Guy de Maupassant

I

Introduction

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), French novelist and short-story writer. He is deemed one of the modern masters of the art of the short story and has influenced practitioners of that genre from his time to the present.

II

Life

Born at Fécamp in Normandy (Normandie) of cultured, middle-class parents, Maupassant was a mediocre student who preferred swimming, boating, and fishing at Etretat, then a newly fashionable resort on the English Channel, to school. His law studies in Paris were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, which destroyed his family’s fortune and forced Maupassant to find work as a government office clerk. To divert himself from the office work he found tedious, he swam, boated, pursued feminine company at fashionable places, and began to write.

French novelist Gustave Flaubert had been a childhood friend of Maupassant’s mother, and in the 1870s he introduced Maupassant to Parisian literary society, then dominated by Émile Zola and naturalism. The naturalist movement, led by Zola, emphasized the portrayal of instincts, emotions, and other forces that govern human behavior. Soon Maupassant was a member of the naturalist group, and his story “Boule de suif” (“Ball of Fat”) was published in their Les Soirées de Médan (The Parties at Medan, 1880), a collection of stories about the Franco-Prussian War. Maupassant became an overnight celebrity and soon was surpassed only by Zola as the best-selling author in France.

For a decade Maupassant’s literary production was astounding. He wrote nearly 300 stories, 200 newspaper articles, 6 novels, and 3 travel books. He became very wealthy and spent his earnings extravagantly. In leading a dissolute life, Maupassant contracted syphilis and by the late 1880s had begun to show signs of mental complications. On New Year’s Day 1892, Maupassant attempted suicide and entered a clinic, where he died the following year.

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III

Works

Although Maupassant does not offer an explicit philosophy in his work, he portrays a consistent and honest vision. His is a grim, bleak, and pessimistic world in which human activity is futile and ultimately meaningless in a universe devoid of evidence of a merciful God. While he admired the courage and generosity of spirit of certain individuals, although they almost never belonged to the middle or upper classes, he usually depicted the human spirit as defeated by darker instincts. Thus in “Boule de suif,” a prostitute and the middle-class travelers who accompany her in a coach are caught by invading Prussians. The prostitute alone has the patriotism to resist, and then the selflessness to succumb to the advances of a Prussian officer in order to save them all. Afterward, in the coach, her companions’ attitude toward her reverts to disdain.

In “La parure” (“The Necklace”), perhaps Maupassant’s best-known story, a couple borrows a priceless diamond necklace from a friend for a ball. When the necklace is lost the couple sinks into poverty paying for an exact replica, only to discover years later from the original owner that the borrowed necklace was in fact a cheap imitation. The reader must decide if this tragedy is a result of fate or of the vanity and false pride of the borrower.

Best known for his short stories in Britain and the United States, Maupassant is generally better known in France for his novels. The best known of these are Une vie (1883; translated as A Woman’s Life, 1903), Bel-ami (1885; translated 1891), and Pierre et Jean (1888; The Two Brothers, 1890). Many critics consider the last of these his masterpiece. The work illustrates the author’s characteristically dark view of life and his keen psychological insight. A study of jealousy and suspicion, it recounts the discovery by Pierre that his more fortunate brother, Jean, is in fact the illegitimate offspring of their mother and a man heretofore considered a family friend, who has left Jean an inheritance. Not only does Jean become rich, he also marries Madame Rosémilly, the young widow whom both brothers have loved. By revealing his discovery to Jean, Pierre brings only more misery upon himself. The grey port city of Le Havre is the appropriate setting for this grim tale of enemy brothers.

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