Foil

Character Role Analysis

Mademoiselle & Lenski

In one corner, the Swiss nanny Mademoiselle. Loves: French, romantic novels, and sitting in the shade. Hates: being ignored.

In the other, the angry Russian student Lenski. Loves: radical politics, Mother Russia, the People. Hates: outside influences, putting on airs, spoiled children.

Mademoiselle revels in feeling like one of the family, and bases her self-worth on where she sits, whether she can hear the conversation, and whether she can understand it (meaning it's in French, not Russian, of which she knows almost none.) Lenski believes that she represents much of what is wrong with the Nabokovs are raising their children, and taunts and ignores Mademoiselle until she leaves in a sad huff. In the end, Mother Russia wins out...until it doesn't.