The Maids

“Do you think I find it pleasant to know that my foot is shrouded by veils of your saliva? By the mists of your swamps?”

Acting as Madame in the ceremony, Claire admonishes Solange-as-Claire for polishing her shoes with her saliva. Claire-as-Madame repeatedly complains about the maids’ filthiness, as if they soil everything they touch. This expresses a deep self-loathing by which both Claire and Solange feel fundamentally unclean.

“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.