Maupassant's Inhibited Narrators

Abstract

Maupassant was opposed to censorship of literature, and his chroniques mock his contemporaries hypocritical refusal to acknowledge and name known realities, notably sexual. He is, however, well aware of, and exploits in his chroniques, the humorous possibilities that euphemism and ellipsis can create. His stories show him varying the pattern one might normally expect (a narrator telling a tale to a willing narratee) to construct both narratees shocked by what they hear, and narrators hesitant to tell. This can be exploited to create effects of tension and comedy, notably in the more grivois tales written for Gil Blas, and can also be elaborated to create thematic density in the tale, to link frame and embedded story (La Bûche), to provide narrative complexity (Un sage), or to develop a complex series of tellings and retellings (La Rouille, Le Remplaçant) where a fundamentally simple anecdote is developed into complex verbal and narrative play.