Replacing "A" For The

After finishing A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert, I couldn't get one part out of my mind. I don't know why, but I always remember the beginning very well. “Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age; erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working automatically.” He paints quite a picture doesn’t he?
I imagine a rotting woman, much like I imagine an extremely old and senile person. The half- alive or half-dead (depends on how optimistic you consider yourself to be). In other words this woman was dying, or at least her soul was dying. This reminds me of a birthday card I once bought:

Unfortunately, our society doesn’t agree; otherwise, there wouldn’t exist botox. We too cannot tell someone’s age past fifty because of this botox.

Anyways, Felicity’s soul is dying faster than she is. This reflects her unhappiness. Flaubert portraying her face as thin and her voice shrill reconfirms that her emotional health reflects in her unhealthy apperance. His description of her being a “wooden figure working automatically” shows that she leads a simple life: One monotonous and unexciting. She has nothing to look forward to, no fun memories to look back on. She’s somewhat of a blah point in time. Worthless, insignificant, simple.

THE Simple Soul.