Please wait while we process your payment
Reset Password
Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 12, 2023 February 5, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Frédéric had expected to feel paroxysms of joy; but passions wilt when they are transplanted, and, finding Madame Arnoux in a setting which was unfamiliar to him, he had the impression that she had somehow lost something, suffered a vague degradation, in short, that she had changed. The calm of his heart astounded him.
The quotation appears when Frédéric returns to Paris after receiving his uncle Barthelemy’s entire fortune and finds the Arnouxes living in a new home. Madame Arnoux has been living in Frédéric’s imagination for many months, and until he received his fortune, he had declared himself over her and contemplated staying in Nogent. His fortune, which renews his dreams and ambitions, also renews his ardor for Madame Arnoux, and he expects to be overwhelmed with love and relief to see her again. His reaction is much different than he had expected. In her new surroundings, she seems like a different person, and Frédéric leaves disappointed and disparaging of her. Angry at her for how she has changed and angry at himself for having spent so much time thinking about her, he believes he has been foolish and dismisses her as bourgeois. Of course, this is not the final word in Frédéric’s feelings for her, but it takes him a while to get past this initial shock.
Frédéric’s reaction foreshadows his ultimate dismissal of Madame Arnoux at the end of the novel. Frédéric is so infatuated with her that she becomes inhuman—his relentless admiration has turned her into a perfect specimen of womanhood in his mind. The image he has of her never gains texture: she is always the beautiful young woman he first spotted on the boat as he sailed from Paris to Nogent. As humans do, she ages, but Frédéric dismisses this out of hand. Only at the end of the novel, when he sees her white hair, does he accept that she has become someone different from the woman who has occupied his mind. Just as her new surroundings make her seem different and therefore unacceptable to him, her “new” hair—that is, her new humanness—leads Frédéric to ultimately reject her.
Please wait while we process your payment
