The Cloven Foot · Chapter
La Chicot explained
This chapter details the bohemian life of La Chicot and her husband Jack Chicot in Paris, focusing on their extravagant, pleasure-driven existence, La Chicot's declining popularity as a dancer, and their eventual move to London where they t
What happens
This chapter details the bohemian life of La Chicot and her husband Jack Chicot in Paris, focusing on their extravagant, pleasure-driven existence, La Chicot's declining popularity as a dancer, and their eventual move to London where they take lodgings in a street favored by actors, with a landlady who describes the other lodgers.
Themes in this chapter
Bohemianism vs. Respectability
The Chicots' extravagant, pleasure-seeking life contrasts sharply with the respectable, orderly habits of Mrs. Rawber, highlighting the tension between bohemian and conventional values.
Love and Marriage
The marriage of La Chicot and Jack is tumultuous, marked by passion, quarrels, and regret, illustrating a dysfunctional union.
Characters to notice
- La Chicot
A dancer whose beauty and wildness captivate audiences; she dominates her husband, spends lavishly, and grows coarser over time.
- Chicot
Jack Chicot, La Chicot's husband, a painter and critic who suffers silently under his wife's temper and regrets their marriage.
- Mrs. Rawber
A lodger in the same house, an actress known for her Lady Macbeth, described as a model of respectability.
Key passages
“La Chicot hugged the notion of her husband’s superiority to that drudging herd from which she had sprung. His very vices were in her mind virtues.”
La Chicot believed her husband was far above the common working people she came from, and she even saw his faults as good qualities.
Reveals La Chicot's idolization of her husband and her disdain for her own origins.
“La Chicot begins to drink like a fish... I wonder whether she beats her husband when she has had too much champagne?”
La Chicot is drinking heavily, and there is speculation that she might become violent with her husband when drunk.
Shows the deterioration of La Chicot's character and the volatile nature of their household.
“She used to come home from the theatre in a diabolical humour, after having danced to empty benches and a languid audience, and Jack Chicot had to pay the cost.”
After performing to sparse and unenthusiastic crowds, La Chicot would return home furious and take out her anger on Jack.
Illustrates the strain on their marriage as her career declines.