In ‘‘Two Friends’’ Maupassant presents two contradictory and unresolved tendencies. On the one hand he deals with war as a universal evil for which government (as a structure—not any specific government) is responsible and of which the common man is the victim. But he just as insistently portrays the Germans as cruel, warlike savages. It…
Tag: France
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant – Setting
Franco-Prussian War ‘‘Two Friends’’ takes place during a spell of fine weather in January 1871, in the course of the German siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The effects of the war and the siege dominate the action of the story. The war grew out of rivalry between France and Prussia, the two predominant…
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant – Literary Devices – Symbolism
Naturalism The generation of French authors before Maupassant, including such figures as Honore´ de Balzac and Maupassant’s mentor Gustave Flaubert, aimed at realism: the depiction of everyday life in realistic terms. This was opposed to the earlier Romantic movement, which emphasized the fantastic and the exotic, in language as well as in subject matter. E´mile…
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant – Themes
Friendship The very title ‘‘Two Friends’’ suggests friendship as an important theme in de Maupassant’s story, and indeed the story revolves around the friendship of Morissot and Sauvage. The action of the story begins when the two meet, and, made idle by the war, have nothing better to do than reminisce about their friendship in…
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant – Characters
Morissot Morissot is the first character mentioned in ‘‘Two Friends’’ and is one of the title characters. He is ‘‘a watchmaker by profession forced into retirement for the duration’’ of the siege of Paris. He is therefore wandering idly around the streets of Paris, wearing his National Guard uniform, when he meets his old friend…
Two Friends by Guy de Maupassant – Summary
Maupassant begins ‘‘Two Friends’’ with a description of conditions of privation inside the city of Paris after a few months of being besieged by the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian war: ‘‘Paris hung by a thread. Sparrows were rare on the rooftops. The rat population in the sewers had thinned. People were eating anything.’’ The…
Mateo Falcone – Analysis
Prosper Merimee’s short story “Mateo Falcone” (1829) culminates in the killing of a ten-year-old boy by his father; the killing—the question needs to be posed whether it is a murder—takes place in a ravine in the rugged hills of Corsica, and its victim bears the ironic name of Fortunato. The father and killer, Mateo Falcone,…
Mateo Falcone – Setting
Napoleonic France By the time of Merimee’s birth in 1803, Napoleon, a Corsican who had made himself Emperor of France, was at the height of his power. By 1814, when Merimee was eleven years old, Napoleon’s wars had devastated Europe. Napoleon finally was beaten at the hands of an allied force led by the Duke…
Mateo Falcone – Literary Devices
Romanticism and Realism “Mateo Falcone” (1829) illustrates the cruel toll exacted on a Corsican family by the code of vendetta, or feud. Falcone kills his own son, Fortunato, because the son has betrayed a man to the authorities. Two concerns govern Merimee’s style in “Mateo Falcone.” The first is geographical and ethnological verisimilitude; the second…
Mateo Falcone – Themes
Culture Clash “Mateo Falcone” concerns the cultural clash between savagery and civilization. The French, in particular, developed these themes, beginning with the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Essay on the Origin of Inequality Among Men (1854) presented the notion that primitive people were uniquely free and true to themselves in their existence, while civilized people,…