Guy De Maupassant Analysis

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POTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN THE SELECT SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Author: Ms. R.AnnaLakshmi, Assistant Professor, Karpagam University-Coimbatore.
Co-Author: Ms. D. Sarulatha, Assistant Professor, Karpagam College of Engineering-Coimbatore.
Abstract
The paper focuses on Guy De Maupassant’s women characters. He describes characters from various professions and social classes with sensitivity and humour. Although Maupassant was himself very pessimistic, rather chauvinistic, and also distrustful of organized religions, his characters do not simply mirror his own philosophy. He wrote about topics of interest to his French readers in the 1880’s, but he also enriched his short stories with psychological and moral insights, which continue to fascinate readers born several generations after his death. Maupassant examined how ordinary Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, with whom readers can readily identify, reacted to unexpected social, historical, moral, and business situations. His short stories mirror life because in fiction, as in life, things never turn out exactly as one thinks they will. Maupassant’s personal life was not a happy one and his own experience of life is brought out through the characters like the mother in “The mother and son”, Berthe and Ravet in “A Wedding Gift”. He has portrayed good and bad characters through his stories also the strengths and weaknesses of women portrayed through his