Paris circa 1958

The majority of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is set in Paris in the late nineteen fifties. While the main character is an Englishwoman and effectively a tourist, she is disinterested in visiting tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower or the Champs Élysées. Mrs. Harris enjoys visiting fringe restaurants and neighborhoods that tourists avoid because she feels a sense of comradery with the local people. The author focuses the character’s experiences in Paris settings like the Left Bank and Right Back in order to evoke her humility and modesty and to further develop the commonalities she shares with the French people. Mrs. Harris spends her time in Paris in the same neighborhoods and cafes as locals in the same way that she shares emotions like desire, frustration, and loneliness with the locals.

Mrs. Harris' Apartment

Mrs. Harris’s London apartment is a small basement flat...