In order to analyze such a precious and nuanced story as this, perhaps an analogy to music will be expedient. There is something quite musical about this story that lends itself to the opera that was written from this source material, but even before the obvious association to the opera emerges, the story is so clearly musical. At the center of its musical dynamic, there is the eventual union of two seemingly exclusive themes into a powerful portrait of falling in love and the passion of human life.
Rosine is on an adventure that is shaped almost entirely by conspiracy. This is what patriarchy has done to her, capturing her by fear into certain paths that are "acceptable" to her patriarch whose authority over her is dubious; he is only her caretaker—not true family. Not only that, there is also the elaborate romantic machinations of a very crafty suitor who serves as the story's protagonist. But, in a way he is the more static of the duo. She is the one who must change her mind to choose him. When she does, she is rewarded by fate with a fortune she did not know existed.
This portrait of a young girl falling in love for the first time to escape her shut-in, repressed existence; it has the color of fate and gravity. The reader senses that Spanish guitars are not so far off. Perhaps the most sweet and symbolic moment of the plot is when the suitor sings to his beloved from the ground, sending his song up toward where she stands above. In that portrait, we see that she is unintentionally heavenly to her secretly-powerful lover. He plays piano for her later, another mark of musicality. His musical power is an emotional intelligence that serves as the novel's idea for what is most attractive about a spouse's character—emotional intelligence in the service of love.
