Le Génie de Guy de Maupassant dans le miroir de Gustave Flaubert

Abstract

Despite the big difference in age between Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant, their friendly relationship remains a unique one in that it develops into a literary relationship that profoundly affects Maupassant’s writing. The first part of this study aims at tracing the evolution of the friendly relationship, a relationship that closely ties up a “master” to his “disciple”. The second part shows that the repetition of the same subjects used by Flaubert, the same situations, the same type of characters, the same ideas, even the same wording are abundant in Maupassant’s literary works Une Vie, Boule de suif and La Parure. The study insists also on showing the influence of the literary theories that Flaubert imposes on Maupassant and that make him a man of image and a master in the art of observation and description.