Foil

Character Role Analysis

M. Loisel to Mathilde

Mathilde and her husband are two fundamentally different people. Mathilde's miserable and bored in her middle-class life, and always wants grander things. She also doesn't seem to give a darn about her husband. M. Loisel, on the other hand, is quite happy with his simple life, and cares for Mathilde, as far as we can tell. He could not be less uninterested in the kind of glamorous life Mathilde lusts for. At the ball, Mathilde's in heaven and is having the time of her life. Her husband, however, is in a corner somewhere, sleeping.