Les Belles Soeurs

“I work. I slave. I kill myself for a pack of morons.”

Germaine and the first five women to arrive at the party (Gabrielle, Rose, Yvette, Lisette, and Marie-Ange) perform a semi-poetic lament about the drudgery of their lives. They speak in unison like a Greek chorus, with individual interjections. They say this line as one while describing the endless daily chores that they are expected to do. They resent their husbands and their kids for taking their labor for granted.

“I talk the way I talk. And I say what I’ve got to say. Anyway, I never went to Europe, so I can’t afford to talk like you.”

When Lisette takes offense at Marie-Ange cursing, Marie-Ange refuses to change the way she speaks and makes a point that is central to the play. Joual is a working-class dialect and serves as a counterpoint to the formal speech of the educated. Lisette has a tendency to adopt the affect of the upper class because she has had some experiences that are typically reserved for the wealthy, such as traveling to Europe. Like the rest of the women in the play, Marie-Ange refuses to put on such airs for the theater-going crowd, insisting on the legitimization of working-class experiences and speech.

“The little bastard! As if one pig in the family wasn’t enough. He’s just like his old man. Can’t even watch a girl on TV without getting a… Without getting all worked up. Goddamn sex! They never get enough. They’re all the same in that family, they…”

Rose finds out that her son has been seen kissing the daughter of an Italian immigrant family, and she becomes incensed. While Rose’s general tone is a joking irreverence and biting humor that often crosses into cruelty, she is legitimately upset at this information, which she takes as confirmation that her son is as hungry for sex as his father. She admits in a monologue that she is exhausted by her husband and hates his constant demands for sex, from which she receives no pleasure and which result in endless pregnancies.

“Mme. Longpré, be sure to tell your daughter that I wish her all the best. We weren’t invited to the wedding, you know, but we wish her well all the same.”

When Germaine finally joins her own party, Yvette is talking excitedly about her daughter’s honeymoon, a trip to the Canary Islands that Yvette’s son-in-law won. She seems to be getting vicarious enjoyment from her daughter’s good fortune. Germaine immediately establishes her dominance by making the subject of the wedding too awkward to discuss, making a backhanded remark about being left off the guest list and demanding that everyone’s attention refocus on her. 

“What else could we do? We had to take her out. She’s such a burden, ladies. Do you know she’s ninety-three years old? It’s like having a baby in the house. She’s gotta be dressed, undressed, washed…”

Thérèse, who is Germaine’s sister-in-law, shoulders the obligation of caring for her mother-in-law, Olivine. The work is clearly exhausting, and with her husband’s approval, she has resorted to openly abusing Olivine in order to keep her in line. The fact that a single pay raise for Thérèse’s husband meant that Olivine lost her benefits is an indictment of the healthcare system, which Canada did not socialize until 1968.

“Well, that’s life. We all have our crosses to bear.”

Thérèse uses her mother-in-law to solicit admiration and praise from the women for her devotion and martyrdom. Since they are all Catholic, the notion of bearing crosses has special significance. She is both demurring and comparing herself to Jesus in her sacrifice.

“Kids are so ungrateful! Kids are so ungrateful!”

After Linda slips out without telling Germaine, the women express their anger and disappointment in how their children act as they become adults. They see their children’s growing independence as ingratitude for the work of raising them, which was thankless labor for these women.

“Every story has a funny side, you know. Even the sad ones.”

The women laugh at Rose’s jokes and her tendency to speak without filtering her thoughts. When Rose gives this reply, she has yet to reveal just how sad and miserable she is in her life. Thérèse counters that Rose is lucky because not everyone’s problems can be humorous. However, Rose demonstrates in a later monologue that she is deeply angry and unhappy; her humor is a defense mechanism rather than a reflection of humor in her life. Nevertheless, the view she expresses here captures the ethos of the play itself, which is a comic depiction of the plight of working-class women.

“If you only knew! Now that my husband’s making some money, the family thinks we’re millionaires. Why only yesterday my sister-in-law’s cousin came to the house with her hand out. Well, you know me. When she told me her story, I just felt awful. So I let her have some old clothes I didn’t need anymore…Ah, she was so happy…And she was crying…She even tried to kiss my hands.”

Thérèse tells this story to solicit admiration from the women and to disguise her boasts about her husband’s raise under a thin veil of false humility: By acting as if the extra money is a burden, she can brag without being called out. The women give her the praise she desires, but her story isn’t as admirable as she pretends. Giving the cousin old clothes that she no longer wears is a meager sacrifice rather than a magnanimous act of charity. It certainly doesn’t warrant the near deification that Thérèse claims her cousin offered.

“Well, I always say, ‘If God has placed poor people on this earth, they gotta be encouraged.’”

Thérèse says this as a way to subtly suggest that she is no longer one of the poor. The irony of this statement is that all of the incentives that the women in the play continuously pursue are methods of “encouraging” the poor to keep working instead of resisting their condition. The stamps, the contests, the competitions between them for stature and dominance, and the promise of heaven are all “encouragements” to continue participating in capitalism because there is always a chance at a reward.

“Do I look like someone who’s ever won anything?”

As the women talk about the contests they enter, Yvette asks each of them if they’ve ever won. Gabrielle is the first to give this reply, and they each repeat it (except for Lisette, who asks if she looks like someone who needs to win contests). This rhetorical question emphasizes the significance of appearances in the play, revealing how much the women value winnings that only offer superficial improvements or additions to their lives. They are pursuing the capitalist desire to consume conspicuously.

“I know it’s your fault. And I’ve told Linda a hundred times not to run around with tramps. But you think she gives a damn? Sometimes I’d like to strangle her!”

Germaine and the other women are frequently harsh when they speak to their children. As tough, unsentimental women, they seem to be invested in turning their daughters into tough, unsentimental women. Based on Linda’s interactions with Germaine, she seems to be learning to give back what Germaine gives, but the consequence is that Linda hates her mother and leaves her alone with her grief at the play’s end.

“We don’t belong with these people. Once you’ve tasted life on an ocean liner and you have to come back to this, well…It’s enough to make you weep.”

Lisette, unlike the other women, has experienced a taste of finer things. She has real fur and has traveled to Europe. However, she is still poor; her experiences merely make her more aware of what she is missing. She uses these experiences to bolster her status with the women, but they don’t take her particularly seriously because they see her as a woman who is no different from them. The fact that Lisette, like all the other women, puts on airs simply underscores the similarity. Lisette also believes that the women are beneath her, which would make their respect a pyrrhic victory at best.

“Léopold was right about these people. These people are cheap. We shouldn’t be with them. We shouldn’t talk about them…They don’t know how to live! We broke away from this and we must never go back. Dear God, they make me so ashamed!”

Lisette reveals that her husband feels the same superiority to the working class that she does. Now that she knows what real fur looks like, Lisette feels like she should be above synthetic fur. The desperation of this statement, part of a monologue to the audience, suggests that Rose’s accusation may be correct and that Lisette and her husband have only been able to go on vacations and buy furs by going into debt.

“Go ahead and call ’em. We need a few men up here.”

Rose occasionally makes bawdy jokes, framing herself as a sexual woman who fantasizes about men’s advances. However, she also speaks bitterly about the young people, including her son, who indulge their libidos and have premarital sex—particularly the young women who get pregnant. In actuality, Rose finds her sex life unpleasant and oppressive, hating the twice-daily sexual demands of her husband and resenting men for their sex drives.

“Making a fool of me in front of everyone! My own daughter…I’m so ashamed!” 

Germaine, like the other women, is highly concerned with appearances. When Linda defies her openly, her reaction is dramatic. She plays the victim to draw attention and sympathy rather than derision. However, her antics don’t really land, and she doesn’t get the indulgence that she seeks. This is typical, as the women are all too experienced emotional manipulators to fall for the same tactics in others.

“You’re out of breath? Don’t worry, my sister will take care of that. She’s getting an elevator with her stamps.” 

Rose mocks Germaine for her increasingly unrealistic statements about what she will buy with her stamps. Germaine has not offered to share any stamps with the women who are working to help her. Instead, she commented that she might buy a lawn mower even though she doesn’t have a lawn, offering to lend it to Rose, who is currently using scissors to manicure her grass.

“We’re never too old to sin.”

Angéline tells Rhéauna that she is terrified to die without having the chance to confess her sins first. Rhéauna, who is religious and morally rigid and assumes that Angeline is as well, brushes this off. The two women are in their fifties, but unbeknownst to Rhéauna, Angéline has found the first happiness of her life by drinking in a nightclub.

“She’s too old! She isn’t worth bugger all!”

Over the course of the play, Rose becomes increasingly irritated with Olivine’s presence, highlighting societal ideas of what constitutes a person’s worth or value in their world. Because Olivine requires care and can’t do anything for herself, Rose sees her as a worthless nuisance. Based on Rose’s contentious relationship with her own children and grandchildren (including her own daughter-in-law) Rose may also fear finding herself helpless and dependent on their care, disturbed at the idea of relying on people whom she doesn’t respect.

“If hell is anything like the club I work at, I wouldn’t mind an eternity there!”

Most of the women in the older generation have formulated an idea of nightclubs as centers of debauchery and sin. They are so terrified of the prospect of losing respectability and going to hell that they see Pierrette as a demonic figure. Pierrette laughs at this, and she, along with the younger generation and Angéline, assert that there is nothing frightening about the club. It’s just a place where people have a good time.

“I don’t do anyone any harm and I buy myself two hours of pleasure every week.”

Angéline speaks to the audience about why she goes to the club. Like the other women’s lives, hers has been endless suffering and misery. Going to Pierrette’s club became an escape. The people there have been kind to her, showing her something that is presumably similar to Pierrette’s genuine care rather than the petty competitiveness that the group of women offers. Angéline tells Rhéauna and the audience that she was able to laugh at the club for the first time in her life. However, Angéline ultimately gives her visits up because she decides that Rhéauna is worth more than Pierrette. She opts for a return to misery because she can’t unlearn the way society assigns value to women.

“That’s just it! I’ve made a mistake and I want to correct it. After this, I can make a fresh start. You understand, don’t you Pierrette?”

Linda is cold to Lise when she learns about her decision to get an abortion. She demonstrates that she has internalized many of her mother’s lessons about respectability and Catholic morality. Nevertheless, Lise is desperate for a way out of her situation and decides to follow in Pierrette’s freer footsteps.

“It’s not a question of stealing, Mlle. Bibeau. She got them for nothing and there’s a million of ’em. A million!” 

As Thérèse encourages Rhéauna to join them in stealing stamps, she shows how the women can’t wrap their minds around the idea of the riches of a million stamps. The number seems infinite; they don’t believe that they’ll get caught or that the stamps will ever run out, so taking the stamps doesn’t feel like stealing to Thérèse. The truth is that a million diminishes quickly, especially when 10 people are stealing at once.