Line #11 Creator/GuyDeMaupassant


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maupassant1.jpg]]
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3	Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern ShortStory.
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5	His famous stories include ''Boule de Suif'' (about a stagecoach of refugees in the UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar), ''The Necklace'' (about a woman who loses a borrowed diamond necklace), and ''The Horla'' (a PsychologicalHorror story which was an inspiration to Creator/HPLovecraft, of all people).
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7	!!Works by Guy de Maupassant with their own trope pages include:
8	[[index]]
9	* "Literature/TheNecklace"
10	* "Literature/TheDiaryOfAMadman"
11	* "Literature/SimonsPapa"
12	[[/index]]
13
14	!!See also
15	* ''Film/LePlaisir'', French film anthology adapting three of his stories
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17	!!Maupassant's works provide examples of:
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19	* AmbitionIsEvil: ''Bel Ami''
20	* BigBeautifulWoman: The title character of "Boule de Suif" (a rough translation would be "Butterball"); the unnamed Italian woman in "Idylle".
21	* BuryYourDisabled: The title character in "The Blind Man" freezes to death after being abandoned in winter by his family.
22	* CosmicHorrorStory: "The Horla".
23	* CreepySouvenir: "The Hand" is about a hunter who cut off the arm of his enemy, dried it in the sun, and hung it in his living room. Later, the man is found dead, with marks on his neck showing he was strangled... and the hand in the living room is missing.
24	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: The protagonist of "The Horla" [[spoiler: eventually sets fire to his house while the titular creature is "trapped" inside. [[HopeSpot He believes he's won against it]], but then feel its presence again...]]
25	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: The protagonist at the end of "The Horla".]]
26	* EiffelTowerEffect: Maupassant, like many other artists of his time, loathed the Eiffel Tower and reportedly quipped that it hosted his favorite restaurant, the only one in Paris where he didn't have to see it.
27	* EldritchAbomination: The titular Horla. It's an invisible being that [[VampiricDraining drains]] human vitality, causing intense fevers and insomnia, with the protagonist experiencing a chilling feeling of BeingWatched and having something sit on his chest. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that Brazilian peasants are experiencing the exact same things and are desperately fleeing their homes]].
28	* EvilHand: "The Hand".
29	* FoodPorn: "The Legend of Mont St. Michel" and every other short story.
30	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: The title character in "Boule de Suif".
31	** Also Rachel, who kills a DepravedBisexual Prussian officer in Mademoiselle Fifi
32	* KillItWithFire:
33	** At the end of "The Horla", the narrator [[spoiler:sets his house on fire to get rid of the invisible creature. He then feels that the creature is still there.]]
34	** The title character of "Mother Savage" [[spoiler:sets her house on fire to kill the young Prussian soldiers quartered with her after she learns of her son's death in the war]].
35	* KnifeThrowingAct: "The Artist" concerns a circus knife thrower who wants to kill his wife. It is hinted that he might do this by feigning an accident while she acts as his target girl. The twist is that he finds this impossible because he has trained himself so well that his reflexes prevent it.
36	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: A trademark of his horror stories, whose protagonists are often AuthorAvatar (such that the RealitySubtext of them losing their grip of reality as they succumb to mental illness is ''really'' severe). Indeed, many critics interpret them as straightforward psychological studies where the notion that the ghosts and creatures are literally real should not be seriously entertained beyond a surface reading.
37	* MustBeInvited: The protagonist of "The Horla" waves to a Brazilian three-mast ship, kickstarting the plot by inviting the Horla into his house.
38	* NothingIsScarier: Invoked in many of his stories like "The Fear".
39	* RapeAsDrama: In ''Boule de Suif'', Boule de Suif is forced by the other passengers into sleeping with the officer so he will allow the coach to continue on. No-one so much as thanks her for this.
40	* RealAfterAll: [[spoiler: It's heavily implied the Horla is real and it's not just the protagonist going insane]].
41	* SelfPlagiarism: He wrote two versions of "The Horla" and the severed hand.
42	* ShotgunWedding: In "Les Sabots" ("the clogs" -- "mixing our clogs" being an euphemism for "having sex"), a young naive servant is pregnant of her fifty-five years old master. The story ends with the announcement of their wedding.
43	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Very much on the side of cynicism, much like his mentor Creator/GustaveFlaubert. Most of his work involves venal or dimwitted characters trapped in unhappy situations, making their and other people's life worse, [[DownerEnding Downer Endings]] or situations where TheBadGuysWin.
44	* SocialClimber: George Duroy, the title character of "Bel-Ami". A handsome but otherwise talentless opportunist, he manages to gets an increasingly privileged position within the small bourgeois world of Parisian journalism, [[BehindEveryGreatMan mostly thanks to the support of his various mistresses]]. The novel ends with him successfully plotting a divorce and a lucrative second marriage, and entertaining the idea of getting into politics.
45	* StormInATeacup: A rare case of this trope being PlayedForDrama is found in "Literature/TheNecklace". The borrowed diamond necklace, which the protagonist spends a decade paying after losing it, turns out to have been faux jewelry.
46	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: "The Horla". [[spoiler: Except that the protagonist's experiments to determine if he's insane or not, and the reports of Brazilian peasants experiencing the same symptoms, imply that the protagonist might not be mad]].
47	* UngratefulBastard: All the other passengers in "Boule de Suif".
48	* UnreliableNarrator: "The Horla".
49	* WriteWhatYouKnow: A lot of his stories takes place in his native Normandy region, and/or involves French bourgeois society he was familiar with. Several of them have also been analyzed as reflecting his own issues with mental illness, most notably "The Horla".

Context Creator / GuyDeMaupassant