Gigi: Analysis of Major Characters
"Gigi" is a narrative that explores the lives of its major characters within a society that values the role of courtesans. The central character, Gigi, is a fifteen-year-old girl being groomed by her grandmother, Madame Inez Alvarez, and her great-aunt, Aunt Alicia, to become a successful courtesan. Gigi is portrayed as charming and independent, possessing a desire for genuine love rather than a transactional relationship with wealth. Madame Inez is a guiding figure who imparts lessons on decorum, while Aunt Alicia, a former courtesan, focuses on cultivating Gigi's taste and elegance. The wealthy Gaston Lachaille, initially perceiving Gigi as a child, becomes intrigued by her as he seeks a new mistress after a recent breakup. As the story unfolds, Gigi's refusal of Gaston's offer complicates their relationship, showcasing her determination to break free from societal expectations. Together, these characters navigate themes of love, ambition, and the constraints of their social environment, ultimately reflecting on the nature of relationships in a world that often prioritizes materialism over emotional fulfillment.
Gigi: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Colette
First published: 1944 (English translation, 1952)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Paris, France
Plot: Social satire
Time: 1899
Gilberte (zheel-BEHRT), known as Gigi (zhee-ZHEE), a charming fifteen-year-old girl who is being educated by her great-aunt and her grandmother to become a successful courtesan. Gigi has the legs and feet of a ballet dancer: heronlike legs, with high-arched insteps, perfect oval-shaped kneecaps, and slender calves. Her eyes are dark blue, and her hair of ash-blonde ringlets has magnificent fullness. She looks like Robin Hood, a carved angel, or a boy in skirts; she least resembles a nearly grown girl. She dresses in typical French schoolgirl fashion, wearing a serge coat and blue sailor hat. Her nature is both gentle and independent. She is playful and irreverent, traits that charm Gaston, the thirty-three-year-old millionaire who at first sees her as an enchanting child and who later decides that he wants her as his mistress. She, however, has her own ideas about what she wants to do with her life. She does not want to be a typical courtesan who will please a man for a while and be discarded for the next woman, nor does she want to become the dull wife of a boring clerk. She wants to marry the kind of man who will love her forever and treat her in the lavish, glamorous way a man is expected to treat only his mistress, never his wife.
Madame Inez Alvarez (ee-NEHS AHL-vah-rehs), Gigi's grandmother, who is in charge of rearing her. She took the name of a Spanish lover, now dead, and calls herself Inez. She has a heavy Spanish face and resembles the nineteenth century writer George Sand. She has a creamy complexion, an ample bust, hair lustrous with brilliantine, and too-white face powder on her heavy cheeks. She teaches Gigi decorum. Madame Alvarez once had an affair with Gaston's father and thinks that Gaston would be the perfect first wealthy admirer for her granddaughter. She creates the perfect ambience for Gaston's visits; offering good conversation and chamomile tea, she demands nothing in return.
Andrée (ahn-DRAY), Gigi's mother, the second lead singer in the state-controlled theater. She lives with her mother, Inez Alvarez, and Gigi. Her life is a sober one of work and very little amusement. Madame Alvarez makes it very clear that Gigi is not to turn out like Andrée; she must profit from the example of her mother's bad judgment and unfortunate marriage and prepare herself well for the life of a courtesan who will be kept in grand style by wealthy admirers.
Aunt Alicia, Gigi's maternal great-aunt, a former courtesan who helps her sister, Madame Alvarez, in Gigi's education. She is seventy years old and still quite beautiful, combining robust health with a pretense of delicacy. She has fastidious taste and teaches Gigi how to eat daintily and to cultivate discriminating taste in jewelry, knowing which stones are appropriate to accept as gifts and which stones should be refused. Her philosophy of life is that she, her sister, and her niece are not ordinary women; they do not marry and should not marry. She agrees with her sister that Gigi should agree to become Gaston's mistress.
Gaston Lachaille (gahs-TOHN lah-SHI), a handsome millionaire, heir to the Lachaille sugar fortune. Gaston is a thirty-three-year-old, self-indulgent dandy with a long nose and dark eyes who carries massive gold or silver cigarette cases, wears a dark sable-lined topcoat, and drives a pretentious Dion-Bouton motorcar. He is, in a word, “smart.” He has just been jilted by his mistress and is looking for a replacement. He spends much time at the flat that Gigi shares with her mother and grandmother. Madame Alvarez consoles him and flatters him. At first, he sees Gigi as a charming child, one whom he spoils with gifts. The plot of the novel turns on the change in his perception of Gigi, when he recognizes in her a potential mistress and makes an arrangement with her grandmother to that effect. When Gigi refuses his offer, her attitude angers him, confuses him, and, finally, wins his heart.