She is a "marchande d'amour", her marchandise being her body. Maupassant uses the social order and scandal to unearth the heart of his characters through their interactions with each other. Exposition is the scene of the retreat of the French army and the occupation of Rouen by Prussian soldiers. He had no wish to be a prose Verlaine. After the war he joined the literary circle headed by Gustave Flaubert. The title character, Boule de Suif, is unwilling to do something that is against her own understanding of right and wrong—sleeping with the Prussian commandant—to appease her companions. Today: The battle over creationism and evolution rages on, with one side defending evolution on the basis of scientific knowledge and the other side defending creationism on the basis of faith. In the following essay, the critic argues that de Maupassant's writing is dazzling but lacks imagination. Il y a eu un rejet des personnages vers Élisabeth. Rather than invest his money to increase his wealth, he had spent it; rather than work, he had played. Guy de Maupassant is regarded as the best French writer of short stories. It is he, moreover, who makes it possible for the others to accept her food without suffering a loss of dignity in the process. She and her husband, Monsieur Follenvie, run the inn, which has been taken over by Prussians. It seems to be a little smug even in its elaborate cynicism. More than you, yes, I killed more of them than you, more than you" (italics mine) XXIX, 88. It took many decades before anyone was willing to publish his stories of sex, prostitutes, and madness on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Monsieur Loiseau […] Yet, on the other hand, Boule de Suif is easily swayed. Only the epithet "saintes" apparently subverts the equation nuns = prostitutes, and one senses that, in the case of the elder nun at least, it is merely an accident of nature (the disfiguring smallpox) which made of her a "sainte fille en cornette" rather than a "fille" tout court. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Why explore these Bedlams, whether of life or literature? However, when she is the only traveler to produce a basket of food, it is the hungry travelers who eventually dine with her, albeit reluctantly. Rarely do they muster up great courage to defeat a monster. 19–68. In other words, on the basis of the categorical imperative, these choices, by their very nature, forbid individuals to consider any effects they may have on their own happiness. Les hommes avaient la barbe longue et sale, des uniformes en guenilles , et ils avan … As a prostitute Boule de suif is to be bought and consumed, much as one would buy a cutlet from a butcher shop. We assert our intense admiration for much of his work. There are writers who might have taken a story of de Maupassant's and, using it for a mere concrete foundation, might have built upon it the more delicate fabric of the essential story—the intimate spiritual drama which he had either missed or, in the ruthlessness of his animalism, disdained. She served as the posthum…, Boucher De Crèvecoeur De Perthes, Jacques Unfortunately, Boule de Suif, by following two codes of ethics—one utilitarian, the other onto-logical—lands herself in the ethically uncertain apex between these two opposed moral philosophies. But that scarcely is sufficient to justify our admiration for the novel. La nouvelle entière à lieu pendant la guerre d’hiver de 1870. Read texts from Boule de Suif and join the Genius community of scholars to learn the meaning behind the words. As a cyclist at night, he rides down the highway with Dexterity flashing ahead of him like an acetylene lamp. The French were quickly and soundly defeated in multiple battles, due exclusively to the military superiority of the Prussian forces. It should be remembered too that Boule de suif, as a bonapartiste, represents the Empire; by not allowing Cornudet to possess her, she was resisting the Republic. The bourgeois' hypocrisy (represented by the interior-exterior opposition) stems both from their materialism (they would perhaps be given fewer soldiers to feed if they caused no trouble) and from their cowardice ("pourquoi blesser quelqu'un dont on dépendait tout à fait?"). Given this patriotic spin, Cornudet complies, kisses Boule de Suif on the cheek, and returns to his room. The officers in Rouen were comforted by her beauty and presence. Publicado en 1880, su argumento se desarrolla durante la ocupación de Francia en la guerra franco-prusiana de 1870. The latter returns what she takes from life and more, and in so doing she is neither a conventional prostitute nor a conventional human being; she is a woman and a superior human being. As can be discerned from this outline, "Boule de suif" is constructed upon the interplay of three thematic "sub-codes"—the nutritional, the politico-economic and the military—with the main code which is sexual. In its earliest formulation, utilitarianism was simplistic. However, this type of utilitarian behavior is a troubled spouse to an ethic composed of axioms and imperatives. Oddly enough, and as crass as Madame Loiseau's comment may be, this statement is at the crux of Boule de Suif's moral confusion. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. PLOT AND MAJOR CHARACTERS Une diligence fuit Rouen pour Le Havre. Our step falters where he gains assurance. A ce mot nos braves s'enfuient jusqu'au dernier et la place fut entièrement vide. This basic tenet of utilitarianism purports that the ultimate good is simply the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Kant states in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: The practical [application of the categorical] imperative will therefore be the following: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means. Desmarest was the only child of Jean Desmarest, the local schoolteacher, and Marguerite Cl…, Boulding, Kenneth Ewart (1910 – 1993) English Economist, Social Scientist, Writer, and Peace Activist, Boulder College of Massage Therapy: Tabular Data, Boulder College of Massage Therapy: Narrative Description, Boulainvilliers, Henri, Comte de (1658–1722), Bouillon, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, duc de, Boulerice, Hon. This dual emphasis is one of the book's weaknesses. Comte Hubert serves with Monsier Carré-Lamadon on the General Council, representing the Orleanist party. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. (pp. The passage deserves to be quoted in its entirety: La diligence, attelée enfin, attendait devant la porte, tandis qu'une armée de pigeons blancs, rengorgés dans leurs plumes épaisses, avec un œil rose, taché, au milieu, d'un point noir, se promenaient gravement entre les jambes des six chevaux, et cherchaient leur vie dans le crottin fumant qu'ils éparpillaient. Each of the 10 passengers comes from different backgrounds and would likely never interact in another setting. stay inside. The sexual activity of the first night in the hotel had been limited to Cornudet's fruitless attempt to overcome the resistance of Boule de suif and Loiseau's supposed seduction of his wife. Le sobriquet « Boule de Suif » jalonne cette nouvelle. Albert H. Wallace, "Chapter 3: Maupassant's Women: His Mother and His Heroines," in Guy de Maupassant, Twayne's World Authors Series, Twayne Publishers, 1973. In addition, Boule de Suif has several imperatives that she makes her best attempt to stand behind. Les thèmes principaux sont la nourriture, l’argent et la guerre de 1870 qui a beaucoup marquée Maupassant. Composition «Boule de Suif» — classic in the genre of the novel. He cares only for excitement, nor does he reck of what species, tender, morose, or even cruel. "Boule de Suif are the most taking of the country stories, which almost persuade us to unsay the charge we have brought against their author, of hatred of the human race. He runs the inn with his wife, Madame Follenvie. While part of the savagery of this scene may be explained by Maupassant's desire to remain faithful to the tenets of Naturalism, we can also see in it a scarcely veiled Darwinism which is verbalized later in the tale by the count himself: "Il ne faut jamais résister aux gens qui sont les plus forts." More than a mere formula, these words strongly suggest that the nun has been accepted into the sisterhood of all women. As for the other characters, all had prospered under the reign of Napoleon III, and the Second Empire saw, for a time at least, the alliance of two conservative forces, the bourgeoisie and the Church. The disgust of his own species never quits him. She waffles between categorical imperatives and a flexibility that is loosely bound to utilitarian principles. The lady killer, Captain Epivent, was happy to rattle his medals truculently against an enemy who had had the gall to rape his woman and then take her life, and to hurl threats toward Germany in case of any future incursion. C'est cette nouvelle, lue par Flaubert qui lui a valu les éloges du maître que le jeune Maupassant admirait tant. The nuns are dedicated to God. ." Chacun convint du rôle qu'il jouerait, des arguments dont il s'appuierait, des manoeuvres qu'il devrait exécuter. Boule de Suif accepte ainsi de se sacrifier et passe la nuit avec l’officier prussien. This, of course, leaves no concern for the means to the end of the consequence: No examination is given to duty or to what is right or good; the aim is purely targeted on the greatest happiness for the greatest number. And it is in the spirit of Flaubert. It is warm and tender, somewhat given to change perhaps, but as unlike as possible to the nature of the voluptuary, whose fancy swings to and for between Tiberius and the neo-pagans, and whose weary dreams Maupassant chose to delineate with ever-growing earnestness during his brief career. His philosophy was a Parisian cynicism. Note, of course, the exaggeration; but mark also how much truth lurks in the gibe.… Our guide to these heartrending sights is only too competent. Essentially, the Comte's comment is that no one individual should use another person as a means to a desired end. Maupassant's version of the retreat is further corroborated by an eye witness account of the events which took place in Rouen on 4 and 5 December 1870, as described in a letter written by a well-known Rouen citizen, Dr Hellis. Describe her, indeed, we cannot, except by a circumlocution, yet in her degraded but still womanly nature, the oddest notions lurk of the base and the honourable, making her,—poor bedraggled creature,—a sort of heroine, in the 'General Overturn.' LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boule de Suif, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. About Boule de Suif. Ten people fleeing Rouen invaded by the Prussians, Rousset nicknamed ball of tallow among them, give to a Prussian to save other passengers who still despise. Boule de suif adapté par les soviétiques, tsé. Madame de Maupassant's influence upon her son can never be accurately evaluated, for the more one ponders his work the more one is struck with her presence in the character of heroine after heroine. For Cornudet, Boule de suif was la gueuse Marianne, and his desire for her was as great as his desire for the establishment of the Republic, identified in his mind (and in the minds of all of Gambetta's followers) with a French victory over the Prussians. Although it may not have been wholly intended, Boule de Suif's occupation is the catalyst that allows the other passengers to rationalize their coercion. That he loves a joke is much in his favour; and we allow that his laugh has an infectious ring about it which ought to scatter some of our dislike for the self-conscious misanthrope. Upon the English stories, for all their tragic burden, a mild radiance seems to be shed; the great sky, with its stars and sunsets, hangs above us while we move among these men and women, whose thoughts are not invariably bent earthwards, nor their spirit become a tired and fretful beast, dragging the plough with unwilling muscles. pride. Her face is reddish and round with black eyes and large lashes, a small mouth with nice lips, and tiny teeth. Eventually, it became apparent that, at the bare minimum, Maupassant possessed an amazing ability to create characters of great depth and stories of immense clarity, even if the paradoxical protagonist were an immoral, heroic prostitute. Personne ne lui propose quoi que ce soit, tous l’ignorent superbement. He paints and he speaks, not as a religious man,—he is no Frà Angelico,—but calmly, like a citizen of the world. Comtesse Hubert de Bréville is one of the ten travelers bound for Le Havre. Boule de Suif runs herself into this debacle when she is morally troubled by the prospect of sleeping with the enemy to free herself and her companions. This story provides the clearest and most moving presentation of Maupassant's admiration for female strength in times of dire disillusionment. Morality is at stake in Maupassant's tale. To Maupassant, marriage was a form of servitude which the female refused to accept because she recognized it as such, and to which the male submitted while deluding himself with the notion that he was free, the master. The final betrayal of Boule de suif, the arrogance which the bourgeois display as they continue their journey, and their insensitivity and egoism in eating in her presence and without offering her even their leftovers (the nuns wrap up their remaining sausage after having eaten their fill) once again evoke the culinary. In addition, he is a member of the Legion of Honour and the General Council, where he serves with Comte Hubert. All the commandant desires is to conquer Boule de Suif and then let the travelers go ahead with their journey. Maupassant's ingenuity in using a nun to weaken the prostitute's resistance must not be forgotten, and the elder nun's emportement is not unlike Boule de suif's own. The fact that the prostitute is identified with animal fat by her nickname, and that all but one of the travellers lunch on meats (suggestive of Boule de suif's role by the nouns used to characterize them: morceau, gibier, etc.) Boule de Suif is a short, perfectly round, fat little woman with plump, sausage-like fingers, shiny skin, and enormous breasts. During this time, most French troops and many citizens began a steady retreat toward the coast of the English Channel. A scathing satire of bourgeois prejudice and hypocrisy and a compelling snapshot of France during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, 'Boule de Suif' – here presented with five other major stories by the author of Bel Ami – was declared a masterpiece by Flaubert and is … It is the absurdest, yet most touching situation. Although Boule de Suif is an antihero, her promiscuity does lead to her own moral confusion. That anarchic moral returns in Maupassant's stories like a refrain. We are here shown, with singular clearness, the Paris of [Daudet's] 'Les Rois en Exil.' Immanuel Kant's moral argument forms the basis for Guy de Maupassant's Boule de Suif. She allows them in her house, tricks them into her basement from which escape is impossible, and then convinces them that surrendering to the local constabulary, ignominious though it may be, is the wisest choice for them. The magnificent courage and nobility of woman in time of war and defeat inspired what many consider to be his greatest story, Boule de Suif. Boule de Suif is enraged that her companions are so subservient to the occupying Prussians. the Germans. begin to take hold of the city. J'étais là […] j'ai vu arriver nos vainqueurs. In Tôtes, Prussian soldiers greet the passengers at their coach, an event that makes everyone quite nervous. Maupassant’s early story “Boule de Suif,” from 1880, remains a hallmark and a natural starting point. The respectable passengers manipulate and coerce Boule de Suif to commit an immoral act. (p. 497), [In the supernatural sketches of Maupassant] there comes the delineation of maniacal fury, bent on gratifying its cravings in a series of heightened atrocities. The Old Nun is one of the ten passengers on the coach bound for Le Havre. This easy conquest resulted from the Maupassantian conviction that the male is the weaker of the sexes when it comes to achieving the destiny he has set for himself. The nutritional code is present at all levels of the text. However, Maupassant's own talent may be the reason so many critics have turned their backs on his work. Defend your own ethical position in light of your research. Her steady dedication to her purpose is the quality with which Maupassant often endowed his women: it is consistent with his depiction of woman as uniquely capable of the kind of discipline necessary to overcome the greatest obstacles. Unfortunately, the French army did not embrace the rebellion and, under the tacit support of the Prussians, the French soldiers took Paris from the revolutionaries and executed tens of thousands in what was known as Bloody Week. The only sound disturbing the silence of the night had been Follenvie's heavy breathing, "un ronflement puissant, monotone, régulier, un bruit sourd et prolongé avec des tremblements de chaudière sous pression" In contrast, the last night in the hotel is a restless one: Et toute la nuit, dans l'obscurité du corridor coururent comme des frémissements, des bruits légers, à peine sensibles, pareils à des souffles, des effleurements de pieds nus, d'imperceptibles craquements. But she needed men. The thinly veiled sensuality with which Cornudet contemplates his beer, his extreme physical enjoyment of his pipe which is "admirablement culottée […] parfumée, recourbée, luisante, familière à sa main" are but variants upon what one might refer to as the nutritional code, a lexical and metaphoric network which threads its way into every corner of the text and which, as Bourneau has pointed out, is closely affiliated with the sexual. La suif désigne cette graisse animale utilisée pour la confection de produits comme le savon ou bien pour l’assouplissement des cuirs. The main secret of de Maupassant's mere vogue is that he dazzles. Yet neither Boule de Suif nor utilitarianism can be wholly scrutinized without a keen examination of the ontological code of ethics described by Immanuel Kant. All that is revolting in [Zola's 'physiological school']—its suffocating atmosphere and cold analysis,—might be illustrated from 'Boule de Suif.' This collection surveys the response made by artists to the massive upheaval caused by war and revolution in France during the Franco–Prussian War. "You think you're raping the women of France," sneers the proud Rachel to the sadistic Mlle Fifi (Wilhelm d'Eyrik), "As for me! The Old Nun has red, pitted skin from smallpox. And still, bursts of laughter are not wanting; genuine, unforced hilarity, to which the dialect adds a keen flavour, as in 'Une Vente,' and 'Tribunaux Rustiques.' Roger Colet, a rare Maupassant scholar and translator, states in his "Introduction" in Selected Short Stories, "[Maupassant] is the victim, in a sense, of his own perfect art.". With the exception of their physical mobility (which had been effected by the horses and, not coincidentally, by Boule de suif who might be likened to the "pauvre cheval qui ne venait pas volontiers"), the only movement they had ever known had been the vertical movement of their climb through society. Yet given her long evening of pleasing the Prussian commandant and saving her fellow passengers, Boule de Suif has been left with no time to pack food or drink. They want her to sleep with the enemy so they can get back on War was a fact of Maupassant's life. Une Famille typifies a number of stories whose aim is clearly to decry how marriage destroys friendship between old male cronies and to express his repugnance at how the wife is always certain to drag her husband down to her O… Take, for example, Gustave Flaubert or, Maupassant met a bitter demise at the hands of syphilitic infection. During the first night in Tôtes, Cornudet tries to persuade Boule de Suif to sleep with him. Sans tambours ni musique, au pas, graves, silencieux, comme stupéfaits d'un succès aussi inespéré […]. Essentially, actions that one wills to be moral actions, those chosen on the basis of the categorical imperative, must be actions that will effect a proper proportion of happiness to virtue, not only for the person directly involved, but for everyone. «Bola de Sebo» («Boule de Suif») es el título del cuento que encumbró al autor francés Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), quien emplea una sutil ironía para relatar su historia. (p. 494), "It provokes an indictment of human nature. Let us begin, then, with the sexual code. The evening, filled with laughter and bawdy jokes made at the prostitute's expense, is not without orgiastic overtones. Most frequently, he inquires as to whether or not Boule de Suif is yet willing to sleep with him. Comte, as he is referred to in the story, is one of the ten travelers aboard the coach bound for Le Havre. Carter is currently employed as a freelance writer. Throughout the story, Cornudet is in verbal opposition with the respectable men and women with whom he is traveling. That they let themselves be silenced by her is not an indication of respect, however, and the epithets used to describe the prostitute as seen through their eyes ("honte publique", "vendue sans vergogne") make it quite obvious that at this point in the story she is held in low esteem indeed. The rude Norman vigour, the good sense, not quite unencumbered with a certain—shall we say stupidity?—which he inherited from his forefathers, and which ought to have kept him sound and healthy, would have sent him away laughing from lackadaisical poetasters, in whom there is no genius, but only a serious cultivation of aesthetic follies. His theories arose out of the stagnating doctrines of two of the most important philosophic theories: rationalism and empiricism. scene at Tôtes. Boule de Suif's conviction, at first, carries over to her passengers. The Comtesse makes the most of this argument, asserting that no action "could be displeasing to the Lord if the intention was praiseworthy." Rossi, Philip, "Kant's Philosophy of Religion," in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2004 ed., edited by Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/kant-religion/ (accessed December 3, 2004). Their greed and selfish desires propel them into another damaging scandal. While in Tôtes, Boule de Suif could employ her occupation and give back to the world a greater happiness for the greatest number. Many of his horror stories spawned from the impact of a syphilitic infection he contracted during his raucous twenties. Language French The two nuns are simple and spend most of the time praying. It is, finally, with a stroke of malicious irony that Maupassant paints even his supposed aristocrats the same colour as the bourgeois, not only because of their mercenary attitudes, but also by specifying that their nobility had been purchased. During the first leg of the journey, the sophisticated prostitute provided her condescending companions with food and drink when the group was near fainting from hunger. It provokes an indictment of human nature. Finally, the almost obsessive identification, in Maupassant's work, of the sexual with the excretory, finds its echo in this passage, and the repulsion which the travellers display towards Boule de suif on the last lap of the journey indicates clearly that they no longer see in her a saviour, a mère nourricière, but rather a whore who, like the horses' excretions, represents "[un] contact impur" from which they must keep their distance, "comme si elle eût apporté une infection dans ses jupes.". They leave a feeling on the mind not unlike a medieval Dance of Death, painted among cornfields and vineyards. Speaking of "cette chipie", Madame Carré-Lamadon, she laments to her husband, "Tu sais, les femmes, quand ça en tient pour l'uniforme, qu'il soit Français ou bien Prussien, ça leur est, ma foi, bien égal. But unlike the previous nutritional sacrifice, this giving of herself had not been spontaneous; rather it had been wrenched from her through a carefully planned and skilfully executed verbal aggression. Boule de Suif is a prostitute, so originally she is rejected, at least by the women in the group. Boule de Suif accepte ainsi de se sacrifier et passe la nuit avec l’officier prussien. The religious sources are perhaps a little too obvious, but it must be kept in mind that the story came to him as something that had to be written only when he was already hopelessly in the grip of his tragic malady. The calm demeanor and un-flinching resolve of Maupassant's mother inspired early his admiration for woman and caused him to question the myth of male superiority. Maupassant's "Boule de Suif" is not only a sound reflection of retreating France during the Franco–Prussian War, but a resounding exploration of morality and ethics in a divided society. Kant, Immanuel, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by James W. Ellington, Hackett Publishing, 1993, p. 36. Women can deal with a derisive effectiveness above man's capacities, Maupassant believes, because their long-suffering experience as prisoners of male conventions has taught them the mastery of derision. , much as one would buy a cutlet from a decade earlier the of... Parisian political and social boule de suif both before and after the War he joined the literary circle by. And clarity of his low-quality wine he looks hungrily upon Boule de Suif carries herself with dignity a! 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