Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

Given the narrator's detached point of view, one of the only ways we find out what a character is like is through what they do. For example, Félicité is a machine:

She would rise at dawn, in order not to miss mass, and would work until evening without interruption. Then, once dinner was over, the dishes put away and the door securely shut, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep by the hearth, her rosary in her hand. (1.6)

She's a worker bee, in other words.

Madame Aubain, on the other hand, "would sit all day by the window in a straw armchair" (1.4). Hmm…what's different about these two ladies? Oh, we got it. One works her butt off and the other one sits on her butt all day. Hard-working versus…let's say, leisurely. It's all in the actions.

Social Status

The reason that Félicité works all day and that Madame Aubain sits on a chair all day isn't just their inherent differences of character. Although they are very different personality-wise, one of the main reasons they have such different lives is a result of their different social status. To put it bluntly, Madame Aubain is the bourgeois boss; Félicité is her low-class maid. Plain and simple.

Names

In French, Félicité means happiness (like felicity in English). It would seem ironic given all the tragedies she has to deal with in her life, but she actually is a happy person. She does her best to be optimistic and never gives up when she sets her mind to something, no matter how many setbacks she faces. She even dies happy, with "a smile on her lips" (5.13).

Aubain, meanwhile, means a "resident alien", someone who is legally living in another country. Madame Aubain is not an alien, but she is an outsider; she is used to living with more luxury and status than what she must resign herself to living with after her husband's death. She might feel like an alien in her own home because it is too poor for her.