Madame Bovary I

                During his early years, Charles Bovary is presented in Chapter I as a obedient, submissive, and shy individual. Throughout chapter 1, Charles listened to his mother and did everything she told him to. He started out in the lower school at 15, and then his mother, “took him out of the lycee entirely and sent him to study medicine, confident that he could get his baccalaureate degree anyway” (1092). He did what his mother told him to do, he left school and studied medicine. I think Charles thought it would be easier to just obey his mother and do what she wanted him to do. Charles’ obedience and his mother’s domineering attitude made him a very submissive person in his marriage.  On page 1094 Flaubert describes Charles’ first wife’s control over him by saying, “…it was his wife who ruled: in front of company he had to say certain things and not others, he had to eat fish on Friday, dress the way she wanted, obey her when she ordered him to dun nonpaying patients.” Charles is being controlled in his first marriage just like his mother planned his life out for him. Because of his obedience to his mother, Charles didn’t know anything different and became a submissive lover in relationships. Finally, another characteristic is Charles Bovary’s shyness. When Charles enters the classroom and his classmates are laughing at him and he is unable to speak up and even tell the teacher his name shows his shyness (1089). On page 1091 it explains that Charles really never had to lift a finger as a child he was, “pampered like a prince.” Charles never really had to ask for anything or do anything for himself, his mother and father did everything for him. Charles Bovary’s obedience, submissiveness, and shyness were all common during his early years because of his mother’s controlling qualities.