7

The Terror - Guy de Maupassant

Question- Explain in detail the life and work of Guy de Maupassant.

Ans-

Guy de Maupassant: Life and Work-Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on 5 August 1850. He was a 19th Century French author, remembered a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the Naturalist School, who depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and after pessimistic terms.

Maupassant was the elder of the two children of Gustave and Laure de Maupassant. His mother's claim that he was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil has been disputed. The couple's second son. Herve was born in 1856.

Both parents came of Norman families, the father's of the minor aristocracy, but the marriage was a failure, and the couple separated permanently when Guy was 11 years old. Although the Maupassant were a free thinking family. Guy received his first education from the Church and at age 13 was sent to a small seminary of Yvetot that took both lay and clerical pupils. He felt a decided antipathy for this form of life and deliberately engineered his own expulsion for some trivial affense in 1868. He moved to the lycee at Le Havre and passed his baccalaureate the following year. In the autumn of 1869 he began law studies in Paris, which were interrupted by the out break of the Franco-German War. Maupassant volunteered, served first as a private in the field and was later transferred through his father's intervention to the quarter master corps. His firsthand experience of war was to provide him with the material for some of his finest stories.

Maupassant was demobilized in July 1871 and resumed his law studies in Paris. His father came to his assistance again and obtained a post for him in the Ministry of Marine, which was intended to support him until he qualified as a lawyer. He did not care for the bureaucracy but was not unsuccessful and was several times promoted. His father managed to have him transferred, at his own wish, to the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1879.

Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless denouements. Many are set during the Franco-Prussian war of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up invents beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences.

He wrote 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. His first published story, "Boule de Suif" ("The Dumping", 1880) is often considered his masterpiece.

Apprenticeship with Flaubert: Maupassant's mother, Laure, was the sister of Alfred Le Poittevin, who had been a close friend of Gustave Flaubert and she herself remained on affectionate terms with the novelist for the rest of his life. Laure sent her son to make Flaubert's acquaintance at Croisset in 1867, and when he returned to Paris after the war, she asked Flaubert to keep an eye on him. This was the beginning of the apprenticeship that was the making of Maupassant the writer. Whenever Flaubert was staying in Paris, he used to invite Maupassant to lunch on Sundays, lecture him on prose style, and correct his youthful literary exercises. He also introduced him to some of the leading writers of the time such as Fmile Zola, Ivan Turgnev, Edmond Goncourt and Henry James. "He's my disciple and I love him like a son", Flaubert said of Maupasant. It was a concise description of a twofold relationship If Flaubert was the inspiration for Maupassant the writer, he also provided the child of a broken marriage with a foster father. Flaubert's sudden and unexpected death in 1880 was a grievous blow to Maupassant.

During his apprenticeship with Flaubert, Maupassant published one or two stories under a pseudonym in obscure provincial magazines. The turning point came in April 1880, the month before Flaubert's death. Maupassant was one of six writers, led by Zola, who each contributed a short story on the Franco-German war to a volume called Les Soirees de Medan Maupassant's story, Boule de Suif ("Ball of Fat"), was not only by far the best of the six. It is probably the finest story, he ever wrote.

Mature Life and works of Guy de Maupassant: As soon as Boule de suif was published, Maupassant found himself in demand by newspapers. He left the ministry and spent the next two years in wiring articles for Le Gavlois' and The Girl Blas'. Many of his stories made their first appearance in the latter newspaper. The 10 years from 1880 to 1890 were remarkable for their productivity; he published some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and his only volume of verse.

La Maison Terllier (1881; "The Tellier House"), a book of short stories on various subjects, is typical of Maupassant's achievement as a whole, both in his choice of themes and in his determination to present men and women objectively is the manifold aspects of life. He presents his characters dispassionately, for going any personal moral judgement on them but always nothing the world, the gesture, or even the reticence that betrays each one's essential personality, all the while enhancing the effect by describing the physical and social background against which his characters move. Concision, vigour, and the most rigorous economy are the characteristics of his art.

Collections of short stories and novels followed and another in quick succession until illness struck Maupassant down. Two years saw six new books of short stories: Mademoiselle Fifi (1883), Contes de la becasse (1883; "Tales of the Boose"), Clair de lune, Les Soeurs Rondoli ("The Rondoli Sisters"), Yvette and Miss Harriet (all 1884). The stories can be divided into group: those dealing with the Franco-German War, the Norman peasantry, the bureaucracy, life on the banks of the Seine River, the emotional problems of the different social classes and some what ominously in a late story such as hallucination. Together the stories present a comprehensive picture of French life from 1870 to 1890.

Maupassant's most important full length novels and 'Une Vie', 'Bel- Ami' (1888).

The French critic Paul Leautaud called Maupassant a "complete erotomaniac". Maupassant's later books of short stories include Toine (1886), Le Horla (1887), Le Roiser de Mudame Husson (1888; "The Rose Bush of Mudame Husson") and L' Inutile Beaute (1890; "The Useless Beauty"). Four more novels also appeared: Mont Oriol (1887 ?, on the financing of a fashionable writing place; 'Pierre et Jean; Fort comme la most (1889; "As Story as Death:); and Notre Coeur (1890; "Our Heart").

Maupassant's work is thoroughly realistic. His character inhabit a world of material desires and sensual appetites in which lust, greed and ambition rare the driving forces and any higher feelings are either absent or doomed to cruel disappointment.

By the second half of the 20th century, It was generally recognized that Maupassant's popularity as a short story writer had declined and he was more widely read in the English-speaking countries then in France..

...Prev | Next...