Bonita, Bea Aiziel Clete

AN ANALYSIS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT’S THE HORLA

The use of a first person narration is a very effective way to convey the
character’s feelings toward his present situation. By using such kind of point
of view we can infer that the narrator and the main character in the story is a
same person. Also this first-person technique is a brilliant and effective
method which intensifies more the story’s horror, wherein the readers seem
part of the story and finding themselves as an additional character who are
witnessing the main character’s losing sanity because of an unknown
creature.

The story onsets about eleven o’clock in the morning under an enormous
plantain tree which covers and shades the whole front of the main character’s
house while lying on the grasses that cover it. The location of his house is in
the best position because he can witness on that day a long line of boats
drawn by a steam-tug while emitting thick smoke and followed by a
“magnificent Brazilian three-master vessel in white” as described in the story,
which infers as the beginning of the unexplainable feeling that happens on the
narrator when he unknowingly and innocently salutes the Brazilian ship that
passed by.

This whole story signifies how a person experiences battling on his own
self thus creating an idea that there are many species that are way beyond
people can even imagine. And when one faces this kind of struggles, a person
most likely will turn to what they think is the easiest way of escaping reality
and that is death.
 The plot of the story develops using a journal form style of writing which
adds to the horror factor of the story. Four days after the narrator saluted at
that Brazilian ship he feels like something went off. He suddenly feels feverish
an atrocious one which is hard to explain, why and how did it happened. The
character, as the story progress, seems to be somewhat slowly losing his
sanity for he can not understand what’s behind his malady and the strange
feeling he continuously experiencing in the whole story. At last his words “But
is it I? Is it I? Who could it be? Who? Oh! God! Am I going mad? Who will
save me?”, shows that he is slowly being mentally ill.

The author’s, Guy de Maupasssant, hallmark is the plot twist ending of

his every works. He is also known for his compact style of writing which he
used in this story,The Horla wherein every detail in his work is necessary. The
whole of his work should be well-read in order for the readers to get what the
author is trying to imply. He uses simple and ordinary words which has no
second meaning, it’s simply as how it is presented and used in the story. In
connection to its author many have found, so am I, the similarities of the main
character as to the author himself. Maupassant’s developing illness, like
syphilis, and the theme mental disorder is already present on his early
collection of books published at the height of his health. Also he tried to
commit suicide by cutting his throat thus sending him into a private asylum in
which later where he died. These are another reasons why his story “The
Horla” is most likely pertaining to his own life story.

This story was entitled ‘The Horla’ which is a word of Maupassant’s own
coinage. Derived from the french expresions hors de lui (“outside of himself”)
or hors la (“outside there”). Also ‘horla’ suggests the words horreur (horror),
horrible, and hurler (to howl).The result is to imply that the level of terror in the
story cannot be expressed by ordinary words.