44 pages • 1-hour read
The Book of Goose
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Character Analysis
Agnès
Agnès is the narrator-protagonist and “writer” of The Book of Goose. Her perspectives, both as a child and an adult, inform the character and plot development of the novel. The reader meets Agnès in media res, when the major events of her life have already happened and yet, there is foreshadowing of a new chapter as she writes the story of her childhood friend Fabienne. As an adult, Agnès is emotionally and physically removed from her childhood home of Saint Rémy, France. Still, the impact of this place manifests in her compassion for farm animals and nature—specifically, her geese. A letter revealing Fabienne’s death allows her to revisit the past with more empathy and honesty.
As a child, Agnès’s role model and source of identity is best friend Fabienne. Fabienne is a crucial distraction for both girls because they live in a post-World War II world, with Agnès losing her brother Jean to the war. The girls are poor, dismissed as future mothers. They play roleplaying games to feel fully realized, and Agnès’s life changes when Fabienne decides to write a book. Agnès writes Fabienne’s spoken stories and at Fabienne’s request, is given full credit for authorship. This brings Agnès literary fame. Photographers and journalists plaster her all over the French press, and her first book, Les Enfants Heureux (The Happy Children), is successful enough to earn money for her family. However, the book that brought her and Fabienne together ultimately separates them. To make Agnès a “sophisticated” woman, the opportunistic Mrs. Townsend brings her to her English school, Woodsway. However, she feels out of place and doesn’t know who to be without Fabienne, especially when pressured to write more books. She fights Mrs. Townsend’s influence by continuing her letter correspondence with Fabienne and “boyfriend” Jacques, Fabienne’s imagined brother whom Agnès conflates with Fabienne due to suppressed feelings. Agnès returns home because she is worried about Fabienne, ironically a step toward forming her own identity outside of Fabienne and literary fame.
Agnès’s life changes again when she and Fabienne turn 15, and Fabienne claims their childhood is over. This loss brings with it the loss of their friendship. It is too painful for Agnès to see her brilliant friend become a typical woman, so she moves away from home for work and accomplishes her personal dream of moving to Paris, and then America—where she is married to a man named Earl. As an adult, Agnès revisits her childhood memory to celebrate Fabienne and similar girls who have been ignored, writing the titular The Book of Goose.
Fabienne
Fabienne is Agnès’s childhood friend and object of admiration. A peasant girl from Saint Rémy, Fabienne lost her mother and sister to early deaths and therefore serves as caretaker for her family of men, being pulled out of school to do so. She is misunderstood because her intelligence often translates into behavior that others find masculine, transgressive. She eventually decides to tell stories to Agnès, who writes them. These stories are morbid yet engaging, but Fabienne refuses to take credit for them—instead pushing Agnès, who has suppressed feelings for her, to be marketed as the author. Fabienne does this because she knows the outside world will not be welcoming to her. Despite her roleplaying games, she is realistic, resigning herself to becoming a mother. Overall, she represents the ways in which society ignores, oppresses, and fails to nurture girls.
Fabienne is not above using other people to protect herself. She convinces Saint Rémy’s postman, Monsieur Devaux, to help her and Agnès publish their first book, pretending to befriend him while mocking him behind his back—and ultimately accusing him of sexual assault to escape his predation. While questionable on both ends, this relationship reiterates that Fabienne is a child who requires protection—and the world, as represented by Devaux, will try to take advantage of her. She has a difficult time expressing her emotions, using fantasies such as Jacques to feel a semblance of control. Upon her and Agnès’s separation, Fabienne runs away from Saint Rémy, apparently with a circus. However, she eventually returns, pregnant and without a man. She dies by childbirth, but her life and death are honored by Agnès through The Book of Goose.
Mrs. Townsend (Kazumi)
Mrs. Townsend (who insists on being called Kazumi) is an Englishwoman who runs the Woodsway school and takes an interest in Agnès after the successful publication of her first book. In Agnès’s story, Mrs. Townsend sees a peasant girl who needs “sophistication.” Like many readers, she looks down on poverty and tokenizes Agnès. She always wanted to be a writer and thus lives vicariously through Agnès by dictating her writing, which forces the girl to resort to threats for her freedom. Like Monsieur Devaux, Mrs. Townsend represents how society takes advantage of girls without care for their own wants.
Monsieur Devaux
Monsieur Devaux is a local postmaster in Saint Rémy. When his wife dies, Fabienne recruits him to help her and Agnès publish their first book. He helps the girls edit their book, but becomes too interested in Fabienne for a widower in his sixties. She teases Devaux for his superiority, which he mistakes for flirting. He oversteps boundaries, serving her alcohol, and allegedly asking her to become his mistress and trying to touch her. He is generous with his time, but only secures Agnès’s publishing deal so he can get closer to Fabienne. Devaux treats Fabienne as an adult and is forced to leave the village when she accuses him of sexual assault. Despite him being more in the wrong as an adult, Agnès sees him as pitiful because Fabienne took advantage of him. However, Fabienne sabotages him because she recognizes she gave him, an older man, too much power. Like Mrs. Townsend, Devaux represents how society takes advantage of girls without care for their own wants.
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