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How did Guy de Maupassant's life influence his writing style?
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Guy de Maupassant's writing style was deeply influenced by his pessimistic worldview, shaped by his tumultuous childhood, syphilis, and admiration for disillusioned writers. His Naturalist approach reflected beliefs in the overpowering forces of nature and society. Influences from Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy and Gustave Flaubert’s realism are evident in his work. His stories, like "The Necklace," often carry themes of disillusionment and irony, mirroring his own life's struggles and philosophical outlook.
Guy de Maupassant was a Naturalist writer, and Naturalists were a rather pessimistic set who tended to believe that humanity was subject to forces larger and more powerful than itself: nature, social forces, and so on. His epitaph, which he himself wrote, states, "I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing." I think we can see the man's disillusionment—perhaps the result of his early childhood (with a father who was abusive to his mother), or of the syphilis he contracted when he was a young man, or of his reverence for other writers who experienced similar disillusionment—in this statement.
We can also see this reflected in one of his most popular short stories, "The Necklace ." In this story, a young woman is discontented with her life because she lacks the wealth and status for which she feels she was born. She borrows a diamond necklace from a...
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friend for one special, fancy night, but when she misplaces it, she and her husband must take out thousands in loans in order to replace the necklace. They drain their savings and spend the next ten years working to pay back the loans; they must move to a cheaper apartment, let their help go, and toil away in order to come up with the exorbitant amount needed. After these ten years, the woman sees her friend and tells her the whole story, and the friend reveals that the necklace was an imitation and, consequently, worth very little. We see, then, that the woman's failure to be satisfied with her life and her failure to be honest with her friend both led to her ruin. Now she has fallen even further, made old by her labors and cares. It's an ironic and sad ending. She wanted everything and was never satisfied, much like de Maupassant himself.
Maupassant was strongly influenced by the pessimistic philosophy of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. He declared that Schopenhauer had "stamped mankind with the seal of his disdain and disenchantment... He has upset belief, hope, poetry, fantasy, destroyed aspirations, ravaged confidence, killed love, overthrown the idealistic cult of womanhood, murdered the illusions of the heart, and altogether performed the most gigantic sceptical operation ever carried out. He has riddled everything with his mockery, and drained everything dry."
Maupassant was also strongly influenced by the famous French realist Gustave Flaubert, who was his uncle (and thought by some to be his father). Flaubert's best-known work is the novel "Madame Bovary," in which some of Maupassant's favorite themes can be seen. Flaubert tutored his young nephew vigorously over a long period of time and would not let him publish until he felt satisfied with his work. Flaubert was also cynical and pessimistic about human nature, and this influence can also be seen in Maupassant's style. Maupassant turned out to be a much better writer than Flaubert because the younger man had more talent and more love of life.
Maupassant contracted syphilis as a result of his many romantic liaisons and his later writings show a nihilism and despair which are not seen in his earlier stories. His weird story titled "The Horla" shows his deteriorating mental condition. He published nearly four hundred short stories in his lifetime as well as five novels and a great deal of nonfiction.