she never really loved dissolves in tears at her deathbed and thereafter, completely unaware, or so it seems, of her many betrayals; the two men who sit in watch over her dead body - Homais, the pharmacist, and the local priest - are the two who most conspicuously either ignored her need for help (Homais) or literally turned his back on her (priest) - and they talk through the night, arguing religion versus humanism, and finally agree that despite their differences they can be friends. In each of these instances, and there are others, there is a sense of irony - we know more about the situation than any of the characters do; we, in our olympian judgment, can note how "ironic" it is that those who loved her least pretend to miss her most, or those who were most betrayed show the only true emotion, etc. But I would say irony is a very petty way to look at the conclusion of this novel - it's not about our being elevated above the character, nor is it about our discovery of these unusual juxtapositions and conjunctions, so easy to spot and enumerate. The conclusion, with its conflicting emotions, is the essence of Flaubert's naturalism; he gives us the sense of the world as a reflection in a mirror - his famous phrase - so that the vision of characters and emotions is copious but unmediated. He doesn't "tell" us anything about the characters, but we learn about them through the details that he presents - in other words, we are not given access to their consciousness any more than we are given access to consciousness of those whom we live among. We simply see, observe, hear them - and from the physical images and behaviors that Flaubert conveys we piece together a picture of the world. Irony requires a narrative separation - we are sitting apart from the characters and judging them - whereas naturalism puts us, in a sense, among them, as a silent observer, but not a prophet or a seer. Irony can be a cheap trick; naturalism is much more difficult for the author, and presents I think a dynamic view of character and setting - irony freezes the opposites in place and stops us cold, whereas naturalism keeps the emotions alive and we feel that the life of the characters and of their world will go on beyond the boundaries of the novel, forever changing. Irony is the end of the story, but naturalism the beginning only.