opera and the object of Sarrasine's affection. Sarrasine is convinced that La Zambinella is the ideal woman. La Zambinella is in fact a castrato. Madame Rochefide – A delicate woman of great beauty whom the narrator invited to Monsieur de Lanty's ball. Marianina – The de Lanty's sixteen-year-old daughter who is strikingly beautiful, educated and witty. Also described as sweet and modest, she could bring the same level purity of sound, sensibility, rightness of movement and pitch, soul and science, correctness, and feeling as the sultan's daughter in the Magic Lamp. Filippo – Marianina's brother and Count de Lanty's son. He is handsome with skin of olive complexion, defined eyebrows, and fire of velvet eyes, and is often considered an ideal partner to many girls and mothers finding husbands for their daughters. He is also described as a walking image of Antinous. Monsieur de Lanty – The wealthy owner of the mansion hosting the ball. He is small, ugly, and pock-marked, a complete contrast to his wife and children. He is dark skinned, dull as a banker, and compared to a politician because he is cold and reserved. Madame de Lanty – Count de Lanty's beautiful wife and mother of Marianina and Filippo. Bouchardon – Sculptor who taught Sarrasine as a student and took him in as his own pupil. Themes Opposites Sarrasine is marked by oppositions. The story opens with a description of the extremes of inside and out, day and night, beauty and ugliness, age and youth, male and female that prevail in French high society and at the de Lanty's ball. Whereas the ball is young and full of life, the mysterious old man who enters it stands out as the mark of opposition. "If I look at him again, I shall believe that death itself has come looking for me," says one beautiful young woman. The most significant opposite in the entire novella is male versus female. The story contemplates what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and the degree to which those stand in opposition. The story also touches on oppositions between the generations, as Sarrasine himself is opposite to his father, on oppositions between the art world and the political world, on oppositions between France and Italy, and on oppositions between the ideal and the real. Castration Roland Barthes identifies castration as one of the novella's