The Sins of the Father

If I had to summarize the drive of the story, it would be by saying something similar to what is found in Exodus 34:7 "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." Although I don't believe that sin is passed down generation to generation, I do believe that children tend to repeat things they see their parents' do and the repercusions of those decisions do affect the children, possibly for generations.
For instance, poverty, in many instances, continues through family lines because there is no education in how to change this. When an individual is "saved" from following the same spending patterns as the parents and gains more education and skills to move away from that situation, that child breaks the poverty pattern in their own family and moves forward improving the future of generations.
In like manner, there is a larger propensity for children born out of wedlock and to a single mother to make the same choices and give birth to their own children without a father in the home.
For Flaubert, his novel preaches the same idea: once a sin invades, the perpetuation of that sin tends to have a huge impact on the family and progeny. The choices the senior Mr. Bovary makes unknowingly ends up influencing his son as well as the son's second wife. The decisions the second wife makes influences her husband. All of these decisions affect the future of the innocent Berthe.
I understand all of these and the honesty of a novel of Realism. However, I wanted something more, some individual to look to as a true hero/heroine and there was none...they all have such devastating faults that there is no one to romanticize...which is probably Flaubert's point.
This definitely does not fall under a "pleasure" read, although it is largely about pleasure. However, it definitely brings up interesting things to ponder and makes for good discussion material. I can't say that it was a favorite book for me to read, but the more I think about it and ponder it, the better it becomes in my own eyes.