preview

Guy De The Use Of Irony In Maupassant

Decent Essays

Introduction : The oral tradition of story telling is as old as human history. Stories of valour and romance, of adventure and miracles relieved the boredom and monotony when there was no other recourse to while away the evening. But as a genre the short story is quite a late entrant in literature and as a craft reached its maturity only by 19th century. The most celebrated writers of short stories are Gogol, Chekhov, O Henry, Saki, Turgenev to name a few. They immortalized the craft with stories like The Overcoat, The Gift of the Magi, The Open Window, Mumu, Lady with a Lapdog, Betrothed etc .
Though his name got obscured by the later writers, one of the founding fathers of the genre of short story writing is the French writer Guy de …show more content…

There is irony in the little cheap whore rising to the defence of her compatriots and country. There is irony in the grand men of society using a women, cajoling her, preaching at her and finally betraying her to sell her body to save their skin. It is ironical that, that most frivolous of women Mathilde who thought only of jewels and clothes, rises above her station even as she stoops to do the most mundane of tasks everyday for a period of 10 years to honor her pledge. Also it is ironical that the two peaceful civilians, who had not gone to war, who chose to spend their money on alcohol even as they starved, who shivered and trembled at the thought of being caught by the enemy, stand resolute and embrace death but do not betray their country. And yet it is not the thought of imminent death but the sight of the caught fish that brings tears to the eyes of the …show more content…

“Ending which jolts us into perceiving something fundamental about what we have been reading.”(The Classic Short Story: The Theory of a Genre 1870-1925, 60-62) In case of Maupassant they reveal the character of the protagonist. Maupassant’s stories have become eternal as they hold up a mirror to the society and tell tales of things that ‘oft were thought though never so well expressed before’. In The Necklace, the vain frivolous woman shows her grit and determination when she abandons all comfort and even necessities to pay off the loan. She washed and she scrubbed, she cooked and she cleaned and she who had dreamt of rich tapestries and silver on her table, everyday carries water up a flight of stairs and haggles with the butcher over the price of meat. The woman who had cried because she did not have a dress to wear to the ball, slogs unflinchingly, like a common woman of the market , without complaint for 10 years. In her resolution and in her suffering Mathilde emerges a true

Get Access