Realism meets the surreal: Exploring the

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Realism Meets the Surreal: Exploring the Supernatural in Guy de Maupassant’s Short Stories
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
- Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (Lovecraft, H. P)
Fear is a primitive human emotion that produces powerful sensations in the mind and
body. In literature, the portrayal of fear can take many forms, from realistic narratives to tales
involving gothic or occult elements. But to understand the psychology of fear—and how anxiety
blooms into a dark flower that is rooted in the mind—a writer must be willing to go beyond the
visible world. In the late Nineteenth century, French writer Guy de Maupassant explored the
nature of fear in a small number of short stories. Known primarily for his realistic portrayals of
life in Paris and Normandy, Maupassant’s tales of the supernatural represent only a fraction of
his work. But it was in these disturbing visions of the unknown that he expanded the framework
of realism to include more than just the visible world. I will discuss two examples from
Maupassant’s Contes et Nouvelles: « Lui?1 » and « Le Horla2. » Both stories exhibit
Maupassant’s unique ability to access the mysterious and unfamiliar while also retaining many
of the precepts associated with realism.
Although the author himself disliked genre labels, Maupassant’s fiction is often
categorized as belonging to the realistic literary movement. He was one of the most popular
French authors of his time. In the United States, more than twenty translations of his work
appeared before 1900. The first American edition of his complete works was published in 1903,
with five more by 1911. His popularity with English speaking readers was also enhanced by
translations and endorsements from such famous writers as Lafcadio Hearn and Henry James.3 In
his introduction to The Odd Number, one of the first collections of Maupassant’s work in
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English, Henry James said of the author: “He is wonderfully concise and direct, yet at the same
time it would be difficult to characterize more vividly. To have color and be sober with it is an
ideal, and this ideal M. de Maupassant constantly touches” (xi). But to the French reader, as
Artine Artinian writes, Maupassant “became, after the turn of the century, a victim of new
fashions in fiction, fashions which set a premium on the psychology of Freud and the manner of
Proust, with the result that Maupassant, the realist, was neglected by most of his
countrymen”(10).
In the mid-1880s, Maupassant began to branch out from narratives that focused on the
society and salon life of Paris and wrote several stories with elements of psychological terror and
themes involving perception outside the realm of the senses. In doing so, he influenced a new
kind of horror story, a « horreur de la realite » (Moore 102). By probing mundane and ordinary
events with a highly subjective and individualistic eye, Maupassant opened the door to a careful
examination of the inner workings of fear. At first glance, these stories of the supernatural appear
to echo the gothic writings of authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, but Maupassant’s stories resist
romantic excess, remaining rooted in the plausible, while also analyzing the workings of the
human mind.
The July 3, 1883 issue of Gil Blas4 published a short story by Maupassant entitled
«
Lui? » [“He?”] It was written under the pseudonym « Maufrigneuse, » which Maupassant
borrowed from a character in Honoré de Balzac's La Comédie humaine.5 « Lui? » is narrated by
Monsieur Raymon, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his decision to marry a woman he
barely knows because of his growing fear of being alone.6 Monsieur Raymon, however, is not an
advocate of the institution of marriage: « Je considère l’accouplement légal comme une bêtise »
(de Maupassant, Guy Contes 852). [“I look upon all legalized cohabitation as utterly stupid”] (de
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Maupassant, Guy Short 968). Despite his reservations, he is still compelled to proceed with his
plans to marry.
M. Raymon’s rash decision is driven by a disturbing experience involving a mysterious
visitor. While returning to his Paris apartment after a walk on a damp autumn night, he opens the
unlocked door to find a man slouched in a chair by the fireplace. Raymon is surprised to see the
stranger and slowly approaches the man, who appears to be asleep: « Qui est-ce? On y voyait peu
d'ailleurs dans la pièce. J'avançai la main pour lui toucher l'épaule !... Je rencontrai le bois du
siège ! Il n'y avait plus personne. Le fauteuil était vide ! Quel sursaut, miséricorde » (856) !
[“Who can it be? I asked myself. I could not see clearly, as the room was rather dark, so I put out
my hand to touch him on the shoulder, and it came in contact with the back of the chair. There
was nobody there; the seat was empty”] (970)! This disturbing hallucination creates a rupture in
M. Raymon’s sense of reality, and he develops a paralyzing fear of seeing this mysterious
stranger again, whom he refers to as « Lui. » Maupassant skillfully creates an eerie environment
that is not populated by haunting specters in the gothic sense: « Je n'ai pas peur des revenants; je
ne crois pas au surnaturel. Je n'ai pas peur des morts ; je crois à l'anéantissement définitif de
chaque être qui disparaît » (853) ! [“I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the
supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total annihilation of every being
that disappears from the face of the earth”] ( 969)! Rather, M. Raymon’s fear grows and
develops because he does not understand it. Maupassant describes what would be called in
modern psychiatric terms a panic attack—overwhelming anxiety created in the mind of the
sufferer that continues to grow because of the constant apprehension that the experience will
occur again. Once the “visitor” in the room is revealed to be nonexistent, M. Raymon begins an
agonizing process of trying to make sense of what has transpired. The visitor is more terrifying
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than a corporeal being because his exact nature is unknown. As a construct within realism, the
transitory nature of the visitor is contradictory to the expected behavior of a character in a
realistic story that is bound by the laws of the natural universe. Maupassant pushes against the
transparent wall of realism, yet does not completely break through into a supernatural story
containing elements of fantasy. Instead, he leaves the possibility open that the phenomenon of
the visitor is a mere hallucination and therefore subject to the constraints of the real world. At the
same time, he also places fear in a dominant role:
Mais voilà qu'en approchant de ma maison une inquiétude étrange me saisit.
J'avais peur de le revoir, lui. Non pas peur de lui, non pas peur de sa présence, à
laquelle je ne croyais point, mais j'avais peur d'un trouble nouveau de mes yeux,
peur de l'hallucination, peur de l'épouvante qui me saisirait. (857)
[But as I got near the house I was seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness once
more; I was afraid of seeing him again. I was not afraid of him, not afraid of his
presence, in which I did not believe, but I was afraid of being deceived again; I
was afraid of some fresh hallucination, afraid lest fear should take possession of
me.] (971)
Monsieur Raymon knows that he will not see the visitor again, but the damage to his
peace of mind cannot be undone. He has been awakened. The knowledge of the possibility of
experiencing this unsettling vision again is what fuels the engine of fear. Maupassant also creates
a disturbance between the conscious and unconscious mind by moving the disappearing man out
of the waking world and into M. Raymon’s dreams. The experience becomes more “real” by
continuing to reappear in the non-linear realm of sleep imagery. The reader accepts this because
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the episode could be explained as merely a hallucination followed by related nightmares.
However, even if the mysterious visitor can be explained rationally, the fear that has been
created is now an active force that has taken on a life of its own. The desire to know the true
nature of « Lui, » and the anticipation of a possible reappearance, becomes unbearable: « Il me
hante, c'est fou, mais c'est ainsi. Qui, Il ? Je sais bien qu'il n'existe pas, que ce n'est rien ! Il
n'existe que dans mon appréhension, que dans ma crainte, que dans mon angoisse ! Allons, assez
... » (858)! [“He haunts me; it is very stupid, but so it is. Who and what is HE? I know that he
does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears and in my agony! There—enough
of that”] (972)! M. Raymon comes to the conclusion that to eliminate these awful thoughts, he
must abandon his bachelor life. Trapped in a cycle of fear that intensifies when he is alone, he
believes that by taking a partner into his life, he can find relief.
« Le Horla » is another story by Maupassant concerned with the nature of fear and the
possibility of malignant forces that cannot be clearly identified. Written in the form of a diary,
the un-named diarist lives in a house near the Seine River just outside the town of Rouen. As
with « Lui?,» Maupassant creates a world that is an extrospection of normal life and obeys all the
associated rules of a realistic narrative framework. The break with normalcy occurs when a
« venait un superbe troismâts brésilien » (1098) [“splendid three-masted Brazilian”] (1313)
sailing ship floats up the Seine near the diarist’s home. Without understanding why, the man
salutes the gleaming white ship from Brazil as it passes by. Within a few days of the encounter
with the ship, he begins to suffer from a strange illness: « On dirait que l’air, l’air invisible est
plein d’inconnaissables Puissances, dont nous subissons les voisinages mystérieux » (1098). [“It
is as if the air, the unseen air, were full of unknowable powers whose mysterious nearness we
endure”] (1313). Unlike the phantom of « Lui? » which took the form of a sleeping man, this
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unknowable entity is invisible, completely without physical form—yet its effects are even more
powerful, more malignant. Maupassant describes this concept regarding how the five senses are
inadequate to perceive the true nature of the ambient world:
« Comme il est profond, ce mystère de l’Invisible ! Nous ne le pouvons sonder
avec nos sens misérables, avec nos yeux qui ne savent apercevoir ni le trop petit,
ni le trop grand, ni le trop près, ni le trop loin, ni les habitants d’une étoile, ni les
habitants d’une goutte d’eau... avec nos oreilles qui nous trompent, car elles nous
transmettent les vibrations de l’air en notes sonores. » (1098)
[“How deep it is, this mystery of the Invisible! We cannot fathom it with our
miserable senses, with our eyes that perceive neither the too small, nor the too
great, nor the too near, nor the too distant, nor the inhabitants of a star, nor the
inhabitants of a drop of water…with our ears that deceive us, transmitting the
vibrations of the air to us as sonorous sounds.”] (1313)
Something has changed in the diarist—his view of his surroundings has been altered by a
force unseen, yet its influence is both unmistakable and irreversible. Le Horla, as this invisible
creature will be named by the diarist, not only causes anxiety and fear but also begins to actively
interact with the physical world. In «Lui?,» the apparition of the sleeping man does not continue
to re-appear, the mere possibility of a second visitation is enough to compel M. Raymon to seek
the companionship of his fiancée. However, in « Le Horla, » the invisible creature will continue
to interact with the physical world of the diarist.
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In an effort to rid himself of this inscrutable bête noire, the diarist consults a doctor who
recommends a treatment of shower baths and bromide of potassium;7 however, these remedies
do not provide relief from the growing feelings of fear and paranoia. Believing that something
inside his home may be causing the sickness, he leaves Rouen and takes a holiday to the country
town of Avranches, near the Normandy coast. Among the tidal marshlands on the edge of town,
he takes a tour of the famous gothic abbey, Le Mont Saint-Michel:8
« J’entrai dans ce gigantesque bijou de granit, aussi léger qu’une dentelle, couvert
de tours, de sveltes clochetons, où montent des escaliers tordus, et qui lancent
dans le ciel bleu des jours, dans le ciel noir des nuits, leurs têtes bizarres hérissées
de chimères, de diables, de bêtes fantastiques, de fleurs monstrueuses, et reliés
l’un à l’autre par de fines arches ouvragées » (1102)
[“I entered the gigantic granite jewel, as delicate as a piece of lace, pierced
everywhere by towers and airy belfries where twisting stairways climb, towers
and belfries that by day against the blue sky and by night against the dark sky lift
strange heads, bristling with chimeras, devils, fantastic beasts and monstrous
flowers, and are linked together by slender carved arches”] (1315).
By introducing the environment of the gothic abbey, Maupassant creates a setting that
evokes Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto. Written in 1764, Castle of Otranto is generally
regarded as the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely
popular. It tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family. Manfred's sickly son,
Conrad, is about to be married, but is crushed to death before the wedding by a gigantic helmet
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that falls on him from above. This inexplicable event is an example of the macabre events that
distinguish Walpole's story.9 In a similar fashion, Maupassant creates a character that is haunted
by strange circumstances beyond his control. But instead of being crushed to death by a gigantic
helmet, Maupassant’s protagonist is slowly drained of life by a creature he cannot see, hear, or
smell.
Rather than finding a peaceful diversion in the French countryside, the diarist listens as a
gloomy monk who lives at the abbey recounts a local legend about a wandering shepherd and his
strange goats with human faces. Before leaving the abbey, the monk mentions the possibility that
we may share our world with strange creatures that have not yet been discovered by man:
Je repris : « S’il existait sur la terre d’autres êtres que nous, comment ne
les connaîtrions-nous point depuis longtemps ; comment ne les auriezvous pas vus, vous ? Comment ne les aurais-je pas vus, moi ? »
Il répondit : « Est-ce que nous voyons la cent
millième partie de ce qui existe ? » (1102)
[“If,” I went on, “there existed on the earth beings other than ourselves,
why have we not long ago learned to know them; why have you yourself
not seen them? How is it that I have not seen them myself?”
He answered: “Do we see a hundredth-thousandth part of all that exists?”]
(1316)
Unlike the familiar form of a mysterious man in « Lui? », the creature in « Le Horla » has
no form at all. Already part of this world, it can perform many of the same harmful acts as
monsters of romantic fiction but still behave in a manner that is consistent with the precepts of
realism. Maupassant, however, does empower the Horla with similar characteristics to the
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vampire: « Décidément, je suis repris. Mes cauchemars anciens reviennent. Cette nuit, j’ai senti
quelqu’un accroupi sur moi, et qui, sa bouche sur la mienne, buvait ma vie entre mes lèvres. Oui,
il la puisait dans ma gorge, comme aurait fait une sangsue » (1103). [“Last night I felt something
crouching on me, someone who presses his mouth on mine and drinks life from between my lips.
Yes, he sucked it from my throat like a leech”] (1316).
Maupassant utilizes the theme of science by introducing hypnotism as a way to extend
perception into the unseen world. To show how hypnotism is able to alter human behavior in a
similar fashion to the invisible influence of Le Horla, Maupassant has the diarist witness
firsthand the power of hypnotic suggestion. While dining at the home of his cousin, Madame
Sable, he takes part in an experiment performed by Dr. Parent, a notable hypnotist. The Doctor
puts his cousin under a hypnotic spell and places a plain white greeting card in her hand. He then
instructs her to look into the card as if it were a mirror, and report the actions of the diarist who
stands behind her. When Madame Sable reports with complete accuracy the actions of her cousin
in the “mirror’s” reflection while under a hypotonic spell, it once again confirms the diarist’s
suspicion that there are indeed forces at work in our world that cannot be fully understood.
In a final attempt to rid himself of the Horla, the diarist sets fire to his house, hoping to
destroy the creature in the flames. Instead, he merely traps and kills his servants in a destructive
tragedy. His fatalistic conclusion is that Le Horla has survived, and only by committing suicide
can the diarist be set free. Unlike Monsieur Raymon in « Lui, » who concludes that marriage can
provide relief from his obsessive visions, the diarist in « Le Horla » has no such illusions. This
creature is a successor to man, his replacement.
A biographical dimension involving Maupassant’s mental health has become entwined
with his stories about the supernatural such as «Le Horla» and « Lui? ». Maupassant suffered
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from a syphilis infection that began to show its symptoms when the author was about thirty
years old. The disease later caused an increasing mental disorder, and he was finally committed
to a private asylum where he died in July of 1893. Some readers and critics have attributed
Maupassant’s themes of madness in select stories as related to his own mental deterioration.
This was certainly the case in a footnote that appeared with the English language version of
“He” [«Lui?»] in 1903: “It was in this story, that the first gleams of De Maupassant’s
approaching madness became apparent. Thenceforward he began to revel in the strange and
terrible, until his malady had seized him wholly” (De Maupassant, Guy. The Complete 816).
The details of Maupassant’s decent into insanity in real life have been used by some
scholars in both literature and medical science to illustrate the power of the disease to cause
visual hallucinations. Earnest George Akin noted this tendency in some of the literary
criticism regarding Maupassant from the early 20th century: “To the modern school, adept in the
historical and biographical methods of criticism, the “personal” element in Maupassant’s tales of
fear offered a suggestion that was only too obvious. As perhaps an inevitable consequence, they
have almost unfailingly been coupled with the tragic disintegration of their author’s genius”
(186).
Maupassant may have been affected by advanced neurosyphilis, which can cause
dementia, visual hallucinations, and insanity. Symptoms that affect brain functioning usually
occur about 10 - 20 years after a person is first infected with syphilis. It’s important to
note, however, that not everyone who has syphilis will develop these complications (Hook). In
addition, « Lui? » and « Le Horla »were completed several years before Maupassant was
institutionalized, but the notion that his insanity was somehow reflected in certain
short stories has been persistent over the years. In the British Medical Journal Jean Lhermitte
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writes about literature created by authors known to suffer from neurosyphilis: “Guy de
Maupassant, when he described his hallucinations in ‘Le Horla,’ was already stricken with the
same disease ” (434).
One suggestion that Maupassant was fully aware of his creative faculties and not afflicted
with mental disease when he wrote «Le Horla» appears in the pages of Souvenirs sur Guy de
Maupassant, by François Tassart. Written by Maupassant’s former valet, the book contains an
interesting conversation regarding « Le Horla » that Maupassant related to Tassart: « J'ai envoyé
aujourd'hui à Paris le manuscrit du Horla ; avant huit jours vous verrez que tous les journaux
publieront que je suis fou. A leur aise, ma foi, car je suis sain d'esprit, et je savais très bien, en
écrivant cette nouvelle, ce que je faisais » (Tassart, François. Souvenirs). [“To-day I forwarded to
Paris the manuscript of Le Horla; before a week elapses all the papers will publish the fact that I
am mad. It is just as they please, but I am perfectly sane, and knew very well what I was doing,
when writing that tale” (Tassart, François. Recollections, 99-100). Tassart’s recollections about
«Le Horla» seem to indicate that Maupassant may have been fully aware of the effect that his
story would have on readers and that he was not suffering from the ravages of his disease.
For Maupassant, stories such as « Lui? » and « Le Horla » represent a departure from
the realistic narratives that characterize his earlier writing. Regardless of the motivations that led
him to explore the nature of fear, he finds the hidden terror that surrounds our world. Maupassant
has moved from the natural to the supernatural, and set the stage for other writers who will
push further into the dark regions of the human experience.
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Works Cited
Artinian, Artine. “Maupassant as Seen by American and English Writers of Today.” The French
Review 17.1 (1943) 9-14. Print.
Atkin, George Earnest. “The Supernaturalism of Maupassant.” PMLA 42.1 (1927): 185-220.
Print.
De Maupassant, Guy. Contes Et Nouvelles . Ed. Albert-Marie Schmidt. Paris: Éditions Albin
Michel, 1957. Print.
_________________. Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant. Ed. Artine Artinian. New York:
Hanover House, 1955. Print.
_________________. The Complete Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant. Trans. M. Walter
Dunne. New York: Walter J. Black, 1903. Print.
__________________. Thirteen Tales by Guy de Maupassant. Trans. Jonathan Sturges. New
York: Harper & Row, 1917. Print
Hook EW. “Syphilis.” In: Goldman L, Ausiello D, eds. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia,
Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007: chap 340. Print.
Lhermitte, Jean. “Visual Hallucinations of the Self.” The British Medical Journal 1.4704 (1951):
431-434. Print.
Lovecraft, H. P. "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Collected Essays, Vol. 2. Ed. by Joshi, S. T.
New York, NY: Hippocampus Press. 2006. Print.
Moore, Olin H. “Literary Relationships of Guy De Maupassant.” Modern Philology 15.11
(1918): 645-662. Print.
Tassart, François. Recollections of Guy de Maupassant by His Valet François. Trans. Mina
Round. London: John Lane, 1912. Print.
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Tassart, François. Souvenirs sur Guy de Maupassant. Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1911. Print.
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Notes
1
Michael J. Cummings writes that the original French title ("Lui?") is a personal pronoun that may mean he, him,
her, it, to him, to her, or to it. In Maupassant's story, Lui refers to the figure the narrator sees in a chair, as in the
following passage:
« J'AVAIS PEUR DE LE REVOIR, LUI. NON PAS PEUR DE LUI, NON PAS PEUR DE SA PRESENCE, A
LAQUELLE JE NE CROYAIS POINT, MAIS J'AVAIS PEUR D'UN TROUBLE NOUVEAU DE MES YEUX,
PEUR DE L'HALLUCINATION, PEUR DE L'EPOUVANTE QUI ME SAISIRAIT.»
[I WAS AFRAID OF SEEING HIM AGAIN. I WAS NOT AFRAID OF HIM, NOT AFRAID OF HIS
PRESENCE, IN WHICH I DID NOT BELIEVE; BUT I WAS AFRAID OF BEING DECEIVED AGAIN. I WAS
AFRAID OF SOME FRESH HALLUCINATION, AFRAID LEST FEAR SHOULD TAKE POSSESSION OF
ME.] The title has been translated in English as "He?" most frequently, but also sometimes appears as "The Terror."
2
There are two versions of "Le Horla." The first version (1886) is known as the "premiere version." It is told in the
form of a third-person narrative between the main character and his doctor (Dr. Marranda).
The second version (1887) is a first-person diary. The second version is longer, and contains much more
dramatization and rising action. This version also includes the fire at the end of the story, and the temptation of
suicide. The overall dimensions of the story are stronger in the second version of "Le Horla."
3
Henry James wrote the introduction to The Odd Number, a collection of thirteen tales by Guy de Maupassant
translated into English, in London on August 6, 1889. In his introduction to the book, James expresses his views on
French literature, the differences between the French and Anglo-Saxon world views, and the influence of Flaubert
on the younger Guy de Maupassant. (Flaubert was an acquaintance of de Maupassant’s mother, and helped to
instruct him in the art of writing fiction) He also mentions the common heritage shared between the two great
French authors: “Besides the link of the same literary ideal, Gustave Flaubert has with his young pupil a strong
community of local sense—the sap of the rich old Norman country was in the veins of both.” James goes on to
praises Maupassant as a true master of the short tale: “M. de Maupassant takes his stand on everything that solicits
the sentient creature who lives in his senses; gives the impression of the active, independent observer who is
ashamed of none of his faculties, describes what he sees, renders, with a rare reproduction of tone, what he hears,
and is more anxious to see and to hear than to make sure, in advance, of propping up some particular theory of
things.”
4
Maupassant found himself in demand by French newspapers. Many of his stories made their first appearance in the
paper, “Gil Blas.” From 1880 to 1890, Maupassant published almost 300 short stories.
5
The Duchesse De Maufrigneuse is a salon owner who appears in several volumes of Balzac’s famous collection. In
the Gallery of Antiquities, he explains that: “Her widespread and very important connections protected her for a long
time; but the duchess belonged to the class of women who, without its being known in what way, where, and how
they do it, will spend all the revenues of the earth and those of the moon, if they could get them.”
6
In the 1957 French language collection published by Albin Michel in Paris under the title Contes et Nouvelles, the
story if formatted as a letter written to “A Pierre Decourcelle.” This salutation does not appear in many of the
English translation versions.
7
In the latter half of the 19th century, potassium bromide was used for the calming of seizure and nervous disorders.
It was also widely used by hospitals for epilepsy until Phenobarbital began to appear around 1912.
8
Mont Saint Michel is a monastery built on a rocky islet in Normandy that overlooks the sea. Depending on the
level of the tide, it is accessible by foot or surrounded by water. Construction began in early 8th century, and
construction of additional structures continued despite the difficulty of building on an island only accessible by foot.
During the French Revolution, the abbey was used as a prison.
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Readers from the 18th century were enthralled by the novel’s setting, its use of the occult and medieval themes. The
novel inspired a new genre that became known as ‘Gothic,” due to the Castle of Otranto's setting.