The New Boy's Humiliation — Madame Bovary

The novel opens with classmates telling the story as "we." Charles Bovary arrives as the new boy. He is a tall country kid in the wrong clothes. He wears a strange new cap that makes the whole room stare. When the teacher calls on him, the cap falls off. Boys knock it down again. Charles tries to say his name but stammers. The class hears "Charbovari" and laughs even harder. The teacher punishes Charles for the noise, even though he did not start it. Charles stays quiet and takes the shame.

Then the story goes back to Charles's childhood. His father was a failed soldier who married for money, wasted it, failed at farming, and sat around complaining. His mother once adored her husband, but his drinking and affairs turned her bitter and practical. She poured all her hopes into Charles, made excuses when he failed, and never let him face consequences. Charles studied in a careless way, drifted to pubs and dominoes, failed his first medical exam, and his mother blamed the examiners. He crammed, passed on the second try, and became a doctor in Tostes.

His mother found him a wife, a forty-five-year-old widow with a steady income. Charles thought marriage would give him freedom. Instead his wife told him what to say, what to wear, and which patients to chase for money. She read his letters and listened through the wall when women came to his office. Charles ends the chapter as he began it: quiet, average, and letting other people control his life.