6. Ironies and reversals

‘Ironies and reversals’ explores how the tradition of ironic reversal, which is indelibly associated with Guy de Maupassant, still remains alive and well as the short story’s defining feature. Relentless irony opens in the gap between what people want and what they get. An ironic twist, a reversal, a moral or psychological settlement round off the action and provide a satisfying sense of technical completeness and the pleasure of poetic justice or an irony of fate. Sometimes even reversals can be reversed or new ironies devised at the last minute. And sometimes twists in the plot can come in the middle and even at the very beginning, only fully understood in retrospect.

La Représentation du local, de l’universel et de la réalité dans Rue la Poudrière, Le Voile de Draupadi et Le Sari vert d’Ananda Devi

<p>This doctoral thesis, written in French and entitled « La Représentation du local, de l’universel et de la réalité dans Rue la Poudrière, Le Voile de Draupadi et Le Sari vert d’Ananda Devi », is an in-depth historico-sociological analysis of Mauritian writer Ananda Devi’s three novels published in 1988, 1993 and 2009 respectively. Having Mauritius as their background, these three novels introduce themes such as slavery, the trans-oceanic experience of Indian indentured labourers, prostitution, rape, domestic violence and homicide, through female protagonists in Rue la Poudrière and Le Voile de Draupadi, and a male protagonist in Le Sari vert. Existing research on Devi’s work concentrates mostly on the plight of women, who are victims of a Mauritian patriarchal society. Moving away from this approach, my research focuses on the spatial, historical and sociological dimensions in order to closely analyse the surroundings of the characters. The first focus of this research is to see whether these three novels exclusively allude to Mauritian society or also deal with universal concepts. The second focus is to determine the degree of realism of these three fictional works. Thus, the overall focus of this research is to scrutinise the degree of particularism, universalisation and realism in the geographical, historical and social dimensions of the novels. I begin with a brief presentation of Ananda Devi and her place in Mauritian literature. Then, I explain the objectives of the thesis and introduce my methodologies, which include the theories of Tzvetan Todorov and Jean-Marc Moura used to analyse the local and universal aspects, and the theories of Guy de Maupassant, Roland Barthes, Maureen Ramsden, Vincent Jouve, Michael Riffaterre, Mark Sainsbury, Névine El Nossery used to frame the examination of realism. Sociological theories of Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton are also elaborated, to support the analysis of the social dimension. In order to better scrutinise the historical dimension of the novels, I have used the work of Mauritian and international historians as well as Mauritian and international governmental reports. Khal Torabully’s notion of coolitude is also discussed to evaluate how different ethnic groups are represented in the novels. I have in addition coined the term “le rêve mauricien”, in relation to the social dimension of the novels. Finally, I conclude with issues of realism, the local, the universal and fiction.</p>

La Représentation du local, de l’universel et de la réalité dans Rue la Poudrière, Le Voile de Draupadi et Le Sari vert d’Ananda Devi

<p>This doctoral thesis, written in French and entitled « La Représentation du local, de l’universel et de la réalité dans Rue la Poudrière, Le Voile de Draupadi et Le Sari vert d’Ananda Devi », is an in-depth historico-sociological analysis of Mauritian writer Ananda Devi’s three novels published in 1988, 1993 and 2009 respectively. Having Mauritius as their background, these three novels introduce themes such as slavery, the trans-oceanic experience of Indian indentured labourers, prostitution, rape, domestic violence and homicide, through female protagonists in Rue la Poudrière and Le Voile de Draupadi, and a male protagonist in Le Sari vert. Existing research on Devi’s work concentrates mostly on the plight of women, who are victims of a Mauritian patriarchal society. Moving away from this approach, my research focuses on the spatial, historical and sociological dimensions in order to closely analyse the surroundings of the characters. The first focus of this research is to see whether these three novels exclusively allude to Mauritian society or also deal with universal concepts. The second focus is to determine the degree of realism of these three fictional works. Thus, the overall focus of this research is to scrutinise the degree of particularism, universalisation and realism in the geographical, historical and social dimensions of the novels. I begin with a brief presentation of Ananda Devi and her place in Mauritian literature. Then, I explain the objectives of the thesis and introduce my methodologies, which include the theories of Tzvetan Todorov and Jean-Marc Moura used to analyse the local and universal aspects, and the theories of Guy de Maupassant, Roland Barthes, Maureen Ramsden, Vincent Jouve, Michael Riffaterre, Mark Sainsbury, Névine El Nossery used to frame the examination of realism. Sociological theories of Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton are also elaborated, to support the analysis of the social dimension. In order to better scrutinise the historical dimension of the novels, I have used the work of Mauritian and international historians as well as Mauritian and international governmental reports. Khal Torabully’s notion of coolitude is also discussed to evaluate how different ethnic groups are represented in the novels. I have in addition coined the term “le rêve mauricien”, in relation to the social dimension of the novels. Finally, I conclude with issues of realism, the local, the universal and fiction.</p>

A forma é o real: Flaubert lido por Baudelaire e Maupassant

O romance Madame Bovary, de Gustave Flaubert, quanto à sua influência, extrapola os limites de gêneros, épocas e movimentos literários e chega à contemporaneidade na posição de obra paradigmática tanto da inconversibilidade do real pela literatura quanto da irredutibilidade do literário a realidades pré-existentes. O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que os escritores Charles Baudelaire e Guy de Maupassant ressaltam, em textos críticos sobre Madame Bovary, o formalismo e a impessoalidade da narrativa como recursos que instauram a imanência da obra e problematizam a pertença do autor à escola realista. O retorno a essas críticas pode lançar luz sobre experimentações estéticas posteriores em que a representação interroga o estatuto do documento e da referencialidade externa.

A loucura entre nós: A epidemia em O Horla, de Guy de Maupassant, e na política atual do novo coronavírus

Através do estudo da vertente fantástica no escritor francês Guy de Maupassant, o presente artigo se dispõe a analisar a presença do tema da epidemia em sua novela O Horla, produção de grande importância em meio ao seu rico repertório literário. Em um paralelo com a obra, será abordada a atual pandemia de coronavírus, em um estudo de diferentes medidas adotadas por países que se destacaram no combate ao vírus. Enquanto alguns governos tiveram resultados encorajadores desde o início do surto da doença, outros apresentaram diversos problemas na contenção do vírus, que revelou deficiências profundas na liderança de certas nações. Em uma abordagem intimista, a obra de Maupassant traz um ser de fora que ameaça a segurança de seu personagem, em um fenômeno que ele identifica como uma epidemia de loucura que, na narrativa, teria origem no Brasil. Na atualidade, essa passagem ganha vida na maneira como certos países lidaram com a crise em suas mãos. Tendo como estratégia presidencial um negacionismo extremo, esse fenômeno se mostrou bastante presente em governos como os do Brasil e dos EUA, que se apoiaram em um discurso cada vez mais distanciado da perspectiva científica. Em meio ao caos surgido da atual pandemia, O Horla mostra seu caráter atemporal.

Kajian Ekranisasi Hautot Père et Fils Karya Guy de Maupassant

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membahas proses ekranisasi cerpen Hautot Père et Fils yang di dalamnya terdapat proses penambahan, penciutan, dan perubahan variasi. Ekranisasi adalah proses pelayarputihan. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif dengan analisis deskriptif. Objek penelitian ini berupa alur, penokohan, dan latar. Hasil penelitian terdapat 32 proses ekranisasi, dengan kategori aspek penciutan sebanyak 9, aspek penambahan sebanyak 7, dan aspek perubahan variasi sebanyak 15. Hasil penelitian tersebut menunjukan aspek perubahan variasi paling banyak terjadi. Perubahan variasi terbanyak pada unsur tokoh namun secara keseluruhan variasi yang dilakukan masih wajar karena tidak jauh melenceng dari penggambaran dalam cerpen. Sedangkan, pada unsur alur yang paling banyak proses ekranisasi dengan total 13. Dari perubahan alur tersebut dalam cerpen tidak menampilkan semua latar yang ada dalam film sehingga film hanya menampilkan latar-latar yang dianggap penting dan secara keseluruhan latar yang ditampilkan dalam film sudah mewakili cerita pada setiap bagian dalam film. Kata Kunci: cerpen, ekranisasi, film

“Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane” (Maurice Marie Émile Leblanc before 1905)

Some of the works of Maurice Leblanc are considered in the article, who is one of the creators of the French classic detective, written between 1890 and 1905 (before the publication of the first novel about the adventures of "gentleman-cambrioleur" by Arsène Lupin). The influence of Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant and Gustave Flaubert is combined with an appeal to Breton legends and erotic motives popular in the “Belle Époque”. The image of a bicycle, a car and the cult of speed associated with them, anticipating the plot dynamics of Lupinian in these works is analysed. On the example of Leblanc's short stories, published in a number of newspapers in the mid-1890s to early 1900s, the gradual maturation of criminal narrative in his work is shown. Among the problems raised in the article – Leblanc's reaction to the ideas of anarchism and the potential influence on the image of Arsène Lupin of the personality of the famous anarchist Marius Jacob as well as the influence of the work of Ernest William Hornung (the creator of the character of A. J. Raffles, the "Amateur Cracksman").

The International Dimension of “The Death of the Lion”

This essay reconsiders some critically established ‘germs’ for Henry James’s “The Death of the Lion” (1894), traced back to the 1893 demise of Guy de Maupassant and to the latter’s only visit to England in the summer of 1886. On that occasion, Maupassant was ‘chaperoned’ by his American friend Blanche Roosevelt, a well-known literary journalist in the London and Paris circles. The unexplored connection with Roosevelt invites a new reading which gives prominence to the American woman character in the tale (Fanny Hurter) and unveils an international subtheme within it. In light of such a reading, as well as of authoritative studies which have analyzed “The Death of the Lion” against the rise of modern literary journalism, I will also re-examine the role of the first-person narrator, an unnamed ‘repented’ literary journalist, in thwarting the possible relation between Neil Paraday and his American admirer.

Occurrences et dénonciation des « idées reçues » dans la création nouvellesque de Guy de Maupassant

In this essay I intend to show how Maupassant turned his short stories into a denouncement area of the ‘inherited ideas’, which mean commonly accepted ideas, such as those included by Flaubert in his Dictionary of inherited ideas. In this part of Maupassant’s literary work, the syntagm ‘inherited ideas’ acquires several different meanings, such as: some commonplace topics of the French bourgeoisie, the hasty taking up of fashionable words, attitudes, or cultural clichés, which one may come across in everyday life, the tendency of accepting as unchallenged some social, moral or religious prejudices, or foolish beliefs and unjust statements, authoritatively uttered by ordinary people. I’ll also emphasize the manner Maupassant treated the ‘inherited ideas’ by his ironical hints and the narrator’s affective implication, in spite of his seeming impassibility.