How can we say that Madame Aubain and Felicite are opposites and are complementary to each other in "A Simple Heart"?

Both Madame Aubain and Felicite are opposites for a
variety of reasons.  The most evident reason is because of class.  Madame Aubain is a
wealthy woman who owns property and has money at her disposal while Felicite is a
servant, her servant.  Madame Aubain is educated and represents a construct of power,
while Felicite lacks a certain amount of power to be able to determine her own condition
and is not a proficient reader.  Madame Aubain possesses this ability to freely define
her own state of being, while Felicite does not readily embody this condition.  I would
say that another difference is that Felicite has a much more constructive view of life
than Madame Aubain.  Cloistered in her world of wealth and privilege, Madame Aubain is
one who is able to feel only through these visages.  She does not display herself as one
who is able to live life and understand from it in terms of being able to experience all
that life has to offer. Felicite, on the other hand, is much more adept to being able to
learning from live and understanding from it. For this reason, Felicite's heart is so
much more geared towards the demonstration and experience of love than Madame Aubain
is.  Perhaps for this reason, she lives longer than Madame Aubain and lives more of a
redemptive life than she does.

However, Flaubert ends up
constructing both of them as more similar than different.  With the death of Virginie
and the growing embrace of Felicite's Catholicism, Madame Aubain has a difficult time
understanding the nature of death and life after it.  Felicite's religious fervor is
what not only helps her through such a painful moment, but also helps Madame Aubain
through it.  Both of them find one another in the search for meaning and understanding
the reasoning in the death of a child.  It is here where their similiarities overwhelm
their differences:

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Their eyes met fixedly and filled with tears; at
last the mistress opened her arms, the servant threw herself into them, and they
embraced each other, satisfying their grief in a kiss that made them
equal.

It was the
first time in their lives, Mme. Aubain's nature not being expansive. Félicité was as
grateful as though she had received a favor, and cherished her mistress from that moment
with the devotion of an animal and a religious
worship.

It is through love and the transcendental
nature of religious worship where their differences are fused away.  In its place is a
complementary relationship with Felicite possessing "the devotion of an animal" and
Madame Aubain understanding the true nature of this woman who had been in her service
for quite some time without even being realized how much a force of construction in a
world of destruction that she truly is.