Arrogance In Moonlight

In Guy De Maupassant’s short story, Moonlight, the theme that even if a person is arrogant and closed minded, their opinions can still change is emphasized. In Moonlight Maupassant showed the theme through the characterization of the Abbe Marignan. In the beginning of the short story when the Abbe is being introduces his arrogance is shown when he says, “‘You’d think that not even God himself was happy with that particular piece of work.’” This quote characterizes the Abbe as being arrogant. The Abbe’s opinion shows arrogance because arrogance is defined as, “having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities” (1). It can be proven that he has an exaggerated sense of his abilities because the quote shows that he thinks that he knows what God thinks, when nobody besides God can know what he truly thinks because nobody has even met God and we can only infer what he thinks from reading things like the Bible.

This can be proven because Merriam-Webster defines being closed-minded as, “not willing to consider different ideas or opinions,” and this is shown in the quote because the narrator said that his beliefs do not waver, which means that he does not consider other Ideas because that would cause them to waver. Finally, the Abbe’s options are shown to change after he sees his niece and her lover and the narrator says, “‘Perhaps God has made such nights to veil the loves of men with ideal beauty,” (3). This quote shows a change in the Abbe’s opinions. It can be proven that this shows a change because earlier in the story he is characterized as hating women and that even got doesn’t like women, when in the quote he says that God has made such beautiful nights to veil loves of ideal