Why was Madame Bovary banned?

In 1857, the year of publication, Flaubert's
Madame Bovary was banned on grounds of overt sexuality. There was
even a trial. Presiding over the trial, Imperial Advocate Ernest Pinard accuses the
author of sexual corruption arguing that there is, "No gauze for him, no veils--he gives
us nature in all her nudity and crudity."

Underneath the
sexual excuses, the charges likely also stemmed from the depiction of a woman who
expresses her frustration with the traditional roles of women. Flaubert recognized the
stifling and  discontent women suffered in his time. His character Emma, the
protagonist, tries in her desperate way to break free.

To
the patriarchal establishment, Emma is the epitome of the "bad girl." Emma has two
affairs. She is a wretched mother. She wracks up debt. She has big
dreams.

In the beginning of the tale, she is married to
Charles. Charles is a doctor, and makes a decent living. He is a kind but dull man.
Bored out of her mind, Emma has her first fling. One of Charles's patients has hosts a
ball, and Emma becomes enchanted by the world of true wealth. Her desire for passion and
money is what instigates her two affairs.

After the first
failed affair with Léon Dupuis, Emma meets Rodolphe Boulanger, who at least recognizes
Emma's frustration (of her, Boluanger says, "(S)he’s gaping for love like a carp on the
kitchen table for water.”) But for him, the affair is nothing more than a few days of
excitement. Boluanger is more interested in the secret of their affair than anything
else. When rumors begin that they are being found out, he becomes
disenchanted.

For a while, Emma tries to mend her ways. She
shows more interest in her daughter and her life. However, she still longs for more. She
and Boulanger reinvigorate their affair. Her spending gets out of control, so much so
that it threatens to ruin her husband, Charles. Emma convinces Boulanger to run away
with her to Italy. He agrees, but then changes his
mind.

Emma is devastated. She sees no way out and no hope
for the future. She ingests arsenic and dies. Later, Charles finds her love letters to
Boulanger. Rather than blaming Emma, Charles thinks it is fate. Charles dies as well,
presumably of a broken heart.

What is scandalous about all
of this, beyond the details of Emma's breaking of all of society's rules for proper
behavior for women, is the fact that Emma is never sorry for what she has done. She
never asks for forgiveness, she does not regret using her body to achieve her goals.
Even today, some readers feel that Emma is a unlikeable character who "gets what she
deserves" but Flaubert knew that women had little choice other than to use their bodies
as commerce when they had no other way to achieve any measure of freedom. Flaubert once
said that "Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful
ideal." By vulgar he means human, with base wants and needs just like men; they cannot
possibly live up to the "excessively beautiful ideas" about them which patriarchy has
imposed. Emma is more victim than villain.