Criticism In 'Useless Beauty' By Guy De Maupassant

The Lais of Marie de France is a collection of poems that tell enchanting stories of handsome knights, kings, queens, and romance. Although the lais varied in content; the subject of romantic love is the common theme. Since romantic love is the central theme of the lais it is important to define the term. According to the article, The Social Psychology of Love and Attraction romantic love is defined as, “a love that is supposed to stand the test of time, enduring all hardship. Romantic love emphasizes being in love with a certain individual” (Braxton-Davis 1). In the lais Bisclavret, Equitan, Laustic there is a conflict between love and moral responsibility. Many of the characters experience love and tragedy; yet, Marie de France provides a witty insight into loves immoral issues. In the lais loneliness, greed, excitement, and lust are the motivations for many of the characters reckless actions. Marie de France demonstrates how these characteristics combined with romantic infatuation, passion, and a yearning desire; influences corrupt behavior. This behavior then manifested into character traits such as betrayal, adultery, and cruelty that are revealed throughout the lais.

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

The women described in the Lais of Marie de France often commit traditionally sinful deeds, such as adultery, murder, and betrayal. However, with a few exceptions, the protagonists often end up living happily with their beloved for the rest of their lives. The Lais advocate for situational judgement rather than general condemnation of specific acts, which can be seen through Marie de France’s treatment of sinful heroines.

This description of Adele by Edna Pontellier gives a deeper meaning to Adele 's characterization as the perfect mother. Other women were aware of her perfection and her immense love of her children and they envied how easily it was for her to love her life and be content with just being a homemaker. Both Mademoiselle Reisz and Adèle Ratignolle are extremely contrasting characters with completely different outlooks on life in the late nineteenth century.

Guy De Maupassant is recognized as one of the finest writers of the modern short story. Maupassant’s literary career began in 1880 in France. He was a marvelous writer of short stories which were based upon the aspects of the French Society, frequently touching sensitive subjects such as social and moral principles. The beauty of Maupassant’s stories is the unpredictability of them, quite identical to life, where things do not always turn up the way one may expect. The short story, Jewelry by Guy De Maupassant is an insightful piece, with a compelling theme of appearance versus reality and that the life is full of irony.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” examine the complex relationship between a husband and wife. The two works take two different approaches to convey the same message: Marriage is not a fairytale, it requires sacrifice and unselfish behavior in order to work. Relationships are difficult to begin and harder to maintain. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and Aylmer and Georgiana are two relationships that shatter the surreal perception of marriage and expose readers to the raw truth, marriage is not a fairytale.

In “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Trifles”, the authors all question the institution of marriage through the emerging theme of the oppression of women. In each of these works, women are shown trapped in confining marriages. While marriage is supposed to be seen as one of the most beautiful and perfect sanctities life has to offer, these authors portray it as more of a bittersweet agony that women are forced to endure. Chopin, Gilman, and Glaspell use a combination of symbolism and perspective in their literature to bring about this theme of female oppression. With this theme, the authors cause the readers to take a more feminist perspective and question the institution of marriage through the eye of the average housewife of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This lay introduces two types of love: selfish and selfless. Selfish love is not courtly love. It lacks devotion and true loyalty. It lacks suffering and self-denial. Marie de France portrays this kind of love in the old husband of the woman whom Guigemar loves. The man locks his wife away in an enclosure guarded by a castrated man. By doing this, the husband shows a mean, limited

     Chopin introduces the story with pleasant images and events; she enchants the reader with fairy tales. A woman who cannot have children is blessed with the most “beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere” (31) of

Kate Chopin is a renowned author of the twentieth century. She is famous for her short stories that were written in the late 1800’s. Most of her works were published in magazines at the time but were a posthumous success because of societal dissent. The beliefs and values exhibited in her works of literature are far ahead of their time by representing women’s desire for independence from being a homemaker. One of her most popular short stories, “Desiree’s Baby,” shows how women had no choice over their own fate and were bound by the will of their husbands during Chopin’s lifetime. It was not well received by the public until years after Chopin’s death because the story draws sympathetic feelings towards the situation in which the main character Desiree finds herself in. In “Desiree’s Baby,” Chopin uses symbolism and irony to present the message of how the innocent suffer unjustly as a result of judgmental attitudes; she does this through the main characters of Armand and Desiree.

The discussion of the Wife’s five husbands describes her evolving role as a woman and how she overcame the most ridiculous obstacles to maintain this idea or illusion of marriage. The Wife’s depiction of her marriages was that three were good and two were bad. The initial marriages were to older rich men where she kept up this idea of marriage in order to receive money, but was not faithful by

The men in “Cinderella” also value women for their beauty. The prince has a ball for all the maidens in the land to find his future wife, which “amounts to a beauty contest” (Lieberman 386) for a new trophy wife. While some argue that Cinderella’s rebellion of going against her stepmother’s instructions of staying home shows that the story has feminist qualities, the prince weakens her achievement when he chooses her only because of her beauty as “girls win the prize if they are the fairest of them all” (Lieberman 385). Her need for independence is transformed into the prince’s need for a pretty wife, making her again an object in her family. Once integrated into the prince’s family, Cinderella goes from the maid of her family to the smiling porcelain doll next to the prince as the “first job of a fairy tale princess is to be beautiful” (Röhrich 110). This gives the impression that the only way

During this time many women were forced into marriage, resulting in a great unhappiness. Both Kate Chopin and Guy de Maupassant state this lack of joy that was often experienced everyday by women. “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin 68). If was as if Mrs. Mallard was sickened by the idea that her life and the way it was, would continue forever. Maupassant portrays Mathilde’s frustration in her marriage with the frequent use of the word “suffered” in relationship to her higher class wants and desires. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains” (Maupassant 59).

To her the Count seems like such an admirable man that she "was inconsolable at having missed the opportunity of throwing herself at his feet."(73) In actuality the outburst was the Count's confession of guilt.

The moral of Wife of Bath is that happiness in a relationship is when a woman is able to have control over her husband against a backdrop of the submissive wives of the Middle Ages. The prologue portrays a jovial woman who introduces herself and her beliefs on marriage. She has never been fond of authority and attributes her expertise in relationships to marriages with five different men. The Wife of Bath’s tale depicts a knight who needs to learn women’s greatest desire within a year in order to avoid beheading. The knight learns that “women desire to have the sovereignty and sit in rule and government above their husbands, and to have their way in love” (Lines 156-8). In the end, the sovereignty the knight gives to his old wife transforms her into a young woman and, “they lived in full joy to the end” (Line 325). The tale is not only a reflection of one’s interest to dominate a relationship, but also a need