Who wants to talk about Madame Bovary?

Plot things: What do you think madame Bovary said to Binet (the tax collector) to make him so angry & not show up to her funeral? It seems it's suggested that she offered to be his mistress for money, but why would she do that instead of going back to the notary and accepting his offer? Another option is that she asked him to commit a crime, like how she asked Leon to steal from his employer.

What do we think about the symbolism of the blind man? His vivid imagery stood out to me. The image of him chasing after the carriage at her first return from Rouen, her tossing her last coin to him, the chemist's remarks that beggars (the poor) should be locked up, mirroring madame Bovary's unrevealed financial position, and finally, the blind man being the last thing she sees and comments on at her death. Madame Bovary mirrors him. She too is blind (metaphorically speaking), obscene, and mad, but she is outwardly beautiful and others do not see it. Is this the grand flaw of it all? That others see her beauty and not her soul?

And do we think the chemist's failed attempts at healing the crippled man & the blind man has religious significance? Yet, when Madame Bovary goes to the pastor, he ignores her. The church did not save her.

Other questions: Why was Madame Bovary so unhappy? I agree with someone else who mentioned she is the female don Quixote, the romance novels getting to her head. But what caused her to be so entitled, so self absorbed? She was a farmers daughter. Seems that her father was pretty neglectful of her upbringing too, sending her off to a convent, so she doesn't seem to have been spoiled. She has this intense entitlement and selfishness from the start, and I'm not sure where that came from, why she thinks the world owes her riches and luxuries. Being from humble origins and raised in a convent.

What WOULD have made her happy? She needed a sense of purpose in life, but she gave up on any sense of purpose she could have had (her child, her community, charity, skill, knowledge). Is Flaubert making a statement against the ennui of the newly emergent bourgeois woman? Would Madame Bovary had been happy in different times, with an occupation at hand?

Or, is it because Madame Bovary is mentally ill, beyond deep seated depression. After all, she is incapable of making any logical decisions. After the affair went south with Rudolphe (the rich guy), I think any regular person would have come to see the error of their ways, feel gratitude towards their spouse, etc. Yet Madame Bovary takes no lessons from this. But, if Madame Bovary hadn't ruined herself, hadn't had the affairs, would her life continue as it did in Tostes (their first home)? Perpetual ennui & depression to no end? Would she have committed suicide either way?