A Change of Heart: Analysis of Major Characters
"A Change of Heart: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the complex emotional landscape of Léon Delmont, a successful director of a typewriter company grappling with dissatisfaction in his personal life. At forty-five, Léon is on a journey to redefine his future by leaving his wife, Henriette, for his Italian mistress, Cécile. However, as he travels to Rome, Léon experiences a series of dreams and reflections that prompt him to question his desires and the nature of his relationships. Henriette, his critical and resentful wife, shares a tumultuous history with Léon, which adds layers to their marital strife.
The narrative introduces their children, including their eldest, Madeleine, who is acutely aware of the family's dysfunction. Cécile, who embodies youthful vitality and shares Léon’s intellectual pursuits, becomes a focal point of his internal conflict as he realizes that their relationship may not fulfill his fantasies. The story is enriched by a cast of characters aboard the train, including archetypes that reflect themes of dissatisfaction and the search for meaning—ranging from a discontented priest to young honeymooners. Overall, the analysis highlights the intricate dynamics of love, disappointment, and the struggle for personal identity amidst the expectations of family and society.
A Change of Heart: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Michel Butor
First published: La Modification, 1957 (English translation, 1959)
Genre: Novel
Locale: A train traveling between Paris and Rome
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: 1955 or 1956
Léon Delmont (lay-AHN dehl-MOHN), the director of the Paris office of the Scabelli typewriter company. He is successful and well off, but at forty-five years of age, his hair is getting thin and gray. He is a smoker and wears tan shoes and a luminous watch with a purple leather watchband. He is intellectual and anticlerical (he reads Letters of Julian the Apostate on the train) and has strong views about what is good and bad art. He is concerned about his family's material welfare, but his relationship with his wife has gone sour, and he yearns for a new life on a new footing—in Paris, but with his Italian mistress, Cécile. He is on a train to Rome to tell Cécile that he has found her a job in Paris and is leaving his wife for her. During the train journey, however, he has dreams, nightmares, and reminiscences. Shortly after noticing a sign saying “It is dangerous to lean out,” he has a dream in which, for the first time, he has a negative image of Cécile, who wears a look of mistrust similar to that so often worn by his wife, Henriette. This thought creates his first doubts and sets in motion his eventual change of heart. He realizes that Cécile, once in Paris, would be different, more like Henriette. the similarity had become apparent during a brief trip to Paris, when she had seemed to share Henriette's contempt for him. If she comes to Paris, he realizes, he will lose her. He decides against following through on his plan.
Henriette Delmont, his wife and the mother of their four children. Her hair, like his, is no longer black. She despises him for letting his professional contacts degrade him, and he perceives her as contemptuous, critical, and petty. Almost three years earlier, she insisted on going with him to Rome, but it was winter and the trip was a failure, possibly making him more open to the affair with Cécile that developed subsequently. She has become suspicious and resentful.
Madeleine Delmont, their eldest child, age seventeen.
Henri Delmont and Thomas Delmont, their sons, about twelve years old. They are rascals, distrustful of him and aware that their parents' relationship has deteriorated.
Jacqueline Delmont, their youngest child.
Cécile Darcella (say-SEEL darh-seh-LAH), Léon's mistress, a secretary to an attaché at the French Embassy in Rome. She has jet-black hair and wonderful skin with a smooth, silken glow. She shares Léon's anticlericalism and his love for art. To him, she seems like youth preserved; she finds him too bourgeois, anxious, and fettered. She went with him to Paris once, but the trip was a failure: She complained continually of how little she saw him.
Alexandre Marnal (a-lehk-SAHNDR mahr-NAHL), an employee of Léon.
Jean Durieu (dyuh-REEYOO), the director of the Durieu Travel Agency, who has promised a job for Cécile in Paris.
The Intellectual, possibly a law professor. He is tallish, pale, and not over forty. He has gray hair and nails that are bitten and tobacco-stained, and he wears thick-lensed glasses and a wedding ring. His forehead is prematurely baldish, with three deep furrows. He looks timid. He may be going to give a lecture at Dijon. He carries a dark red, ink-stained briefcase.
The Young Marrieds, probably honeymooners. They are perhaps in their twenties. He is fair and she is darker, gracious, and considerate, even apologetic. They eat at the first sitting, as Léon does. They carry large, twin suitcases made of fine pale leather. On their way to Syracuse, they embody the theme of marriage that preoccupies Léon.
The Priest, a man of about thirty or thirty-five, already plumpish, with nicotine-stained fingers, though he is otherwise meticulously clean. He is calm but vigorous, even impulsive. He looks bored, discontented, tense, and dissatisfied. He may be contemplating abandoning his present life, as Léon is. He is associated with the sign “It is dangerous to lean out.”
The Englishman, a short, very clean man with a rosy, even florid complexion and small, greedy, fishlike eyes. He may be slightly older than Léon, because he is even more bald. He wears a black raincoat and a derby hat. He is possibly the agent for a London wine merchant.
The Traveling Salesman, a man with a coarse profile and huge hands. He appears to be very strong and wears a wedding ring. His suitcase is made of cheap, reddish-brown, imitation leather.
The Italian, a man of about forty-five who wears a wedding ring, a cobalt-blue scarf, and pointed black-and-white shoes splashed with mud. He carries a traveling bag and is perhaps a salesman representing French products in Italy, the reverse of Léon, for whom he represents an alter ego.
The Worried Little Woman, who has a lined face and is wearing a hat trimmed with a net and big hatpins. She is accompanied by a ten-year-old boy who reminds Léon of his son Thomas when younger.