Les Belles Soeurs

“You won’t catch me winning something like that. Not in a million years. I live in shit and that’s where I’ll be till the day I die.”

Marie-Ange is the first attendee to arrive at Germaine’s apartment, and she expresses her anger at Germaine winning the sweepstakes in a monologue she delivers almost immediately after entering. She sets the tone for the boiling envy and rage that all of the women feel, as well as the perverse pride they take in their suffering. Marie-Ange is defeated, certain that her life will never improve and probably correct in this assumption.

“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.