Some thoughts on the ending of Madame Bovary

A few things surprised me as I finished reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary, mostly because, thought I've read the novel a few times over the course of my life, I have completely forgotten the last chapter except for the last line, which is something like: He has recently been awarded the medal of the Legion of Honor. Stupid me - in my memory I thought Charles Bovary was awarded the medal, some kind of triumph over his life of fecklessness and adversity. But now I know that it's the obsequious Homais, the pharmacist so content with his own small-town well-being, so self-important with the stupid little articles he submits to the local newspaper, who's elected to the Legion - the crowning achievement of his life no doubt. Bovary, sadly, dies broken-hearted just before the very end of the novel - which essentially answers another question. I'd wondered, in an earlier post, just exactly how much Bovary knew about the misbehavior and estrangement of his wife; I speculated - and I'm not entirely giving up on this - that he must have known what was going on, Emma's subterfuges were far to clumsy, even reckless - as if she wanted to get caught (which would have maybe ended the marriage and set her free?). But it seems, at least, from the last chapter that he completely believe in Emma's fidelity - until by chance he discovers a cache of letters from Rodolphe. And then he falls apart - but not before meeting Rodolph for perhaps the world's most awkward dinner, at the end of which Bovary obliquely say she blames Rodolphe for nothing. He (Bovary) is a completely defeated man - he realizes his life has been a lie, his wife has been a liar, and he's a big-L loser, not changed much from the awkward misfit boy we meet in the first chapter. He can do nothing to help his daughter, Berthe, who will languish in poverty and servitude, apparently - the one constant in his life was his love for Emma, and now he knows that her love for him was an act, hollow. How sad, how pathetic. I posted recently about the "irony" in Madame Bovary, and, as I've learned from Lydia Davis's fine intro that I'm still reading, Flaubert himself talked about the ironic ending of the novel - but he also said that he wanted his readers both to laugh and cry. This is a little bit of what I was trying to get at in my fashion - the novel feigns irony, but in fact Flaubert has a much deeper, more profound understanding of human nature: irony sets us apart from the characters and lets us laugh at them, whereas truly great naturalism allows us to see their foibles and peculiarities (ironic, perhaps) but also allows us to feel sorrow and pity - not setting us apart from the characters in an ironic manner but joining us with them and even identifying with them - the novel reflects reality, and we are part of that image.