Simple? Really?

When I started A Simple Heart I notice that the beginning sets up an air of mystery. Why would she be so loyal and for so long to mean Madame Aubain? And why only for the half century, has she died or will she quit? And what is she like exactly? Felicite, despite being the main character takes a while to show up. However she is obviously a dedicated and hardworking person and she must be old and a good servant to be so envied. When she does appear she is like a robot, dedicated only to work. Again my main intesrest in reading is finding why she's so dedicated. Also, the fact that the description of Madame's life and her house makes it clear that Felicite's life is defined by her employers and she has almost no identity of her own. Her life is later revealed to be sad and hard, with the only love she had known to be one of deception that was almost thrust upon her. She is almost to grateful to Madame and she seems fascinated with the children probably because she wants some of her own, which she'll never have, she also shows this devotion to her sisters children. Because of this she even heroically saves their lives and sees it only as her duty. Her religiousness is shown to have a childlike innocence and a grasping need to feel connected to soemthign greater than herself. The later loss of the children to school take more away from her identity as they were the only ones that exposed her to an outside world. Often the text implies her limited intelligence and education, which makes it easy for the world to take advantage of her and influences her deep emotion, like the heartbreak over her nephew's death or the profound gratitude towards Madame. Thsi links Felicite and Madame in a sort of unhealthy but unbreakable relationship of shared grief and gratitude.