According to Guy Maupassant, is Realism, Pessimistic - Essay Example

College According to Guy Maupassant, is Realism, pessimistic? Introduction According to literary historians, three tendencies in literature do exist. The first and most common is classism. This is the type of tendency where the writer mainly puts a lot of emphasis on form. The second tendency is romanticism. This is also a widely common tendency in the literary world and is characterized by imagination. The other tendency is realism which is the depiction of life the way that people live it. Realism was adopted from romanticism and became one of the most common tendencies due to its nature of approach. One of the major contributors to realism during the nineteenth s French short story writer Guy Maupassant. Guy is one of the best short story writers and a major champion in the realist writing approach. His writing is characterized by well organized prose as well as clear and ironic forms of presentations. Another key pointer to his works is the clear presentation of the real world in his writing through plot and prose. In his works, Guy adopted a realistic approach to writing and presentation of the physical world, a key factor that led to his fame in the literary world. Born in the 19th century, most of Guy’s writings and stories are set during the Franco-Prussian war period. Even though his works are considered to have a clear view of the physical world, Guy presents his works in a manner that is questionable by many of the literary historians as to the view of Guy to realism. His pessimistic tones and an approach that is cynical make most of his works become clear representatives of naturalism. This paper is a critical review of Maupassant works and in particular Pierre ET Jean to try and look deeply into how he presents his realism and his general view of realism in literary form. In particular, the paper is more concerned with affirming that indeed Guy Maupassant sees and portrays realism as being pessimistic. The main goal of the paper therefore is to find out if realism is pessimistic according to Guy (Hemmings, 87). Pierre ET Jean Jean and Pierre are both sons of Roland Gerome, and Loice. Their father has just retired from the jewelry trade and is now living with his wife and children in their farm. Pierre is a doctor while Jean is a lawyer and both have a happy and successful life based on the societal expectations. However all these changes when Leon a family friend dies and leaves all his inheritance to Jean. At this point, Pierre starts provoking his mother’s fidelity and digs deep for information about his mother’s fidelity and finds a love letter that uncovers all her mother’s infidelity to his father. He constantly uses this to traumatize his mother in front of the family and finally moves in to confront his brother and tell him all about his findings. Jean takes it lightly and instead decides to comfort his mother. By the end of the story, Jean is a successful man while his brother loments in different issues that he can’t solve and gets worse. Guy presents a problem here and two ways in which the problem is approached. According to one of the brothers, he decides to lament and blame his mother frustrating her and making her feel guilty. He actively shows his wrath in front of family members especially during meals, and is not shy of abusing the mother. On the other hand, Jean approaches the problem in a different manner. Instead of blaming her mother for her infidelity, he is supportive and does not blame his mother for everything that that happened. The tone used in this work is pessimistic, when guy presents the general problem, he is pessimistic about the unfaithfulness the mother of the two brothers has. He refers to this ordeal in such a manner that it is destined to fail. The reader instantly feels the bad side of being unfaithful and anyone instantly knows that being unfaithful s indeed bad (Bloom, 32). The introduction of the actual problem of the story by Maupassant draws attention of the reader towards the view of Maupassant. It is evident that Maupassant is pessimistic about the problem which affects most people especially the people around him. Since Maupassant mainly wrote about the actual experiences that he had in life and how they actually affected him, it is conclusive that he was pessimistic about the nature of the world’s problems. Maupassant clearly points out that he is pessimistic towards the real problems of the earth. The other major attribute of the story Pierre ET Jean is the cynical nature of the story. Jean is very pessimistic about life and in the long run ends up messing his own life instead. He thinks that by criticizing his mother for the things that she did years ago then he is definitely making her life worse. In the end, he ends up making his life worse and his mother as much as she is hurt by the things her son does to her is not affected and is later comforted by his other son Jean. After going through so much to oppress his mother, Pierre is the one affected and is not successful as he used to as opposed to his brother. This cynical approach to the story clearly shows that Maupassant believed that life is indeed cynical and that everyone gets exactly what they plant in life. By making the life of another person worse, Pierre ends up messing his own life (Maupassant, 87). The tone that Maupassant used to describe the two brothers is also different. When Maupassant refers to Pierre, he is negative and uses a very pessimistic tone. The reader instantly recognizes that Pierre is doomed to fail. However when referring to jean, he is positive in most cases and even spends most time describing his success in terms of family and wealth. This unfair approach to the two characters shows that the writer is pessimistic about the negative reality of things. He is fast to point out that Jean is indeed a successful man and does not show any success that Pierre has on the other hand. According to the time that the story was written, the topic is very provocative. During the 19th century, many writers and authors wrote about general topics such as war and love. Most of the writers avoided topics that were controversial and that affected most people in the society. As a result of this, writing any topic that affected the general life of people was very uncommon and few writers opted for this. Most writers who attempted this were either prosecuted or were generally mocked as being immoral for thinking so negatively. Maupassant in his work Pierre ET Jean writes on a very provocative topic contrary to the societal expectations. The topic he chose is very common and affects many people in life. He then chooses the solution that most people would take in life. It is evident that if faced with such a situation, most people would opt for the option taken by Pierre. However, few people would follow the overall manner in which Jean took this. It can be conclusive that Pierre wanted to point out a general problem that faced people in reality and give educate people against the obvious step that they would take. This shows that Maupassant knows clearly the actions that most people prefer but he is pessimistic about this and clearly shows it through his writing. The manner in which he presents Jean (the normal person) clearly shows that he is pessimistic about the reality and the choices that people make in reality. One characteristic of a pessimist is his tenderness and sympathy to a person that has done the mistake. In most of his works, Maupassant shows a lot of sympathy to a person who has wronged others and creates a sorry mood for this person. In the end, the hunter becomes the hunted and the character that should be sympathized with ends up being criticized and hated by the reader while the wrong doer is loved by the reader. This is a clear theme in the story Pierre and Jean when the two are compared. The mother is the wrong doer in this case since she lies to her family members including her husband and children. However, the writer does not emphasize on her infidelity rather he only sees the bad thing that Pierre is doing. In the construction of the storyline, Maupassant made it so obvious that he is pessimistic about the actual occurrence of ideas in reality and that he is determined to make the reader support Pierre’s mother even though it is obvious that she is on the wrong. This shows that he is pessimistic about the nature of reality and tries to change the reasoning of people. With this, Maupassant not only diverts the reasoning of the reader but also creates a mood that influences people to view things that are in reality in a different manner. Choosing an unhappy ending for any story clearly points out that the writer is pessimistic about ideas and things in general. In Pierre and Jean, the story does not have a happy ending. It ends with Pierre having a less successful life and is stressed out. The finally ending comes when Pierre departs from where they had been and moves out to the coastline. He finally leaves his family and is in bad terms with both his mother and brother. Even though Jean is successful both in terms of wealth and in love affairs, he still looses the love of his brother and his mother is left wondering about her lost son who left when they were in bad terms. This is a clear depiction of a very bad ending of a piece of literary work. It is therefore obvious that Maupassant is a pessimist about life. Instead of reconciling the two brothers and their mother in the final parts of the story, he opts to end the story in a very bad state meaning that the two brothers may never have a good relationship and the reader is left to fill in this blank for themselves. This clearly points out that Maupassant is pessimistic about the overall reality that faces people on earth. Maupassant can also be seen as pessimistic about reality due to the controversial topics that he chooses to write on. Most of the stories that he chooses to write on have very controversial meanings. He brings out clear problems that affected people in the reality such as fidelity and family life and defines the topic in such a manner that someone reading the work has a different view of how the problem should be solved as opposed to how the problem is solved in the book. For example, in Pierre ET Jean, he clearly brings out the issue of infidelity as it is a major issue affecting most people especially at this point of time. The flow of the story gives out a different approach to choices that people choose in their daily lives. The endings of the story tell a story of failure of nature and depicts that he is a pessimist to reality (Becker, 90). Conclusion From the above, especially emphasizing on the story Pierre ET Jean, it is evident that even though Maupassant is a realist writer who brings out issues as they affect people in the society. Maupassant does not believe in the manner in which people handle different situations in reality and use this to create different ways in which people can choose to make choices. Though a naturalism writer and cynical in most of his approach, these characteristics make him pessimistic to realism and it is acceptable to conclude that Maupassant is pessimistic about realism. Work cited Becker, George J. Documents of Modern Literary Realism. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1963. Print. Bloom, Harold. Guy De Maupassant. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Print. Hemmings, F W. J, and Giovanni Carsaniga. The Age of Realism. Harmondsworth [Eng.: Penguin Books, 1974. Print. Maupassant, Guy , Julie Mead, and Robert Lethbridge. Pierre Et Jean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print. Read More