A Short Story: Thematic Analysis Of Guy De Maupassant

Thematic Analysis of Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant, formally Henry-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant, was a French writer best known for his ability to create short stories (Encyclopedia Britannica). Maupassant had a writing style that was best described as “classically simplistic, clarity and objective calm” (Encyclopedia.com). Maupassant wrote stories that were bold and held subject matter such as that of infidelity and murder, to support themes of lust, greed and adultery. These themes were used to give his works shock value and draw many readers in. Maupassant’s dark themes persist through most of his writing, with death being a subject that reoccurs fairly often. These themes may have had some deeper meaning to Maupassant, a man

Lantin and his unnamed wife (Norton, 67-73). Lantin was a man who made a moderate salary, while his wife was a woman of luxury; she could be seen adorning herself in fake jewelry and attending the theater with her devoted husband. During the course of the story, Lantin’s wife dies leaving him suffering an immeasurable amount of grief. Slowly Lantin becomes poorer and poorer, not quite understanding how his wife had managed to keep them from going under, until one day he finds himself hungry without anything in his pockets. He finally makes the decision to sell his wife’s precious fake jewelry; once he takes the jewelry to get appraised the jeweler tells him it is worth a large sum of money. He cannot believe that this is correct and takes it to another where he finds that it was originally purchased and the jeweler confirms that it is indeed authentic and offers to buy it back. Lantin surmises that all of his late wives valuable pieces must have been gifts and realizes her infidelity, but chooses to ignore it when he realizes the large sum of money he is about to receive. The story ends with Lantin being married to his second wife whom makes him miserable, but is loyal and does not cheat on him, leaving the audience with a bittersweet feeling as they sympathize with Lantin who was happy when he

In “Moonlight” one of the main characters, Letore cheated on her husband with a stranger, but insists to her sister that she does love her husband and she just made a mistake (Moonlight, ClassicShorts.com). “The Kiss” is a very short story about a woman’s power over men, which they can abuse with just a kiss, the main character the aunt, informs her niece that a kiss that is misplaced can do much more harm than good (The Kiss, ClassicShorts.com). One final example of these recurring darker themes is the short story “Mademoiselle Fifi” a story about a man, Second Lieutenant Wilhelm von Eyrick known by his comrades as Mademoiselle Fifi; during the story one of the captains sends an army transport vehicle to go out and get prostitutes for a “party”. Once the prostitutes are brought to them the officers, especially Fifi, start making violent sexual advances and one of the prostitutes, Rachel, becomes angry that she is being treated rudely. Rachel gets extremely upset when Fifi makes a proclamation that France and its women belong to Prussia. Rachel denies these accusations and then is slapped by Fifi, whom she stabs with a knife and leaves through the window. The soldiers proceed to look for her but she is never found (Mademoiselle Fifi, ClassicShorts.com). These