Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary

by

Gustave Flaubert

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Emma and Charles’s daughter, a sweet, affectionate toddler. Emma generally ignores her or treats her cruelly, though the little girl obviously wants her attention very badly. Charles adores her, plays with her, and tries to teach her to read. After her parents die, she ends up living with a poor relation and working in a mill.
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Berthe Bovary Character Timeline in Madame Bovary

The timeline below shows where the character Berthe Bovary appears in Madame Bovary. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2, Chapter 3
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
Love and Desire Theme Icon
However, Emma gives birth to a girl. After long deliberation she names her Berthe, after some aristocratic young woman at the Vaubyessard ball. After a rowdy christening party, she... (full context)
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
The Sublime and the Mundane Theme Icon
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom Theme Icon
...and the nurse appears with a very sickly child at her side. Emma picks up Berthe from a cradle on the floor, and just as Léon is admiring her incongruous delicate... (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 5
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
Love and Desire Theme Icon
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom Theme Icon
...From that moment on, Emma really does put all her energies into homemaking. She takes Berthe from the wet nurse, and displays the child to all her visitors like a mother... (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 6
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
Love and Desire Theme Icon
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom Theme Icon
When Emma comes home, Berthe tries to play with her, but Emma pushes her away so meanly that the little... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 6
Love and Desire Theme Icon
Charles tries to teach Berthe to read, and plays with her when she misses her mother. Emma ignores her child... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 11
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom Theme Icon
...the house, but he tries to behave and dress as Emma had wanted him to. Berthe becomes very ragged, but Charles loves watching her and playing with her. (full context)
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
Love and Desire Theme Icon
...of himself; he no longer sees patients and rarely leaves the house. Sometimes he takes Berthe to Emma’s grave. (full context)
Abstraction, Fantasy, and Experience Theme Icon
Causes, Appearances, and Boredom Theme Icon
Truth, Rhetoric, and Hypocrisy Theme Icon
Not long afterwards, Berthe finds Charles dead in the garden. Berthe is sent, penniless, to her grandmother. Soon the... (full context)