Character Analysis
Agnès is Pearl's aunt and Robby's mom, and she's one of those people who thinks she's better than everybody else. No, really. Pearl attributes this to her homeland:
She was born and raised in France, a point of superiority to her way of thinking that made it hard for all of us, except Robby and Hoyt, to do anything but tolerate her. (5.5)
Oh, snap. Check out that word "tolerate." Pearl admits that no one can stand Agnès, because she's always armed with a proverb about how horrible America is. It's important to note, though, that it's Agnès who sees through Pearl's lies and figures out what's going on between her and Amiel. No one else is the wiser. So much as Pearl and the others might rib on Agnès, it seems she's quite perceptive, and there's no doubt that she's intelligent and classy to boot. So maybe there's a reason she's arrogant—she certainly walks the walk in addition to talking the talk.