This content is from Wikipedia. GradeSaver is providing this content as a courtesy until we can offer a professionally written study guide by one of our staff editors. We do not consider this content professional or citable. Please use your discretion when relying on it.

Characters in Sentimental Education

The characters of Sentimental Education are marked by capriciousness and self-interest. Frederic, the main character, is originally infatuated with Madame Arnoux, but throughout the novel falls in and out of love with her. Furthermore, he is unable to decide on a profession and instead lives on his uncle's inheritance. Other characters, such as Mr. Arnoux, are as capricious with business as Frederic is with love. Without their materialism and "instinctive worship of power", almost the entire cast would be completely rootless. Such was Flaubert's judgment of his times, and the continuing applicability of that cynicism goes a long way in explaining the novel's enduring appeal.

Sequence of appearances

• Frédéric Moreau, the "hero", a young man from provincial France, who ends up a member of the middle class.
• Jacques Arnoux, publisher, porcelain manufacturer; also a speculator and a womanizer, dead by the end of the novel.
• Mme [Marie] Arnoux, his wife, mother of two children, who moves to Rome by the end of the novel.
• Marthe Arnoux, their daughter
• M. Roque, land-owner and M. Dambreuse's unsavoury agent; father of Louise Roque.
• Louise Roque, his red-headed daughter, a country-girl; has a crush on Frederic, marries Deslauriers, leaves him for a singer.
• Charles Deslauriers, law student, close friend of Frederic, a lawyer by the end of the novel.
• M. Dambreuse, banker, aristocratic politician, timeserver, financier. Dead in the third part of the novel.
• Mme Dambreuse, his much-younger, very determined, exquisite wife, with whom Frederic has an affair; she marries an Englishman by the end of the novel.
• Baptiste Martinon, law student, a rich farmer's son, a reasonably hard-working careerist ends up a senator by the end of the novel.
• Marquis de Cisy, nobleman and law student, a dapper youth, father of eight by the end of the novel.
• Sénécal, math teacher and uncompromising, puritanical, dogmatic Republican; supposedly dead by the end of the novel.
• Dussardier, shop worker, an idealistic Republican; dies at the end of the novel by Sénécal's hand.
• Hussonet, journalist, drama critic, clown, ends up controlling all the theatres and the whole press.
• Regimbart, "The Citizen", a boozy revolutionary chauvinist; becomes a ghost of a man.
• Pellerin, painter with more theories than talent; becomes a photographer.
• Mlle Vatnaz, actress, courtesan, frustrated feminist with literary pretensions; vanishes by the end of the novel.
• Dittmer, frequent guest of Arnoux
• Delmas or Delmar, actor, singer, showman (may also be the singer introduced in Chapter 1)
• M. and Mme Oudry, guests of the Arnoux
• Catherine, housekeeper for M. Roque
• Eléonore, mother of Louise Roque
• Uncle Barthélemy, wealthy uncle of Frédéric
• Eugène Arnoux, son of the Arnoux
• Rosanette Bron, "The Marshal", courtesan, later the wife and widow of M. Oudry; adopts a little boy
• Clémence, Deslauriers' mistress
• Marquis Aulnays, Cisy's godfather; M. de Forchambeaux, his friend, Baron de Comaing, another friend; M. Vezou, his tutor
• Cécile, M. Dambreuse's "niece", actually illegitimate daughter
• Another "character": Mme Arnoux's Renaissance silver casket, first noted at her house, then at Rosanette's, finally bought at auction by Mme Dambreuse