44 pages • 1 hour read
Tracy ChevalierGirl With a Pearl Earring
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Griet
As the narrator and subject of this bildungsroman, Griet is the central character of this book and the only one whose mind we have access to as readers. Though she is in the process of maturing, and is thus not always a reliable narrator of her own feelings, nor a clear-eyed observer of the motives and actions of others, she is astute enough to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of her development from innocent girl to wise(r) young woman.
The novel’s focus on Griet’s development, on the push and pull of her relationship with Vermeer, and on her eventual choice to forgo a life that keeps her within Vermeer’s world, provides the necessary canvas on which to explore questions of female agency, artistic vision, and the importance of family and community. If Vermeer’s painting of Griet as the Girl with a Pearl Earring is representative of the possibilities of a life lived purely for art, her life after that painting is representative of life lived in duty to family. In this context, Vermeer’s masterpiece, instead of seeming the inevitable product of the talent of a genius, is, rather, the result of a young girl’s unfulfilled longing to choose a different path.
In the end, Griet chooses the path that a dutiful daughter should choose, but her story allows us to better see what is lost—and gained—in making that choice.
Vermeer
An accomplished painter and Griet’s “master,” Vermeer is quiet, controlled, and difficult to read. At various points in the novel he alternately functions as Griet’s teacher, something of a father figure, and as her would-be lover—with their artistic collaboration standing in for sexual intercourse. His close friend, van Leeuwenhoek, deems his “eyes […] worth a roomful of gold” (186) but also recognizes Vermeer’s essential selfishness. As a result, he is dangerous to the women around him even as his selfishness is a necessary component of his artistic genius.
Catharina
Mercurial and often clumsy, Catharina is also a devoted wife whose primary goal is to have many children—she is pregnant for most of the first three sections of the novel—and enjoy her place in bourgeois society as Vermeer’s wife. She is jealous of Griet’s role in her husband’s artistic life and is someone who is handled by the rest of the adults in the household, rather than trusted as a household manager. Like her favorite daughter, Cornelia, she makes Griet’s life difficult.
Maria Thins
Vermeer’s mother-in-law provides the family’s income. She is practical and fair-minded and often an ally to Griet. Maria Thins takes an avid interest in her son-in-law’s paintings, acting as an astute business advisor and advocating for her daughter and grandchildren’s interests, while also recognizing and appreciating the extent of Vermeer’s genius.
Pieter the son
Son of Pieter, the Vermeers’ butcher, he takes an immediate romantic interest in sixteen-year-old Griet when he meets her. When she turns eighteen, he asks her father for permission to marry her, despite Griet’s resistance to his romantic gestures throughout the first three years the book chronicles. Though he is not what Griet believes she wants, he proves to be a good husband in the end.
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By Tracy Chevalier
