Roxane Coss

Character Analysis

Roxane the Performer

Roxane Coss is a fictional opera superstar, and that means she's pretty much the person all of Bel Canto revolves around. On top of that, her character carries all the symbolic weight of opera in the book, which is pretty hefty. Opera is the bigsymbol of the book (check out our "Why Should I Care?" and "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory" sections for why). In short, it's the primary way Ann Patchett explores her main theme, which is that art both describes and transforms human experience.

That's some heavy symbolic weight-lifting there. Fortunately, Roxane Coss is up to the job. She's a lively, compelling character who balances all that symbolic weight gracefully while being intriguing as a person in her own right.

Part of that intrigue is that she's a performer. Which means that when she's in front of an audience, she may be a tad different from when she's offstage. Curious? Let's move right along.

Roxane Onstage

Roxane is a Center Stage Personality (but not a Center Stage personality, alas). She's not a nice one, though. Roxane is what they like to call a diva, a word that's sometimes applied to current pop stars or people who are kind of demanding, but has non-insulting roots in opera. A diva is basically someone who's fantastically talented, and who knows that talent usually lands them center stage. They have a stage presence and an awareness of their talent that they just can't shake.

Sure, there are mean and conceited divas—think Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera, or Regina George in Mean Girls. That's the type that hogs the stage and selfishly ignores others. But there are also what we might call Glinda-the-Good divas (in the original Wizard of Oz way, not the more complicated Wicked sort of way). They're all sparkle and shine, and they kind of catch everyone's eye whether they try to or not. But they're also gracious, and they're eager to help somebody else out, the way Glinda's happy to help Dorothy.

We know Roxane is the nice kind of diva because she goes out of her way to be kind to people. Like when she comes over to tell Mr. Hosokawa that the takeover is not his fault near the beginning (3.123-152). When she discovers Cesar's awesome singing voice, she's proud to train him in opera and to show off his talents as well as her own.

So her kindness is a little showy, like an orchid instead of a daisy, but it's genuine too. A good example is when everyone cheers Cesar on with huge enthusiasm, and then the crowd also demands that Roxane sing (10.107-114). Roxane is proud of her student and glad they're celebrating him, but she also enjoys showing off her own talents when they ask. She knows how to share the stage, and she also knows how to enjoy the audience's attention.

How does that diva talent affect the novel as a whole? It gives Roxane the power to negotiate for herself and for other people with the terrorists. Plus, she uses that power to make everything better through art. We see this when she dramatically asserts herself (and maybe puts herself in danger) to make sure the body of the accompanist is treated well after he accidentally dies from diabetes complications.

Roxane is a hostage herself, and theoretically the terrorists have all the power, and she has none. But her sheer force of personality and performance talent, and to a lesser degree the fame she has won through it, lets her change the terrorists' minds. Think of the awesome short speech she gives in that situation, and the way she gets the attention of everybody, hostages and terrorists alike. She also gets what she asks for (see 3.81-93 for the whole story).

Roxane uses those show-stopping skills again to get a box of sheet music allowed into the house, and that shifts the balance of power. When the Generals are threatening to send the box back, she launches into an impromptu performance of "O Mio Babbino Caro." (BTW, "O Mio Babbino Caro" is the perfect song for this situation; see "Allusions" for why.) Then she does a bit of benevolent musical blackmail:

Roxane took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. "Tell him," she said to Gen, "that's it. Either he gives me that box right now or you will not hear another note out of me or that piano for the duration of this failed social experiment." (5.188)

Boom.

Again, she gets what she wants. And what she wants shifts the entire power dynamic in the house: first it was all about terrorism, but now it is about art. The narrator tells us that the hostage crisis divides into two halves. Before the box of music, the Generals were in charge. After, Roxane Coss takes the reins (6.1-3).

Roxane's diva gifts are a nice set of talents to have, and her use of them underlines one of the biggest themes of Bel Canto: the fact that art can change your life for the better, even in situations that look pretty hopeless.

Roxane Offstage

Patchett could give us just an amazing performer in the character of Roxane Coss, but she also goes out of her way to show us that Roxane has a personality behind the scenes, too. She befriends Carmen (6.3), falls in love with Mr. Hosokawa, and becomes Cesar's music teacher (285.129-132). In those relationships, we see her as more than just a great performer.

Roxane's friendships offstage show us something about the larger world of the novel, too. The relationships she forms show us how a whole small society is coming together in the house—and, tragically, how impossible it will be for that small society to endure once it inevitably has to reunite with the outside world.

Sad, but true: all those significant relationships Roxane forms are doomed. At least the narrator goes out of the way to tell us what's coming. With Carmen and Cesar, we readers know how things will end, since the narrator told us in the very first chapter that the terrorists would not survive (1.32). That just makes it all the more tragic when they die, and Roxane's connection to them is one thing that helps us feel the emotional weight of the situation.

It's a little more complex with Mr. Hosokawa: there's a reasonable chance he might survive the book, and we're never told he's not going to make it until that abrupt ending where we find out that he and Carmen died at the same moment. It's heavy stuff. Theoretically, Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane could have had some sort of life together, though it would have meant uprooting everything Mr. Hosokawa already had in the outside world: his marriage, his family, possibly even his CEO career.

But the narrator reminds us that, even though Mr. Hosokawa would have been willing to give all that up for Roxane, everything in the real world was bound to be different from dream world he and Roxane inhabit when they discover each other in the hostage crisis. Mr. Hosokawa thinks about all this in the book. Like in this quote:

As much as Mr. Hosokawa was overwhelmed by love, he could never completely shake what he knew to be the truth: that every night they were together could be seen as a miracle for a hundred different reasons, not the least of which was that at some point these days would end, would be ended for them. He tried not to give himself over to fantasies: he would get a divorce; he would follow her from city to city, sitting in the front row of every opera house in the world. Happily, he would have done this, given up everything for her. But he understood that these were extraordinary times, and if their old life was ever restored to them, nothing would be the same. (10.7)

It may be that Roxane and Mr. Hosokawa's love, as much as they deeply feel it, just won't make sense in the everyday world. Bel Canto recognizes that what seems doable when you're living in a dream just may not be the same once reality hits.

It's a little like opera itself: when you're listening to great performers sing and watching the dazzling costumes and special effects, maybe you can believe in implausible situations where unlikely romances and magical occurrences happen. But when you try to explain the plot to a friend who's never been to the opera, it can sound pretty lame.

That's why, onstage or off, Roxane's character helps the readers inhabit the world of Bel Canto, and helps is see why it can't last. But art can, and the transformative power of art is one of the biggest things the surviving hostages actually take away from their time in the house. Gen recognizes this when he says near the end of the book:

"When I hear Roxane sing I am still able to think well of the world," Gen said. "This is a world in which someone could have written such music, a world in which she can still sing that music with so much compassion. That's proof of something, isn't it? I don't think I would last a day without that now." (Epilogue.28)

Deep, huh?

That's what Roxane does to people, and that's why she's so important to this book as a whole. Think of her as the Beyoncé of opera. This diva does center stage like it's nobody's business.