Lycee is the French term for secondary school in France. It through me off as to what it was when I first read it. I took the liberty of looking into it so you all wouldn't have to. It is the school that prepares its students for Baccalaureat.
Okay, so here it is! The grand entrance of:
Charles Bovary
In the middle of a lesson in a lycee, Charles is introduced to the class. The first thing we notice is that he is unaccustomed to academia and from his physical characteristics we assume that he is poor.
We are abruptly made aware of the cruel environment that both Charles and the rest of the characters are living in.
In today's standards, teachers are adults who tend to like being around children. They stand for fairness and acceptance. This is not so for the professor at this particular Lycee. Charles is humiliated by the professor in front of the class and the students, rather than respond sheepishly embarrassed for Charles or with a resenting solidarity toward the teacher like we hoped they would, they continue to taunt Charles, reminding us adults of the unrelenting cruelty of children.
Charles' family life is then described. Unfortunately, his father, though handsome, is a scheming, lazy, greedy man who married for money which he squandered. Not a specialist in anything, he found a way to make a living off renting properties and then let his wife worry about all the other details.
Charles's mother, "Once sprightly, all outgoing and affectionate, with age she had grown touchy, nagging and nervous, like stale wine turning to vinegar" (Flaubert, 7). Years of living with a cheating and useless man ruined Madam Bovary Senior. Because of this, with the arrival of Charles as a child, she was able to convey her unrealized dreams onto him. "In the isolation of her life she transferred onto her baby all her poor frustrated ambitions. She dreamed of glamorous careers: she saw him tall, handsome, witty, successful - a bridge builder or a judge" (Flaubert, 8). This enthusiasm for her child's future isn't a new feature for mothers, but its seldom that the children fully live up to their parent's self-imposed, vicarious aspirations so I'm waiting for either a major, inevitable let-down and scenes of disappointment OR for the mother delude herself into only looking at the good in her son and never seeing the bad.
Despite these high-hopes that Mme. Bovary Sr. has, Charles doesn't start school until the age of 12 with a local priest and only when the priest felt like giving lessons. He didn't start formal education until entering the lycee where he was a marked student for being so incredibly unmarked. Charles did not stand out in his class in any way. He was in no way considered bright "By working hard he managed to stay about in the middle of the class" (Flaubert, 10). He was neither precocious nor a complete idiot. Even so, his parents pulled him from the lycee early and sent him to study medicine completely unprepared intellectually and academically.
Despite these high-hopes that Mme. Bovary Sr. has, Charles doesn't start school until the age of 12 with a local priest and only when the priest felt like giving lessons. He didn't start formal education until entering the lycee where he was a marked student for being so incredibly unmarked. Charles did not stand out in his class in any way. He was in no way considered bright "By working hard he managed to stay about in the middle of the class" (Flaubert, 10). He was neither precocious nor a complete idiot. Even so, his parents pulled him from the lycee early and sent him to study medicine completely unprepared intellectually and academically.
In medical school we see how Charles flounders. He attends all lectures and labs, and really tries his best, but he swims through a mass of information, "Like a mill-horse that treads blindfolded in a circle, utterly ignorant of what he is grinding" (Flaubert, 11). He does this until he reaches a point of self-discovery and free will. He takes one day off from class and realizes the beauty of relaxation, and makes a nasty habit of playing hookey. He obviously fails his first examinations, then runs to his mother with his tail between his legs. He is given the opportunity to re-study and re-take the exams of which he passes with relief.
From here he moves to the city of Tostes (just south of Rouen) where he sets up practice and marries an ugly, over-bearing but rich, 45 year old woman in an arrangement set up by his mother.
We end the chapter with Charles married to a very unreasonable, needy and draining wife.
It's just an inkling, but I'm assuming that this first wife isn't the protagonist from which the novel is named after. Some ill fate must befall Wife #1 so that our heroine can take the stage.
From here he moves to the city of Tostes (just south of Rouen) where he sets up practice and marries an ugly, over-bearing but rich, 45 year old woman in an arrangement set up by his mother.
We end the chapter with Charles married to a very unreasonable, needy and draining wife.
It's just an inkling, but I'm assuming that this first wife isn't the protagonist from which the novel is named after. Some ill fate must befall Wife #1 so that our heroine can take the stage.
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