Madame Bovary

Characters

Character Map

Who is who, and who belongs to whom. Click a name to open the character page.

Emma Bovary Daughter of Rouault, from whose farm Charles Bovary takes her to marry after being widowed, and mother of Berthe Bovary. She is a woman educated by novels, who expects from life what exists only in novels. Chapter 6 of Part I returns to the convent to show... Charles Bovary Country doctor, husband of Emma Bovary and father of Berthe Bovary. He enters the novel as the "new boy," mocked for a cap that the narrator describes with the same attention he later gives to Emma. Rodolphe Boulanger The first lover of Emma Bovary, whom she visits at dawn at La Huchette. He enters the scene bringing Charles a peasant who wants to be bled because he "felt tingling all over his body," and on the way back he decides on the seduction before exchanging a word... Léon Clerk in Yonville when Emma Bovary arrives, later a student in Paris, and her lover in Rouen in Part III. His surname is Dupuis, and in Yonville he is the clerk of the notary Guillaumin. He is drawn to Rodolphe Boulanger because the two speak to Emma the... Homais The pharmacist of Yonville, neighbor of the Bovarys, already summoned once before the king's prosecutor in Rouen for illegally practicing medicine, who writes articles for the Fanal de Rouen. His pharmacy, opposite the Golden Lion inn, and not the church, is... Lheureux The fabric merchant who sells on credit to Emma Bovary and collects the debt that leads her to seizure. He is the character who decides the outcome, and he never discusses morals. He is presented as helpful and patient. Abbé Bournisien The priest of Yonville. He enters Chapter 1 of Part II in the kitchen of the Golden Lion inn only to ask the innkeeper to send him to the rectory the umbrella he left at the Ernemont convent, declines the drink offered, and leaves without lingering; as soon... Berthe Bovary The daughter of Emma Bovary and Charles Bovary. She appears in few scenes: the birth and baptism in Chapter 3 of Part II, the mother's push in Chapter 6 of Part II, Emma's agony in Chapter 8 of Part III, and the father's death and her final fate in Chapter 11... Hippolyte Hippolyte Tautain, stable boy at the Golden Lion inn in Yonville, the man with the club foot operated on by Charles Bovary in Chapter 11 of Part II. Guillaumin The notary of Yonville, employer of Léon, who is a clerk in his office, and the man from whom Emma Bovary asks money after the seizure, in Chapter 7 of Part III. The text describes him always absorbed in his work, with gold-rimmed spectacles and red...

Other characters

Madame Bovary Senior: Charles's mother. She dreams of an illustrious position for her son, sets him up as a doctor in Tostes, and chooses his first wife; later she considers Emma idle and, when a bill signed by Emma arrives at the house, extracts from Charles a promise to annul the power of attorney, and burns it (Part I, ch. 1, Part III, ch. 5).
Héloïse Dubuc: an older, unattractive widow, chosen by Charles's mother for the income attributed to her; she becomes his first wife and begins to direct his decisions. Jealous of Emma, she makes Charles swear he will not return to Bertaux; when the announced fortune proves a lie, she falls ill and dies (Part I, ch. 2).
Father Rouault: the widowed farmer of Bertaux and Emma's father. He calls Charles to set his leg, notices the doctor's blush before his daughter, and agrees with him on a signal: he will open the shutter of the window if the answer to the proposal is yes. Alarmed by a vague letter from Homais, which does not say whether Emma is dead, he gallops to Yonville and, after the burial, leaves without wanting to see his granddaughter (Part I, ch. 3, Part III, ch. 10).
Djali: an Italian greyhound that a game warden cured by Charles gives Emma in Tostes. She is the companion of Emma's solitary walks, is called to her lap and told that she, unlike her mistress, has no sorrows; later she runs off across the fields and delays the stagecoach that carries the Bovarys to Yonville (Part I, ch. 7, Part II, ch. 1).
Marquis d'Andervilliers: the nobleman who owns the castle of La Vaubyessard, a former secretary of state preparing a run for deputy. Charles relieves an abscess in his mouth, and the Marquis, after asking the doctor for cherry saplings and noticing Emma, invites the couple to the ball (Part I, ch. 7, Part I, ch. 8).
The Viscount: the waltz partner at the La Vaubyessard ball, whom the others so call, who invites Emma twice and has her waltz with her head resting on his chest. Emma attributes to him the cigar case found on the road and remembers him as the face of the world she saw, although she only thinks she sees him, on the road back and, much later, in a tilbury passing through Rouen (Part I, ch. 8, Part III, ch. 7).
Félicité: the Bovarys' maid, who accompanies the family on the trip to Yonville. She surprises Emma crying and is told it is nerves; during the inventory of the goods, Emma has her watch Charles; she helps dress the mistress's body and, after her death, runs off with Théodore carrying the wardrobe (Part II, ch. 5, Part III, ch. 7, Part III, ch. 9, Part III, ch. 11).
Lestiboudois: the sexton and gravedigger of Yonville, who also tends gardens and plants potatoes on the empty ground of the cemetery, for which the priest tells him he eats at the expense of the dead. On the night of Emma's burial, it is he who catches Justin jumping the wall to weep on the grave (Part II, ch. 1, Part III, ch. 10).
Widow Lefrançois: owner of the Golden Lion inn in Yonville, where Homais argues with her about billiards and religion on the eve of the Bovarys' arrival. On the day of the show she tells Homais that Lheureux will take the rival Tellier to seizure, and afterwards she helps dress Emma's body for the burial (Part II, ch. 1, Part II, ch. 8, Part III, ch. 9).
Binet: the treasurer of Yonville, whose firemen parade at the show, and who takes his seat in the parlor of the Golden Lion every day at six sharp; at home he has a lathe, on which he amuses himself turning napkin rings. He hunts ducks hidden in a barrel, which frightens Emma, and in Part III he recoils in horror when she begs him for help (Part II, ch. 1, Part II, ch. 10, Part III, ch. 7).
Justin: Homais's apprentice, who faints at the sight of blood from a peasant's bloodletting, worships Emma and hands her the key to the storeroom where she finds the arsenic. After the burial, he weeps over her grave (Part II, ch. 7, Part III, ch. 8, Part III, ch. 10).
Irma, Napoléon and Athalie: three of Homais's four children; the fourth is Franklin. He named them after great men and famous works: Napoléon for glory, Franklin for liberty, Irma as a concession to romanticism, and Athalie as an homage to the most immortal masterpiece of the French theater. They appear on walks and at their father's pharmacy (Part II, ch. 3, Part II, ch. 5).
Aunt Rolet: the carpenter's wife and Berthe's wet nurse, who lives at the far end of the village and asks Emma for coffee, soap, and brandy. In Part III her house serves as the address for Léon's letters, and she begins lunching every day at the Bovarys' house (Part II, ch. 3, Part III, ch. 3, Part III, ch. 4).
Lieuvain: a councillor sent in place of the department's civil governor, who gives the speech at the Yonville agricultural show praising the king, agriculture, and duty, while Rodolphe courts Emma in the upper room (Part II, ch. 8).
Catherine Leroux: an old farm servant, awarded at the agricultural show a silver medal of twenty-five francs for fifty-four years of service on the same farm. She climbs the platform without understanding what is happening and says she will give the medal to the priest, so that he will have Masses said for her (Part II, ch. 8).
Canivet: a doctor from Neufchâtel, called on three grave occasions. He amputates Hippolyte's gangrenous leg after the club-foot operation, is consulted about Emma's illness after Rodolphe abandons her, and in her agony prescribes an emetic before Larivière declares that nothing can be done (Part II, ch. 11, Part II, ch. 13, Part III, ch. 8).
Larivière: a famous professor and doctor of Rouen, Charles's former teacher, whom Charles calls when Emma falls ill after Rodolphe abandons her, and again at her deathbed. The second time he arrives in a post-chaise, sees Emma, says there is nothing to be done, and goes to lunch at Homais's house (Part II, ch. 13, Part III, ch. 8).
Lagardy: a famous tenor, contracted for England, who performs in Rouen in the opera Lucie de Lammermoor. Homais suggests that Charles take Emma to hear him, and in the audience she imagines living a love with him, although he does not even know she exists (Part II, ch. 14, Part II, ch. 15).
The Blind Man: a beggar with destroyed eyelids who follows the Rouen stagecoach singing a song about heat and love. Homais promises him an ointment, Emma throws him five francs, and he passes singing in the street at the very moment of her death; Homais later defeats him with a newspaper campaign (Part III, ch. 7, Part III, ch. 8, Part III, ch. 11).
Vinçart: a Rouen banker and friend of Lheureux, who discounts the four bills of one thousand francs signed by Emma and keeps two hundred francs in commission and discount, so that Lheureux brings only one thousand eight hundred francs instead of two thousand. Later a collector of his presents a bill for seven hundred francs, which the bailiff Hareng protests the next day, and he and Lheureux resume collection against Charles (Part III, ch. 5, Part III, ch. 6, Part III, ch. 11).
Hareng: a bailiff of Buchy. He protests one of Emma's bills and, the day after the summons, goes to the Bovarys' house with two witnesses to make the inventory of the goods, which exposes her private life to the eyes of three men (Part III, ch. 6, Part III, ch. 7).