ENIGMA OTILIEI

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While abortion still carries a stigma today, having premarital sex wouldn't destroy somebody's reputation. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. May–December Romance: Near the end of the book, Otilia marries Pascalopol, a rich landlord who is significantly older than her, and they move to Paris.

Any legal work he gets is either of a very dubious nature or for gullible clients, from whom he takes the money but does little to help. Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Costache is very wealthy and knows that his relatives are trying to get their hands on his fortune, but is easily influenced by them (to the point of ridiculousness).

Costache suffers a heart attack, after which the whole Tulea family spends 2 days in the old man’s house completely ignoring him and his illness. And yet her tomboyish side comes out while she is visiting Pascalopol's estate: she loves riding without a saddle, wants to bathe in the pond and climb up haystacks.

Felix is taken into the large sitting-room, where he finds several guests These include Leonida Pascalopol, a rich friend of Costake, and the family of Costake’s sister, Aglae. Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Otilia is a beautiful blonde, and a thoroughly decent and lovely human being.The second day Otilia shows him around the house, Felix remarking her cheerful ambiance , as well as a letter addressed to her, on the name of “Otilia Marculescu”. Needless to say, her children failed spectacularly to live up to their names: Olimpia's marriage disintegrates and her child dies because of her negligence, Aurica is a frustrated and desperate old maid and Titi is mentally challenged.

Jerkass: Stănică Raţiu is an insufferable, hypocritical, backstabbing, opportunistic moocher and thief who is always listening in at doors, spying, lying and luring people into traps. My Beloved Smother: Aglae alternates between coddling her children and tearing at their self-esteem.Parental Neglect: Olimpia and her husband constantly leave their two month old son alone on a crib without any kind of railing, resulting in the baby tumbling down from it and dying of a concussion. Felix never sees her again, and lives for years not knowing what happened with her, only to meet the now old Pascalopol by accident and be informed that Otilia moved to Latin America and married another wealthy man after her divorce.

Parents as People: Many of the characters in the novel are parents themselves or talk a lot about their own parents and discuss their flaws. Otilia tells Felix that girls only truly live for five, six years before they hit their mid-twenties and their looks begin to decline.

Like a romantic person that he is, he falls for it and trusts her, which is bringing him only disappointment because she has left him every time when she promised him otherwise. At the beginning of the novel he is arriving in Bucharest with a view to staying with Uncle Costake and his daughter, the eponymous Otilia. Felix is suspicious about his uncle’s motives but is too shy to broach the subject with his uncle, even though he and we suspect that Uncle Costake is cheating him. In the end, she gives up on her love for Felix and chooses to marry Pascalopol and run away with him to Paris. The text even lampshades this by pointing out that Costache never pondered who sent him the letter and never tried to match the writing to letters or notes written by the Tuleas.