The Delusory Denouement and Other Strategies in Maupassant's Fantastic Tales
Tzvetan Todorov's seminal work, Introduction a la litterature fantastique, establishes the fantastic as a genre, defining it as a hesitation between the supernatural and the uncanny. The supernatural, like fantasy, deals with an “unreal” world, a world not defined in terms of the laws we know. In the world of the supernatural, frogs can turn into princes at the touch of the beautiful princess, and princesses can be awakened by the kiss of a heroic prince. The domain of the supernatural, then, is the realm of the fairy tale, of fantasy literature, in which the author's creative imagination knows no ground rules, no restraints in spinning the tale for the reader's delectation.1
On the other hand, the uncanny abides by the rules and laws of the order we know. It is firmly rooted in phenomena which could actually occur, representing an event which is strange, yet plausible. The word Todorov uses for the uncanny is l'etrange, which is literally translated as strange. The uncanny is just that, strange yet plausible. It could occur although it is a phenomenon which should not normally be brought into the open light of public attention.
The fantastic is the bridge between the supernatural and the uncanny—it is the moment of hesitation the reader undergoes before classifying the text's events as belonging to the realm of the supernatural or the uncanny. Charles Grivel comments on the nature of this hesitation, the paradox inherent in the fantastic, and the close ties between the genre and narrative logic:
Le fantastique designe une feinte de la raison narrative: quelque chose est pose qui m'en est donne. Tout tient, dans le fantastique, a ce paradoxe dubitatif, ace trouble ephemere, a cette hesitation localisee: une impossible cause a ete invoquee, et ce qu'on m'en dit conforte son apparition. Cette indetermination ou je suis, ce suspens d'un ordre evident nie par tout aussi evident que lui rattache a son existence et m'en detache aussi.
(27)2
The questions which concern us in this study are: How do texts create the atmosphere of the fantastic? How do they represent the rupture into the well-ordered universe? How is traditional narrative logic subverted to encourage the presence, albeit ephemeral, of another kind of logic?3
The process of identification plays a central role in producing the fantastic. The reasons for this importance are rather self-evident: the reader actively participates in the work, continually interpreting actions, trying to classify them (i.e., Do they respect the laws of reality, or are they governed by another order, one with which we are unfamiliar?). Involving the readers emotionally in the narrative allows the author to catch them off-guard. That is, one is caught up in the action and is surprised along with the characters by the sudden eruption of an inexplicable occurrence. Consequently, the moment of shock, of hesitation, caused by this abrupt action is felt by the reader along with the characters in the text. (S)he is participating in the action with the characters, forming images with them and, as such, experiencing shock along with them. Therefore, identification is a crucial criterion for producing the fantastic. To successfully evoke the fantastic, all the components of the text must work together to elicit identification and participation.
Authors working in the fantastic often choose the short story in order to overcome the problems of retaining identification and suspense posed by longer works. In the short story, the task of sustaining the readers' attention and of building suspense is facilitated—when assured that curiosity regarding the denouement will be satisfied within a short period of time, we are less likely to read ahead or to lose interest.
In discussing fantastic production, Todorov singles out Maupassant's texts as the last aesthetically satisfying examples of the fantastic (174-75). Although the veracity of the adjective last is debatable, Maupassant's fantastic work is undeniably aesthetically pleasing, and a study of it would help to understand the art of the fantastic tale.4 Roger Bozzetto gives an eloquent description of the diversity of Maupassant's work:
Il tente de cerner la diversite de la realite sociale par la multiplicite des sujets traites et des formes pour l'aborder. Ses nouvelles fantastiques: “La Peur,” “Sur l'eau,” “La Chevelure,” “Le Horla,” “Lettre d'un fou ou Qui sait?” presenteront la meme diversite formelle que celle de ses nouvelles “realistes”: journal intime, lettre, recits enchasses, ou cas singulier … Elles renverront a des themes que l'ecrivain aborde de biais dans ses textes realistes: l'obsession, l'angoisse, la folie, la peur ou le double. … Tout l'impact de la rencontre avec “l'impossible et pourtant la” passe par la construction de la nouvelle, trajet chaque fois original, qui rend compte d'un regard affole plus que d'evenements extraordinaires.
(81-82)
Maupassant transforms daily preoccupations and objects into a web encasing the characters and the readers in a feeling of disquieting strangeness. In this study, we will examine the method surrounding those objects—the process through which Maupassant transforms the familiar into the strange. In discussing his technique, the same questions should be kept in mind as for the fantastic in general: How does Maupassant create the atmosphere of the fantastic? How does he represent the rupture into the well-defined universe? How does he create and maintain tension and identification? Finally, what techniques are used to prolong the eerie feeling for the reader after the denouement?5
In fact, a kind of delusory denouement, a conclusion which is not one, is set up in order to avoid a return to the fantastic/marvelous or fantastic/uncanny after the end.6 In discussing examples of what he calls the pure fantastic proper, Carroll emphasizes the need to leave the reader wavering between interpretations. In reference to The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, he explains:
… the book supports two alternative readings: a supernatural one and a naturalistic one—the latter explaining the anomalous events in the story psychologically; the former accepting those events as real. The astute reader realizes that neither of these interpretations is conclusive, and, therefore, vacillates or hesitates between them. For Todorov, this vacillation or hesitation between supernatural and naturalistic explanations is the hallmark of the fantastic.
(145)
Maupassant creates texts which vacillate between the domains of the supernatural (the merveilleux or the marvelous) and the naturalistic (the etrange or the uncanny). His fantastic short stories can function as case studies of how to create and prolong the fantastic throughout the reading and how to end the tale in the realm of the fantastic, never giving full reliance on an “explanation” of narrative events.
In general, Maupassant's fantastic short stories are exactly that—short. He does not spend paragraphs or pages giving descriptions which are not directly relevant to his narrative. The stories, then, are short enough to be finished in a brief period of time. The reader is not tempted to put down the text; the emotional experience is completed in one sitting. In most cases, Maupassant provides a frame which firmly implants the narrative in reality. For example, in “Magnetisme” (1882) and “Reves” (1882), friends unite for dinner, then tell stories to each other, stories which they declare to be true. In “Magnetisme” (97-101), the stories return to the frame at the end, with the narrators explaining the strange occurrences as coincidences. In “Reves” (103-07), the friends recount strange dreams which are attributed to the use of ether.
Discussions between two people are also used to base the tale in reality. In “Sur l'Eau” (1876), the narrator describes a night spent alone on a boat as a result of his anchor having lodged itself under a heavy object. All his efforts to free himself proving fruitless, he is forced to await aid from a passerby. During the night, he witnesses strange noises and experiences the odd sensation of no longer being alone in his boat. With the morning sun, he finds that, in fact, he is alone, yet an eerie feeling lingers. With the help of two passing fishermen, he manages to liberate the anchor. When it surfaces, they spy a black mass—undoubtedly the same mass which has blocked the anchor throughout the night. The mass reveals itself as the cadaver of an old woman with a huge stone around her neck. This revelation, “C'etait le cadavre d'une vieille femme qui avait une grosse pierre au cou,” stands alone as a paragraph and the last sentence of the tale. Since the tale is narrated in chronological order, the reader has no prior clue of the outcome. Instead, he lives the story along with the narrator, as a witness to his increasingly uneasy sensations. With the arrival of the corpse, the reader retrospectively considers the emotions of the narrator and, having no further explanation, is left with a feeling of unease himself. In this instance, then, Maupassant's refusal to return to the frame, to the discussion between the narrator and the narratee, lends added eeriness to his tale.
Although Maupassant usually prefers first-person narration to elicit the reader's identification, he sometimes uses third-person narration in his fantastic tales. Even in the latter cases, however, the narrator is not omniscient—he serves more to set and describe the scene from a seemingly objective point of view. A closer look at this third-person narration shows that the apparent objectivity is deceptive, for the main character is described in a way that builds empathy for him. Consider, as an example, “L'Auberge” (257-70). In this story, a young man becomes prey to his heightened imagination upon finding himself alone during the winter months in an auberge in the Alps. The narrator sets the scene, describing the inn as “pareille a toutes les hotelleries de bois plantees dans les hautes Alpes” (257). The resort is thus established as possessing no unnatural, no uncanny powers. When we meet the young Ulrich Kunzi, who is about to spend his first winter as caretaker, we see that he is “un grand Suisse aux longues jambes” (258). He is, thus, young and healthy, but his good fortune does not end here, for the owner's daughter “le regardait venir, semblait l'appeler d'un oeil triste” (258). As they part for the winter, he takes advantage of the ceremonial good-bye kiss to whisper in her ear: “N'oubliez point ceux d'en-haut” (259). The narrator has established Ulrich not only as fortunate in health, but also blessed with the hope of future companionship.
After the family's departure, Ulrich's life with his fellow caretaker, old Gaspard Hari, is recounted in a way that evokes a calm, orderly existence. They live like prisoners, yet are consoled by the other's presence: “… etant tous deux calmes et placides. Jamais meme ils n'avaient d'impatiences, de mauvaise humeur, ni de paroles aigres, car ils avaient fait provision de resination pour cet hivernage sur les sommets” (261). Up to this point, the style of the tale is slow and calm, with rather long sentences and few exclamatory remarks.
This calm, however, will transform itself into shorter sentences, into stronger and more emotional verbs accompanied by exclamations. The cause of the change is a sudden, irrevocable solitude confronting Ulrich. The old guide Gaspard leaves on a day's hunting excursion; Ulrich suffers adverse reactions almost immediately upon rising: “… il dejeuna lentement … puis il se sentit triste, effraye meme de la solitude …” (262). Later in the afternoon, he goes to join Gaspard, but does not see the small black spot he seeks in the white world of the mountain. He returns home in hopes his elder will have preceded him, but is disappointed. He begins to worry, to imagine mishaps. The narration gives no privileged insights to the reader; instead, Ulrich's thoughts are transferred to the page:
Gaspard avait pu se casser une jambe, tomber dans un trou, faire un faux pas qui lui avait tordu la cheville. Et il restait etendu dans la neige, saisi, raidi par le froid, l'ame en detresse, perdu, criant peutetre au secours, appelant de toute la force de sa gorge dans le silence de la nuit.
(263)
With these fantasies of disaster, of frustration, of crying out into the silence of the night, the reader too wonders what has happened, for we have come to empathize with the young guide and feel unease along with him.
After the disappearance of Gaspard, the tension rises. The sentences become short, often exclamatory or interrogative. Much as was the case with his first-person narrations, Maupassant directly asks the reader questions: “Avaitil reve? Etait-ce un de ces appels bizarres qua traversent les raves des ames inquietes?” (265). The questions are those Ulrich poses himself, but they also cause us to hesitate. We ask ourselves if Ulrich dreamed he has heard Gaspard calling out, or if there is a possibility of their souls communicating.
The interrogatives are accompanied by negative descriptions of solitude and by verbs in adjectival form which express fright. These passages convey the loneliness, the fear, the haunting visions caused by extreme solitude.
… il se sentait fremissant et apeure.
(265)
Ulrich ne dormit guere, l'esprit hante de visions, les membres secoues de frissons.
(265)
Il pensa soudain qu'il allait aussi mourir de froid dans cette solitude, et l'epouvante de cette mort …
(265)
Ulrich's growing panic and his obsession regarding Gaspard's cry, are eloquently expressed through repetition of the words seul and audessus in the following passage:
Et il se sentait seul, le miserable, comme aucun homme n'avait jamais ete seul! Il etait seul dans cet immense desert de neige, seul a deux mille metres au-dessus de la terre habitee, au-dessus des maisons humaines, au-dessus de la vie qua s'agite, bruit et palpite, seul dans le ciel glace!
(265)
The word miserable is used only once, yet the entire passage expresses his panic regarding his solitude, his existence above and away from all human life. He is more alone than any man has ever been—alone, alone—two thousand meters above all humanity.7
The inevitable happens—Ulrich begins to drink heavily, which only adds to his heightened imagination. He accidentally lets the dog outside, and the cries become reality. Ulrich, however, can no longer reason and never comprehends the origin of the sounds. Earlier, the dog seemed to be going insane like his master, and his master was becoming like an animal: “Et le chien, qui semblait devenir fou comme son maitre … Il marchait maintenant dans sa demeure ainsi qu'une bete en cage …” (268). Now that he is trapped outside, the dog begins to wail. Ulrich, still imagining the moans to be from Gaspard, answers only with cries and wailings of his own. “Mais celui du dehors poussait maintenant de grands gemissements lubugres auxquels le jeune homme se mit a repondre par des gemissements pareils” (269).
Throughout the text, the reader has been identifying with Ulrich. In the beginning, he is young, strong and has promise for the future. In other words, we can put ourselves in his place with no resulting discomfort. When sudden unexpected solitude causes him to begin hallucinating, we hesitate along with him. We ask ourselves the origin of the noises; we grow uneasy and nervous along with him; but, somewhere along the way, our identification changes to empathy, then to sympathy alone. That is, the text elicits participation and identification, but it can only drag the reader so far down the path to insanity. Instead, it chooses to give an explanation just before Ulrich goes over the brink—it informs us that Sam (the dog) ran out the open door, unnoticed by Ulrich. This is one of the few occasions in which the reader possesses more information than Ulrich; the knowledge allows us to remove ourselves somewhat from the text. What follows can only be witnessed with pity and sympathy—our own sense of humanity and sanity does not allow us to imagine ourselves behaving as animals. On the other hand, we have witnessed Ulrich's gradual loss of sanity and we can believe that he has undergone a transformation to an animal-like state.
The last details of Ulrich's strange experience are: “Il se reveilla sans un souvenir, sans une pensee, comme si toute sa tete se fut videe pendant ce sommeil accable. Il avait faim, il mangea” (269). Ulrich has been deprived of thought, of that capacity which separates man from animal. He is left with the basic instincts of survival, like an animal. At this point, we find a series of periods running across the page to separate sharply the text. Conversely, the transition at the beginning had been very subtle—the two guides escorted the family to the edge of the mountain and returned together. What followed was recounted in a gradual sense, adding more and more tension until the climax, the death of Sam. Just before his death, both the dog and his master reach the height of panic:
L'un tournait sans cesse autour de la maison et fouillait la muraille de ses ongles avec tant de force qu'il semblait vouloir la demolir; l'autre, au-dedans, suivant tous ses mouvements, courbe, l'oreille collee contre la pierre, et il repondait a tous ses appels par d'epouvantables cris.
(269)
The passage consists of two independent clauses of equal length, connected by a semi-colon rather than separated by a period. Thus, a rapport is established between the animal of the first clause and the man of the second. Suddenly, an abrupt calm arises: “Un soir, Ulrich n'entendit plus rien; et il s'assit tellement brise de fatigue qu'il s'endormit aussitot” (269). The key words here are: rien, brisk, fatigue, s'endormit—the dog has died; the sounds have ceased. Yet Ulrich no longer lives in the usual sense. He hears nothing; he is broken from fatigue. Nothing is left for him but to sleep and eat. Consequently, a calmness has been returned suddenly to the text. Yet, its calm seems unnatural—it is void of all action, just as Ulrich's mind is void of thought.
Next, we find Ulrich's awakening (“il se reveilla sans un souvenir”) which is followed immediately by the abrupt separation in the text. This division serves to emphasize the contrast between the indirect frame of the beginning and the marked difference of the return to reality. At the beginning, life continued after the departure of the Hauser family. At the end, however, life cannot continue as before for anyone, particularly for Ulrich and Louise Hauser. The division, then, allows for the oft-found return to reality and explanation of the bizarre occurrences.
In many of Maupassant's short stories, this explanation comes from a qualified interpreter of psychoses, a doctor in a mental clinic. Such is the case in the first version of “Le Horla,” one of his best known fantastic tales. Two versions of the story exist—the first published on October 26, 1886, and the second in 1887. In the first version, the narrator relates strange occurrences which happened to him. He recounts the visit of a being he refers to as the Horla, a sort of invisible vampire which nourishes itself from the breath of its victims while they sleep, and which only drinks water and sometimes milk. The story is told to a group of eight specialists:
Le Docteur Marrande, le plus illustre et le plus eminent des alienistes, avait prie trois de ses confreres et quatre savants, s'occupant de sciences naturelies, de venir passer une heure chez lui, dans la maison de sante qu'il dirigeait, pour leur montrer un de leurs malades.
(271)
The patient tells his tale to the specialists, adding details and proof of its reality. He reads an excerpt from a newspaper from Rio de Janeiro:
Les habitants de plusieurs villages se sont sauves abandonnant leurs terres et leurs maisons et se pretendant poursuivis et manges par des vampires invisibles qui se nourrissent de leur souffle pendant leur sommeil et qui ne boiraient, en outre, que de l'eau, et quelquefois du lait!
(279-80)
Thus, the existence of these strange beings is documented in newspapers as a phenomenon which has reproduced itself in other parts of the world. This fact adds another dimension to the tale and roots it in reality. That is, the narrator has not been alone in his suffering; the existence of others in a similar predicament adds more possibility of truth rather than insanity.
The narrator also calls on doctor Marrande to testify to the veracity of his story:
Trois de mes voisins, a present, sont atteints comme je l'etais. Est-ce vrai? Le medecin repondit: “C'est vrai!” Vous leur avez conseille de laisser de l'eau et du lait chaque nuit dans leur chambre pour voir si ces liquides disparaissaient. Ils l'ont fait. Ces liquides ont-il disparu comme chez moi? Le medecin repondit avec une gravite solennelle: “ils ont disparu.”
(278)
The unfortunate man, with proof from newspapers and the testimony of the doctor, establishes himself not as a paranoid schizophrenic but as a harbinger of the arrival of new life: “Donc, messieurs, un Etre, un Etre nouveau, qui sans doute se multipliera bientot comme nous nous sommes multiplies, vient d'apparaitre sur la terre” (278).
The narrator concludes that the mysterious Being must have arrived on a Brazilian ship which he had seen pass near his house a few days before his woes began. He ends with: “Je n'ai plus rien a ajouter, Messieurs” (280).
Doctor Marrande finishes the story with a final remark which serves as narrative closure and as a final note of credibility:
Le Docteur Marrande se leva et murmura: “Moi non plus. Je ne sais pas si cet homme est fou ou si nous le sommes tousles deux … ou si … si notre successeur est reellement arrive.”
(280)
The tale, thus, ends as it began—with remarks by Doctor Marrande to his colleagues. This frame serves to root the narrative in reality particularly because the Doctor, whom we presume to be sane and rational, implicates himself in the story. He admits that he doesn't know whether the man is insane or if they both are, for he has seen the proof that others have experienced the same misfortunes as the patient. The patient, through his calm way of recounting the circumstances, also helps to root the story in reality for, other than experiencing these strange happenings, he has not acted in an irrational manner. After witnessing proof of the existence of the creature, he closes himself up in a clinic, presumably to escape the Being.
The documented proof adds yet another note of the fantastic since proving the Being's existence also implies acceptance of a reality governed by rules other than the ones to which we are accustomed. The world, thus defined, would belong to the supernatural or science fiction. The reader once again hesitates, then, between the supernatural and the uncanny.
In the second version of “Le Horla,” however, the victim does not remain rational—he even sets fire to his house in order to kill his tormentor. He acts so quickly that he forgets his servants, sending them to a fiery death along with Le Horla. Unlike the first version, no frame exists—instead, we are presented with a journal. Since the victim is either dead or past the point of reasonable explanations, he cannot tell his own story retrospectively. We must, therefore, begin where his experience begins in order to appreciate his growing panic and torture. The last lines of the text are: “Non … non … sans aucun doute, sans aucun doute … il n'est pas mort … Alors … alors … il va donc falloir que je me tue, moi! …” (308). We do not know, then, if the narrator has committed suicide; we do not know how or where his journal was procured; we do not receive a learned interpretation from a doctor. No other narratee is placed between the narrator and the reader. The journal begins on May 8, a day described in the following way: “Quelle journee admirable! J'ai passe toute la matinee etendu sur l'herbe, devant ma maison, sous l'enorme platane qui la couvre, l'abrite et l'ombrage tout entiere” (281). Unlike the narrator in the first version, who begins his story afterwards in a mental clinic, this narrative starts at the beginning. The scene is a calm one; the narrator, tranquil and happy with his life.
At the onset of the strange occurrences, however, the pace of the text changes. We find question marks and dashes setting off the recurrent question:—Pourquoi—? The victim's surprise at his condition is registered through short exclamations and hesitations:
Je suis malade, decidement! Je me portais si bien le mois dernier! … Aucun changement!
(283)
A peine entre, je donne deux tours de clef, et je pousse les verrous; j'ai peur … de quoi? … Je ne redoutais rien jusqu'ici … j'ouvre mes armoires, je regarde sous mon lit; j'ecoute … j'ecoute … Est-ce etrange qu'un simple malaise …
(283)
The suspension points are in the text, serving to show the narrator's growing panic. In the passage, an emphasis is placed on serenity prior to the arrival of L'Etre. Last month, he was doing well; he was afraid of nothing. Now, he checks in his closets and under his bed; he listens anxiously.
At first, the cause of his anxiety is rather nebulous—he feels ill and sad. This change in his mood is prefigured in an indirect way, a way which only becomes obvious after further developments and manifestations of the Being. On May 8, the day of the first entry in the journal, the narrator spent his time watching boats on the Seine. The last paragraph of the entry is: “Apres deux goelettes anglaises, dont le pavilion rouge ondoyait sur le ciel, venait un superbe trois-mats bresilien tout blanc, admirablement propre et luisant. Je le saluai, je ne sais pourquoi, tant ce navire me fit plaisir a voir” (282). This involuntary wave is the first sign of control from an exterior force, but we realize the significance of the sign much later, along with the narrator. Three months after this first entry—three months during which the narrator's mental state becomes gradually more agitated—the reads of a strange epidemic of insanity in Rio de Janeiro: “Une folie, une epidemie de folie, comparable aux demences contagieuses qui atteignirent les peuples d'Europe au moyen age, sevit en ce moment dans la province de San Paolo” (302).
In the first version, credibility had already been added in this way. The narrator, however, had simply shown the doctor a fragment from a newspaper, without naming it. In the second version, the veracity of the phenomenon is further reinforced by naming the paper, the Revue du Monde Scientifique. Consequently, it is no longer a question of just any newspaper, of an article which could still be refuted due to its ambiguity and anonymity. Now we are dealing with a respected, serious, scientific journal. The mere fact that such a journal has run the story discredits any claims of journalistic sensationalism, for science deals only with data that can be gathered, not simply with human-interest stories. If this journal cites the phenomenon, it must exist. The interpretation of the occurrence, however, has been left to the narrator and the reader. Perhaps the reader has forgotten the arrival of the Brazilian ships; if so, the narrator reminds him:
Ah! Ah! je me rappelle, je me rappelle le beau trois-mats bresilien qui passa sous mes fenetres en remontant la Seine, le 8 mai dernier! Je le trouvai si joli, si blanc, si gai! L'Etre etait dessus, venant de la-bas, ou sa race etait nee! Et il m'a vu! Il a vu ma demeure blanche aussi; et il a saute du navire sur la rive. Oh! mon Dieu!
(302)
Thus we see, along with the narrator, the origin of the strange creature as well as the moment of the rupture of the inexplicable into the well-ordered world. That is, the narrator experiences strange sensations almost immediately upon seeing the ship. On May 12, he writes:
—J'ai un peu de fievre depuis quelques jours; je me sens souffrant, ou plutot je me sens triste.
D'ou viennent ces influences mysterieuses qui changent en decouragement notre bonheur et notre confiance en detresse?
(282)
The calm of the narrator's world has been disrupted, and along with it, ours. The tale began with a journal entry, giving the impression of a sort of voyeurism, letting us peer into someone else's world. This someone else sets himself up as a normal, happy, calm person, but suddenly his mood changes. The reader can understand and identify with the mood change, since everyone experiences periods of anxiety and sadness. This identification cannot be escaped because the narrator addresses us directly in this version, rather than passing through a doctor as intermediary, and asks us the origin of these mysterious influences which change happiness and confidence into despondency and distress.
The narrative strategy for introducing and maintaining the atmosphere of the fantastic in the second version of “Le Horla” is similar, then, to that of “L'Auberge” because, although “L'Auberge” is written in third-person narration, the reader does acquire information along with the young guide, Ulrich. Ulrich's emotions are described to the reader in such a way as to evoke identification. Ulrich begins to experience adverse reactions almost immediately after the onset of his forced solitude; the narrator in “Le Horla” begins to feel anxious and ill almost immediately after sighting a Brazilian three-master on the river near his house. We have seen Ulrich's mounting anxiety and tension, shown through a series of interrogatory and exclamatory phrases. A look at the last two passages discussed will show us how a similar technique is used in “Le Horla.” As he starts to feel ill, the narrator begins to ask questions of the reader: “D'ou viennent ces influences mysterieuses … ?” As the anxiety rises, so does the tension in the text; the sentences become shorter and express more emotion.
We find exclamations of one or two words which begin and end the paragraph in the second passage. (“Ah! Ah! … Oh! mon Dieu!”) Within the quotation, we find that eight of the nine sentences are exclamatory, with four of them consisting of one or two words. The short, exclamatory sentences heighten the tension and the emotion conveyed in the text.
Twenty days elapse between the last two entries in the journal (August 21 and September 10). Separating these two entries is a series of periods like the one dividing “L'Auberge.” After the division, the narrator becomes calmer as he relates the steps taken to kill the Being. His calmness dissipates quickly however as he realizes that he has also imprisoned his servants in the inferno: “Mais un cri, dans la nuit, et deux mansardes s'ouvrirent! J'avais oublie mes domestiques! Je vis leurs faces affolees, et leurs bras qui s'agitaient!” (308). The calm after the division in “Le Horla” is like the eye of the storm; it is a brief respite prior to the crashing violence of the end. Not only has the victim killed all his servants, he is no longer certain he has freed himself from the obsession: “Mort? Peut-etre … son corps? son corps que le jour traversait n'etait-il pas indestructible par les moyens qui tuent les notres?” (308).
The journal ends with the narrator's final realization and resignation that the only path to freedom is to end his own life: “Non … non … sans aucun doute, sans aucun doute … il n'est pas mort … Alors … alors … il va donc falloir que je me tue, moi! …” (308). The narrator has, thus, entered the world of the supernatural, for he totally believes in the existence of the invisible vampire. The reader, on the other hand, is left wondering, wandering in indecision. That is, the twentieth-century reader may not believe in vampires or possession, but space travel has forced him to accept the possibility of life from other planets travelling to Earth. Possible veracity is further reinforced by the article in the Revue du Monde Scientifique. The reader, then, must recognize a certain degree of reality in the narrator's tale, but it still eludes hard and fast categorization. Should the tale be interpreted as uncanny, as obeying the rules of the world as we know it? That is, should we classify the narrator as a paranoid schizophrenic, and call the other manifestations coincidences (as in “Magnetisme” and “Reves”)? Or, does the tale belong to the realm of the supernatural; is it governed by a different set of rules, unknown to us? After all, admitting the existence of creatures superior to human beings is tantamount to admitting another system of hierarchies, or rules of reality. These are the questions which remain with the readers of any century. These are the hesitations which lead us back to THE hesitation which defines the fantastic. The denouement does not fit the classical definition of the term, for we find no solution to the problems set forth by the narrative, no untying of the knots wound by the text. In the place of the traditional resolution, the reader is faced with a delusory denouement, one which leaves her/him mulling over the interpretations left open. Herein lies another key to the aesthetic genius displayed in these texts—the lack of closure which elicits reader response and encourages participation in the creative process.
Notes
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Considerations of a possible relation between superstition and literature and a certain interference between Romanticism and fantastic literature are found in Tobin Siebers, The Romantic Fantastic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984) and Tobin Siebers, The Mirror of Medusa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
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Awareness of the intellectual component integral to the fantastic in French literature is ever-present and implicit throughout Grivel's study. His work therefore is particularly useful to scholars working in comparative studies seeking to delineate the differences between French fantastic literature and that of other national traditions in literature and film.
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General discussions of the fantastic can be found in Eric Rabkin, The Fantastic in Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). For an introduction to the social history of the fantastic, see Jose B. Monleon, A Specter is Haunting Europe. A Sociohistorical Approach to the Fantastic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
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For discussions of Maupassant's fantastic tales, see the chapter entitled “GUY DE MAUPASSANT ou le fantastique a duree limitee,” in Francis Lacassin, Mythologie du fantastique. Les rivages de la nuit (Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1991), 221-234; and Marie-Claire Bancquart, Maupassant conteur fantastique. (Paris: Lettres Modernes Minard, 1976).
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See Allan Pasco, “The Evolution of Maupassant's Supernatural Tales,” Symposium, 21 (1969), 150-59.
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For further study of these terms and their specificity to a delineation of the “pure fantastic proper,” see Todorov, Introduction a la litterature fantastique (Paris: Seuil, 1970), and Carroll, “The Fantastic,” a section inside the chapter “Plotting Horror,” in The Philosophy of Horror (New York: Routledge, 1990), 144-57. In the latter, Carroll shows the relevance of Todorov's theories to scholarship in the 1990s and adroitly describes manifestations of the pure fantastic proper in film and literature.
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Mary Donaldson-Evans discusses the role of solitude/solitary lives in Maupassant's fantastic in A Woman's Revenge. The Chronology of Dispossession in Maupassant's Fiction, (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1986), 75. Her analysis of sexual politics at work throughout Maupassant's fiction is particularly astute and helpful in understanding the underpinnings of his texts.
Works Cited
Bancquart, Marie-Claire. Maupassant conteur fantastique. Paris: Lettres Modernes Minard, 1976.
Bozzutto, Roger. L'Obscur objet d'un savoir. Fantastique et science-fiction: deux littératures de l'imaginaire. Aix en Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence, 1992.
Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror. Routledge, 1990.
Donaldson-Evans, Mary. A Woman's Revenge. The Chronology of Dispossession in Maupassant's Fiction. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1986.
Gordon, Rae Beth. Ornament, Fantasy, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century French Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Grivel, Charles. Fantastique-fiction. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992.
Lacassin, Francis. Mythologie du fantastique. Les rivages de la nuit. Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1991.
Maupassant, Guy de. Contes fantastiques complets. Verviers: Bibliothèque Marabout, 1983.
Rabkin, Eric S. The Fantastic in Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Siebers, Tobin. The Mirror of Medusa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
———. The Romantic Fantastic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Todorov, Tzvetan. Introduction à la littérature fantastique. Paris: Seuil, 1970.
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