Chapter 20
Ambition, Gangrene, and Contempt
Chapter Eleven He had recently read a eulogy on a new method for curing club-foot, and as he was a partisan of progress, he conceived the patriotic idea that Yonville, in order to keep to the fore, ought to have some operations for strephopody or club-foot. “For,” said he to Emma, “what risk is there? See--” (and he enumerated on his fingers the advantages of the attempt), “success, almost certain relief and beautifying of the patient, celebrity acquired by the operator. Why, for example, should not your husband relieve poor Hippolyte of the ‘Lion d’Or’? Note that he would not…
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Now let's explore the literary elements.
Key Quotes & Analysis
"Neither Ambrose Pare, applying for the first time since Celsus, after an interval of fifteen centuries, a ligature to an artery, nor Dupuytren, about to open an abscess in the brain, nor Gensoul when he first took away the superior maxilla, had hearts that trembled, hands that shook, minds so strained as Monsieur Bovary when he approached Hippolyte, his tenotome between his fingers."
Context: The club-foot operation
Flaubert names history's giants only to show Charles should not be in their company.
In Today's Words:
The narrator stacks famous surgeons against Charles to expose the gap: the impostor trembles because part of him knows the village applause is not competence. When everyone says you can do it, check whether you are sweating from stakes or from fraud before you cut, and remember that history remembers the masters, not the man who borrowed their names.
"Straighten club-feet! As if one could straighten club-feet!"
Context: Railing at Homais in the shop after seeing gangrene
Canivet's blunt contempt punctures Homais's progress rhetoric and Charles's brief triumph.
In Today's Words:
Canivet mocks the idea that you can straighten club-feet as if bodies were opinions. After catastrophe, the professional who arrives late often sounds cruel because he is naming what the boosters refused to see while the patient still had a leg, and Homais must smile while the celebrity insults the very progress he sold.
"But it was perhaps a valgus!” suddenly exclaimed Bovary, who was meditating."
Context: While Hippolyte screams and Emma listens
Charles retreats into terminology while Emma's contempt hardens into adultery's irony.
In Today's Words:
While the patient screams upstairs, Charles wonders aloud if the foot was a valgus case. That is how some people defend a disaster: rename it, fine-tune the jargon, and miss that someone else in the room has already decided you are beneath pity, listening to screams as proof the marriage was a mistake she will not undo.
"she revelled in all the evil ironies of triumphant adultery."
Context: Emma watching Charles during the amputation crisis
Hippolyte's pain becomes permission for Emma to despise her husband and return to Rodolphe.
In Today's Words:
She savors how Charles's failure seems to justify the affair, turning another man's agony into proof that she was right to want elsewhere. When you need your partner to fail to feel justified, you are not in love; you are in litigation with your own life.
Thematic Threads
Ambition
In This Chapter
Charles performs an operation beyond his skill; Homais writes a triumphant newspaper article before the outcome is known
Development
The chapter enacts the full arc of ambition: persuasion, preparation, brief triumph, catastrophic failure
In Your Life:
Notice when social pressure and optimism combine to push you into territory you are not actually ready for
Contempt
In This Chapter
Emma watches Charles sit helpless and feels not pity but the cold clarity of final disillusionment
Development
Her contempt is not sudden — it is the arrival of something that was always coming; the failed operation simply removes the last obstacle
In Your Life:
Contempt, unlike anger, does not look for resolution — it looks for confirmation
Class
In This Chapter
Canivet, a doctor of fifty with established reputation, dismantles Bovary's pretension with a single look at the leg
Development
Charles's failure exposes the fragility of the provincial doctor's social standing
In Your Life:
Credentials borrowed from institutions are no substitute for judgment earned through experience
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
This is not a test. Five prompts guide you through the chapter, from how it opens to how it closes, so you notice context and rhythm rather than facts to memorize. Sit with each question in your own words. When you see "One way to read it," treat it as a starting point, not the only answer.
- 1
Why does Emma urge Charles into the operation?
analysis • surfaceOne way to read it
She wants reputation solider than love and briefly believes he may be clever.
- 2
How does Homais's Fanal article worsen the tragedy?
analysis • mediumOne way to read it
He celebrates success in print before Hippolyte's gangrene proves otherwise.
- 3
What does Canivet represent in the chapter?
application • mediumOne way to read it
Rough real competence versus book-learned trembling and chemist puffery.
- 4
Why does Emma reject Charles's kiss after the amputation?
reflection • deepOne way to read it
Contempt has replaced pity; Rodolphe already holds her allegiance.
- 5
How does the barometer ending connect to the affair?
analysis • deepOne way to read it
Domestic order shatters inside while she reconciles with Rodolphe outside.
Critical Thinking Exercise
The Consensus Trap
Think of a time when everyone around you agreed you should do something — take a job, make a purchase, start a project — and the outcome was worse than expected. Was the consensus itself part of the problem? What information did collective enthusiasm override?
Consider:
- •Whose interests were served by encouraging you to proceed?
- •What doubts did you suppress because the social pressure was so strong?
- •At what point did you know, privately, that things were going wrong?
Journaling Prompt
Write about the difference between confidence that comes from your own assessment and confidence that is borrowed from other people's expectations.
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 21: The Escape Plan Unfolds
Chapter Twenty-One reignites the affair with daily letters and Justin carrying errands while Lheureux's bills multiply. Emma presses her escape plan even as Rodolphe quietly counts what leaving her would cost his comfort and reputation.
