The Maids

“Avoid pawing me. You smell like an animal. You’ve brought those odors from some foul attic, where the lackeys visit us at night.”

Claire is speaking as Madame, but she slips with her pronouns and switches to first person, showing how the lines between identities are blurry. Claire also demonstrates that part of the filth that burdens the maids is caused by men who feel entitled to come to their rooms and use their bodies.

“The fall of your dress. I’m arranging your fall from grace.” 

At this early point in the play, Solange’s statement sounds cryptically poetic, particularly since it isn’t yet clear that they are both maids playing roles as part of a ritual. Ultimately, Solange is concisely articulating the goals of the ceremony. The sisters are spreading their perceived filth by touching and wearing Madame’s dresses and orchestrating acts to pull Madame down to their level and into death.

“Claire, it’s a burden, it’s terribly painful to be a mistress, to contain all the springs of hatred, to be the dunghill on which you grow. You want to see me naked every day. I am beautiful, am I not? And the desperation of my love makes me even more so, but you have no idea what strength I need!” 

On one level, Claire is playing Madame’s vapid lack of awareness of the relative ease of her privileged life as compared to the hard, thankless lives of her maids. But Claire is also speaking as herself, explaining how difficult it is to repeatedly play Madame. She must both contain her hatred for Madame and feel that hatred directed at herself. Claire is vulnerable as Madame, and unlike Claire, Madame is allowed to feel love. Claire looks in Madame’s mirror and sees herself as beautiful, but as a maid, she feels that she is too dirty to be beautiful.

“Madame thought she was protected by her barricade of flowers, saved by some special destiny, by a sacrifice. But she reckoned without a maid’s rebellion.” 

As Claire, Solange describes Madame’s false sense of security. Madame is well-loved, as evidenced by the room full of flowers. She has become comfortable and believes that her maids adore and revere her as much as those in her social class. She has no clue that they are plotting violence.

“Well, what’s the matter with you? You can be like me now. Be yourself again. Come on, Claire, be my sister again.” 

After the ritual ends, Solange tries to bring Claire back to herself because Claire is still pulled to her reflection in the mirror. Claire dreams of becoming more than a maid, but Solange wants to pull Claire back to her level. Solange’s goal is to bring Madame down and keep Claire from rising up.

“I liked the garret because it was plain and I didn’t have to put on a show. No hangings to push aside, no rugs to shake, no furniture to caress—with my eyes or with a rag, no mirrors, no balcony. Nothing forced us to make pretty gestures. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to go on playing queen, playing at Marie Antoinette, strolling about the apartment at night.”

Solange acknowledges that as live-in maids, the house they live in is not their home. They must always perform, not just cleaning but doing so in a way that is pleasing to watch and upholds social graces. The only space that is theirs is their small room, which they both alternately despise for its poverty and love as their only real home. Claire has been leaving their space to perform more meaningless gestures of decorum, and Solange criticizes her for enjoying it.

“She loves us the way she loves her armchair. Not even that much! Like her bidet, rather. Like her pink enamel toilet-seat. And we can’t love one another. Filth…doesn’t love filth.” 

When Claire claims that Madame loves them, Solange brings their unlovability back to the idea of dirt and filth. Madame appreciates them as a convenience and as part of the household, but not as something as clean as a piece of furniture. Solange compares the maids to receptacles for Madame to dispose of her own filth, asserting that they are too contaminated to love or be loved at all.

“It’s easy to be kind, and smiling, and sweet—ah! that sweetness of hers!—when you’re beautiful and rich. But what if you’re only a maid? The best you can do is give yourself airs while you’re doing the cleaning or washing up. You twirl a feather duster like a fan. You make fancy gestures with the dishcloth. Or like you, you treat yourself to historical parades in Madame’s apartment.”

Solange dismisses Madame’s kindness as meaningless because the world has only been kind to Madame. She is loved, accepted, and happy because she is rich, beautiful, and elegant. Being magnanimous and giving sweetness back is part of her role and persona, regardless of the contempt they are sure she feels underneath. For the maids, their hands are busy, and minor games of pretend will never make dusting or cleaning look truly elegant.

“Her grief is sparkling with the glint of her jewels, with the satin of her gowns, in the glow of the chandelier! Claire, I wanted to make up for the poverty of my grief by the splendor of my crime. Afterward, I’d have set fire to the lot.” 

Although Claire tried to destroy Madame by sending Monsieur to jail, Solange points out that Madame’s grief makes her even more beautiful and beloved, as she receives flowers and attention. But Solange also feels grief, and no one cares or makes special dispensations. Solange’s grief doesn’t make her more beautiful. She is enraged by the poverty of her grief as compared to the richness of Madame’s, and she wants to feel significant by committing a massive and stunning crime. Then she could cleanse everything with a magnificent fire.

“I want to help you. I want to comfort you, but I know I disgust you. I’m repulsive to you. And I know it because you disgust me. When slaves love one another, it’s not love.”

Solange continually claims that she cannot truly love Claire and that Claire cannot love her because they are both full of filth and less than human. But Solange demonstrates over and over that she does love Claire. She protects her, even in ways that are sometimes misguided or harmful. Solange sees herself reflected in Claire, and it makes her feel ashamed to be a maid.

“And me, I’m sick of seeing my image thrown back at me by a mirror, like a bad smell. You’re my bad smell. Well, I’m ready. Ready to bite. I’ll have my crown and I shall stroll about the apartment.” 

While Solange sees herself reflected in Claire and feels that her inhumanity and revulsion of herself is affirmed, Claire sees her reflection in Solange as a reminder of what is keeping her back. When Claire looks at her reflection in Madame’s mirror, she sees herself as beautiful rather than disgusting. Solange wants to destroy Madame and make her feel disgrace, but Claire wants to destroy her and take her place.

“Really? Why, please? For what other reason? Where and when could we find a better excuse? Ah, so it’s not enough to be raped by a milkman who goes blithely through our garrets? Tonight Madame will witness our shame. Bursting with laughter, laughing until the tears roll down her face, with her flabby sighs. No. I shall have my crown. I shall be the poisoner that you failed to be. It’s my turn now to dominate you!” 

This scene demonstrates how the sisters’ stances and personality traits flow back and forth between them. Solange has stated that Claire’s desire to become Madame is not a good reason to kill her, which contrasts sharply with her earlier desire to kill Madame and burn down the house. At the beginning of the play, as Madame, Claire romanticized their relationship with the milkman as a sordid love triangle, while Solange described the milkman as a man who simply made disgusting comments. Here Claire is the one who describes the milkman as a rapist and scoffs at Madame, relishing the idea of her pain. When one sister picks up one side of an argument, the other always takes up the opposing side.

“We shall be that eternal couple, Solange, the two of us, the eternal couple of the criminal and the saint. We’ll be saved, Solange, saved, I swear to you.” 

Claire believes that there is a chance for the sisters to escape. They are like two halves of the same conflicted person, unable to reconcile and become whole. Whereas Solange took the role of the criminal earlier, now Claire is plotting murder, and Solange becomes the saint. Claire insists that their duality could come together if they could only destroy Madame. As in Hegel’s master/slave dialectical, they recognize themselves as slaves because they see themselves through recognition of Madame as a master. Without Madame, they can be free.

“Sing, the way you’ll sing when you go begging in the courts and embassies! Laugh! […] Otherwise, it’ll be so tragic that we’ll go flying out the window. Shut the window. […] Murder is a thing that’s…unspeakable.” 

Claire has been forcefully insisting to Solange that murdering Madame is both necessary and right. With exhaustion, Solange has reluctantly given in to the idea, and Claire expresses her understanding of the gravity of the crime. As maids, the two women have internalized the belief that their lives are inconsequential. But taking a life is still a serious matter, something Solange points out later by refusing to bring God or religion into their final ceremony. So Claire orders Solange to perform lightness and mirth, to laugh so they aren’t overcome with the magnitude of what they are planning.

“I wish she’d hurry. I’m ashamed to ask for tea when Monsieur is all alone, without a thing, without food, without cigarettes.”

With Monsieur’s arrest, Madame seems to recognize for the first time what it means to suffer poverty. Although the maids live similarly barren lives, Madame doesn’t see; she doesn’t feel embarrassment at her privilege in contrast to their destitution. Madame’s wish that Claire would bring the tea more quickly, inconveniencing Claire more instead of forgoing it altogether, shows that she doesn’t truly understand her own privilege.

“No, no, don’t thank me. It’s such a pleasure to make people happy.”

Madame gives the maids each a piece of her lavish wardrobe, imagining that she wishes to live a life of austerity to show her devotion to Monsieur. But her idea of creating her own poverty is a romantic fantasy. She tells the maids not to thank her, not seeming to notice that neither of them have actually said the words, even after Solange urges Claire to thank Madame for the dress. Madame imagines that she has made Claire and Solange happy, not comprehending the complexity of their unhappiness. Rather, Madame’s show of generosity and kindness simply makes herself feel good.

“It’s true I’m something of a stranger in the kitchen. You’re at home there. It’s your domain. You’re its sovereigns. But, I wonder why you brought it in here?” 

Madame notices the alarm clock used in the ceremony, and Claire tells her that it came from the kitchen. Madame is skeptical but accepts this explanation. She speaks as if the kitchen is a proper home, a worthy sphere for domination where the maids can feel powerful and important. But from the very beginning of the play, Claire and Solange have been disgusted by the kitchen, as they are by all the rooms that belong to servants. The kitchen is a place to work, not a home. Madame’s question, while seemingly polite, mirrors Claire-as-Madame’s ire-filled question at the beginning of the play as to why the rubber gloves were in the bedroom since they are disgusting and belong in the kitchen.

“Their housekeeping is the most extraordinary combination of luxury and filth.” 

Upon learning that Monsieur has been released from jail, Madame quickly reverts to her self-centered personality and role as the mistress of the house. Noticing that the dressing table has not been dusted, she insults the maids’ work without realizing the fittingness of her statement. The expected role of the maid is to maintain appropriate decorum and humility while invisibly removing the filth created by the masters, as if it never existed. But Claire and Solange are spreading filth. They partake in luxury as they pretend to be Madame, and they don’t clean properly or erase the signs of their ritual.

“You are a bright girl, Claire. You know, Claire, I’ve always thought you had a great deal of taste and that you were meant for better things.”

The women define themselves by the way they see themselves reflected in each other. When Claire sees herself in Solange, she sees herself as irrevocably dirty and lesser. But Madame suggests that Claire could have better things. Therefore, while Solange sees herself reflected as a filthy servant when she looks at Madame, Claire sees herself as a servant who could achieve more. When Claire dresses as Madame and looks in Madame’s mirror, she feels beautiful and special.

“Didn’t you see how she sparkled? How disgustingly happy she was? Her joy feeds on our shame. Her carnation is the red of our shame. Her dress… […] It’s the red of our shame. Her furs… Ah! She took back her furs! And you just stand there! You don’t scream. Are you dead?” 

After Madame leaves, Solange takes on the dominant, aggressive role, so Claire assumes the opposite, becoming even more passive and resigned in response to Solange’s increased fury. Since the sisters’ identities as maids are created by Madame’s identity as mistress and vice versa, when Madame’s privilege increases, so too does the shame and degradation of her maids. The higher Madame rises, the lower her maids fall.

“I said the insults! Let them come, let them unfurl, let them drown me, for, as you well know, I loathe servants. A vile and odious breed, I loathe them. They’re not of the human race. Servants ooze. They’re a foul effluvium drifting through our rooms and hallways, seeping into us, entering our mouths, corrupting us. I vomit you!” 

In the final ceremony, as Claire assumes the role of Madame, the audience can now compare her interpretation of their mistress with the Madame who appeared onstage. At first, Madame seems to be much better than her maids’ approximation of her. She tries to be kind, and she certainly never voices the abusive insults that Claire and Solange speak in her place. She even insists that she is deliriously happy with their cleaning after Claire overhears her complaints. But despite the sweetness and charm with which Madame coats her words, she subtly demonstrates that she doesn’t think of her maids as humans. She takes back the fur she gave to Solange as if she never gave it in the first place. She dismisses them and demands that they work faster at her whims. She sometimes mixes them up. Claire and Solange have internalized this treatment and learned to see themselves and each other as vile and inhuman.

“Stop yelling! No one can hear you! We’re both beyond the pale. […] Everyone’s listening, but no one will hear.” 

Throughout the play, as Claire and Solange take turns raising their voices in passionate rage, they also take turns begging each other to be quiet lest they’re heard. But when Claire sees that her life is in danger and screams for help, Solange reminds her that they are insignificant. While someone might care if they overhear the maids planning to hurt Madame, their own pain and lives don’t matter to others.

“Who am I? The monstrous soul of servantdome! …No, Inspector, I’ll explain nothing in their presence. That’s our business. It would be a fine thing if masters could pierce the shadows where servants live… That, my child, is our darkness, ours.” 

In her long monologue Solange imagines conversations with people who aren’t there, including the police. Solange’s motives for wanting to murder Madame (and her sister) are extremely complex and psychologically driven. But to the upper class and those who are horrified by her actions, Solange is simply a monster who has proven their belief that servants are not really human. Solange refuses to discuss the very human fear and anger that led to her actions because although masters should see the darkness they create in their servants, these dark places are the only private spaces the servants can call their own.