Power, Gender, and Class
At its core, the novel is a meditation on inequality. Griet’s position as a maid makes her vulnerable in a household full of competing interests — from Catharina’s jealousy to van Ruijven’s predatory behavior. Vermeer’s studio becomes both a sanctuary and a site of tension, highlighting how creativity can transcend class boundaries but never fully erase them.

Restraint and Desire
The relationship between Griet and Vermeer is marked by unspoken attraction and suppressed intimacy. Critics often note that Chevalier’s style intentionally mirrors Vermeer’s painting: controlled, deliberate, and emotionally restrained. This restraint intensifies the desire beneath the surface, making small gestures — a brushstroke, a pearl earring — charged with significance.

Identity and Transformation
The pearl earring itself functions as a symbol of transformation. For Griet, wearing it means stepping beyond her role as servant into a space of artistic and personal self-definition. Yet it also signals her entanglement in power dynamics she cannot fully control, reflecting the precarious balance between agency and subjugation.

The Gaze and Ownership
The novel interrogates who gets to look, and who is looked at. Griet is simultaneously subject and object: she sees the world with fresh artistic sensitivity, but she is also seen — by Vermeer, by van Ruijven, by the reader — often in ways that reduce her to a role or an image. Chevalier thereby asks us to consider the dynamics of the “male gaze” long before the term was coined.