# My Mother — Calvary character guide

> My Mother in Calvary by Octave Mirbeau.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** mother

**First appearance:** 0000-i

## Snapshot

A quiet presence from the narrator's provincial childhood, remembered less as a person than as a wound he cannot stop pressing.

## Who they are

She belongs to the world of Saint-Michel-les-Hêtres, the notary's household, the ordered life the narrator fled and cannot forget. Her appearances are brief and oblique, filtered through the narrator's retrospective shame as he measures how far he has fallen from the family that produced him. She matters because she is the standard he betrayed, the silent reproach behind every page of his confession.

## Relationships

### [Juliette Roux](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/juliette_roux)

_family_

Juliette Roux and My Mother are likely mother and daughter, with a complex, emotionally charged bond.

### [My Father](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/my_father)

_family_

My Father and My Mother are married, but their relationship is strained by secrets and external pressures.

### [Lirat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/lirat)

_rivalry_

Lirat and My Mother are adversaries, possibly competing for influence over the Unknown or the family.

### [Jean-François-Marie-Mintié](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/jean_francois_marie_mintie)

_social_

Jean-François-Marie-Mintié is an acquaintance of My Mother, likely through family or community ties.

### [Lirat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/lirat)

_rivalry_

Lirat and My Mother are adversaries, possibly competing for influence over the Unknown or the family.

### [Juliette Roux](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/juliette_roux)

_family_

Juliette Roux and My Mother are likely mother and daughter, with a complex, emotionally charged bond.

### [Jean-François-Marie-Mintié](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/jean_francois_marie_mintie)

_social_

Jean-François-Marie-Mintié is an acquaintance of My Mother, likely through family or community ties.

### [Juliette Roux](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/juliette_roux)

_family_

Juliette Roux and My Mother are likely mother and daughter, with a complex, emotionally charged bond.

### [My Father](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/my_father)

_family_

My Father and My Mother are married, but their relationship is strained by secrets and external pressures.

### [Lirat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/lirat)

_rivalry_

Lirat and My Mother are adversaries, possibly competing for influence over the Unknown or the family.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/chapters/i)

Suffers from melancholic fits, hallucinations, and a desire for death; haunted by the memory of finding her own mother hanged; believes she has inherited a suicidal curse; briefly finds hope after the narrator's birth but becomes alarmed by his nervous fits.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters/my_mother
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/calvary_se/characters