Madame Bovary 1

1.      Describe Charles Bovary during his early years using 3 adjectives (Chapter 1).  Then, provide at least one example from the chapter to support each of the 3 adjectives.  

            During Charles Bovary's early years he could have been considered submissive, incompetent, and rebellious.  The reader would consider Charles to be submissive because he constantly gave in to his mother's desires for him.  For example, "he began his studies" at the age of twelve because this is what his mother has wanted (1091).  Even after forcing him to start his studies at age twelve, she was still not satisfied.  She later sent him to the "lyćee in Rouen" (1092).  His mother then took him out of the lyćee early so she could send him to study medicine, so he obeyed his mother and did what she wanted.  It is made known to the reader that he did exactly what his mother had wanted him to do when it says that "He filled his notebooks, attended every lecture, never missed hospital rounds" (1093).  Even after he had finished studying medicine, his mother still wanted to be very assertive over his life.  For example, his mother believed that "he had to have a wife," so she made the choice that she would find him one (1094).  Charles' mother was very forceful over his life by making many important decisions for him, such as his education, what he would practice, and even who he would marry; Charles' mother's assertiveness over his life made him become a very submissive person because he was constantly doing things that his mother wanted him to do.

            Throughout Chapter One of Madam Bovary, it is Charles' mother who is constantly making decisions for him which makes him incompetent.  It is made blatantly obvious to the reader that Charles has become almost useless because of his mother's assertiveness over his life when it is said that in his study of medicine "he was like a mill-horse that treads blindfolded in a circle, utterly ignorant of what he is grinding" (1093).  Charles could have made himself more knowledgeable and useful by not being so obedient to his mother and actually studying a field of practice that he truly wanted to.  He also becomes incompetent in the marriage that his mother arranged for him; he is ineffectual in his marriage because it is his wife who wants complete control and who was self-centered (1094).  Once again, Charles probably could have found a marriage in which he could have found himself more competent if he would not have obeyed  his mother's every desire.  By obeying his mother's every command, Charles developed into a person who was incompetent and practically useless.

            Because of Charles' mother being so assertive over his life and due to his lack of competence, it led him to becoming rebellious.  He became rebellious while his mother sent him off to study medicine; after devoting himself to studying things he constantly could not grasp or understand, he soon gave up.  Because of this, "One day he skipped rounds; the next, a lecture; idleness, he found, was to his taste, and gradually he stayed away entirely" (1093).  His rebellious actions soon led to him failing the test that would have given him the title to practice medicine, which was certainly the opposite of what his mother had wanted for him.  Not only did he rebel to his mother's decision of him studying medicine, but he also rebelled to his mother's assertiveness of his marriage.  Charles' mother chose he was to marry and he was very unhappy with his wife; his wife was assertive just like his mother and things had to be done her way.  He rebelled his marriage because "he was forgetting her, he was in love with someone else" (1094).  Charles' rebellious habits could have been anticipated due to his mother's assertive ways that made him incompetent.