Guy de Maupassant(Barry) Ask most Frenchmen who the greatest short story writer is and invariably they will choose de Maupassant. While his short story, The Pearl, is generally considered the author’s most famous story, there are others that are equally remarkable both in terms of storytelling and originality.

Take The Piece of String, a literary masterpiece both in terms of uniqueness and social satire, for example. As the story opens an elderly farmer, Maitre Hauchecorne, is on his way to the weekly town market. Seeing a piece of string lying in the road, he bends down to retrieve the it and continues on his way. Little does he (i.e. or the unsuspecting reader) realize that the innocuous gesture will poison the community against him and ultimately destroy what little remains of his life.

It is no exaggeration to say that The Piece of String is a gut-wrenching, unforgettable tale, where the reader will remember details of the bizarre plot long after finishing the read.

As one biographer noted:

“The story is a commentary on the human tendency
to judge others based on their past actions and
reputations, and how difficult it can be to overcome
these prejudices. It is a poignant and tragic tale that
explores themes of injustice, prejudice, and the
human condition.”


Guy de Maupassant (1850 – 1983) is considered one of the earliest representatives of the naturalist school, “depicting human lives, destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.”

He was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert, who at the time was considered the greatest French writer. Literary historians argue that Guy’s mother, who brought her son to meet the master at a very young age, may have been having a romantic affair with Flaubert and there are a number of curious happenings that give credibility to this assumption. After thirteen years under Flaubert’s mentorship, a short story by de Maupassant describing an incident in the Franco-Prussian War, The Dumpling (Boule de Suif), was finally publish.

The story hit the French literary establishment like an earthquake. De Maupassant became an overnight sensation and was consider the rising star. To this day, many literary critics consider The Dumpling not just a masterpiece of world-class, creative fiction but far and away the greatest short story de Maupassant ever wrote.

At Flaubert's home the young writer met Émile Zola as well as the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev. It is important to understand that both famous figures were at the forefront of contemporary literature with their realistic prose, which flew in the face of the bland, sugary-sweet novels which preceded their appearance on the literary scene.

As already mentioned, in 1880 de Maupassant published what is considered his first masterpiece, Boule de Suif", which met with instant, overwhelming success. Flaubert characterized it as "a masterpiece that will endure". This, Maupassant's first piece of short fiction set during the war years 1870–71, was followed by short stories such as Deux Amis, Mother Savage", and Mademoiselle Fifi.

Flaubert said this of his brilliant protégé:

"The fear that haunted his restless brain day and night was
already visible in his eyes, I for one considered him then
as a doomed man. I knew that the subtle poison of his
own Boule de Suif had already begun its work of destruction
in this magnificent brain. Did he know it himself? I often
thought he did. The MS. of his Sur L'Eau was lying on the
table between us, he had just read me a few chapters, the
best thing he had ever written I thought. He was still
producing with feverish haste one masterpiece after
another, slashing his excited brain with champagne, ether
and drugs of all sorts. Women after women in endless
succession hastened the destruction, women recruited from
all quarters... actresses, ballet-dancers, midinettes, grisettes,
common prostitutes-- 'le taureau triste' his friends used to call him.”

Maupassant is considered a father of the modern short story. Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that along "with Chekhov, Maupassant is the greatest master of the short story in world literature. He is not a naturalist like Zola; to him, physiological processes do not constitute the basis of human actions, although the influence of the environment is manifested in his prose. In many respects, Maupassant's naturalism is Schopenhauerian anthropological pessimism, as he is often harsh and merciless when it comes to depicting human nature. He owes most to Flaubert, from whom he learned to use a concise and measured style and to establish a distance towards the object of narration." He delighted in clever plotting, and served as a model for Somerset Maugham and O. Henry in this respect. One of his famous short stories, "The Necklace", was imitated with a twist by Maugham ("Mr Know-All", "A String of Beads"). Henry James's "Paste" adapts another story of his with a similar title, "The Jewels".

Taking his cue from Balzac, Maupassant wrote comfortably in both the high-realist and fantastic modes; stories and novels such as "L'Héritage" and Bel-Ami aim to recreate Third Republic France in a realistic way, whereas many of the short stories (notably "Le Horla" and "Qui sait?") describe apparently supernatural phenomena.

His editor, Victor Havard, commissioned him to write more stories, and Maupassant continued to produce them efficiently and frequently. His second novel, Bel-Ami, which came out in 1885, had thirty-seven printings in four months. Then, he wrote what many consider his greatest novel, Pierre et Jean (1888).

The supernatural in Maupassant, however, is often implicitly a symptom of the protagonists' troubled minds; Maupassant was fascinated by the burgeoning discipline of psychiatry, and attended the public lectures of Jean-Martin Charcot between 1885 and 1886.

In his later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and paranoia of persecution caused by the syphilis he had contracted in his youth. It has been suggested that his brother, Hervé, also suffered from syphilis and that the disease may have been congenital. On 2 January 1892, Maupassant tried to take his own life by cutting his throat; he was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris, where he died on 6 July 1893 from syphilis.

Maupassant penned his own epitaph: "I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing." He is buried in Section 26 of the Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris.

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