Mademoiselle Fifi

Author: Guy de Maupassant (French, 1850-1893)
Published: 1882
Category: Valour
Text available on: Classic Reader

Summary:
A small group of Prussians occupy a French town, meeting with no resistance from the populace who consider the local priest's daily refusal to ring the church bells sufficient protest to the occupation; until  one day, a dandified, brutal Prussian officer, nicknamed Mademoiselle Fifi by his fellow officers, is murdered by Rachel, a Jewish French prostitute imported from a distant town.


Points of interest:
The title character's nickname came from his personal preference of dandified dress and his constant use of a French phrase 'fi, fi donc'; signifying disgust and a general aversion to his situation and everything around him.

The prostitute's name, Rachel, foreshadows she is not all she seems (see bibical story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah).

Boule de Soif

Author: Guy de Maupassant (French, 1850-1893)
Published: 1880
Category: Hypocrisy
Text available at: Classic Reader

Summary:
A woman of ill-repute generously sacrifices her lunch and her body for the comfort and convenience of nine fellow passengers only to be shunned by them when in need of comfort herself.


Points of interest:
The initial setting is the French town of Rouen as it is being occupied by the Prussian army. de Maupassant's description of the mood of the town and town's people both before and after the occupation paints very vivid pictures.

"But there was something in the air, a something strange and subtle, an intolerable foreign atmosphere like a penetrating odor--the odor of invasion. It permeated dwellings and places of public resort, changed the taste of food, made one imagine one's self in far-distant lands, amid dangerous, barbaric tribes."

The title of the piece, Boule de Soif, is a nickname (Tallow Ball) applied to the protagonist; we first meet her well into the story and she is the only character introduced in a sympathetic light, a clue, along with her name, to her importance to the story. While the protagonist is a courtesan and supposedly debased, 'tallow' is used to make soap and candles (light).

Maupassant does not think well of merchants

"Many a round-paunched citizen, emasculated by years devoted to business..."

the religious

"...sapped by that devouring faith which is the making of martyrs and visionaries." 

"Now, it fell out that many of these [Saints] had committed acts which would be crimes in our eyes, but the Church readily pardons such deeds when they are accomplished for the glory of God or the good of mankind."

or the powerful

"You see, sir, poor folk always help one another; it is the great ones of this world who make war."

The Necklace

Author: Guy de Maupassant (French, 1850-1893)
Published: 1885
Category: Ironic
Text available at: Classic Reader

Summary:
A young woman's longing for a higher place in society nets her, and her husband, a life of drudgery and debt.

Points of interest:
Maupassant gives the source and cause of Mathilde's (Mme. Loisel's) longing in one line:

"She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home."