Guy de Maupassant

("Guy de Maupassant - Biography and Works")

According to his mother, Maupassant was born at the Château de Miromesniel, Dieppe in 1850; however, these claims are often times disputed.  The marriage between his parents was very unstable, and when Maupassant was eleven, they separated.  At this time, he lived with his mother, who was a controlling and overbearing woman.  She was always concerned about social appearances and had enduring self-delusions about the past (Barzun and Stade 1758). Her personality and character helped Maupassant create a typical woman archetype and many recurring themes in his writing.  He grew up in Normandy, and his time here helped influence his writings about the Normandy people and the peasant lifestyle (Guy).

In 1869, Maupassant studied law in Paris, where the fashionable lifestyle there affected his writing (Guy).  Many people say that all of Maupassant’s fictional writing was influenced by his life (Barzun and Stade 1759).  Paris is also the setting of “The Necklace,” where the fashionable and vain lifestyle plays a major role in the story.  At the age of twenty, Maupassant enlisted in the Franco-Prussian War, and after this embarrassingly short war, he returned back to Paris (Barzun and Stade 1760).

In 1872, Maupassant served as a civil servant for the Ministry of Martine affairs and the Ministry of Education for eight years (Guy).  The time he spent at the ministries are also incorporated into “The Necklace,” and this is evident because Mathilde’s husband also worked at the ministry.  Maupassant hated working as a civil servant and this is potrayed by the difficult life Mathilde’s husband has in the story. It was during this time that he published his first stories.  In the 1880’s, he prodigiously wrote about 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one book of verse (Guy). 

When he was twenty-six, Maupassant acquired syphilis from a prostitute, which made him crazier and crazier as years went by.  He used to be an athletic and attractive young man, but after acquiring syphilis, it caused hair to fall out and gave him open sores on this body (Barzun and Stade 1761).  Maupassant tried to kill himself by cutting his throat in 1892, and after that incident, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the remaining year of his life (Guy).

Barzun, Jacques, and George Stade, eds.  European Writers: The Romantic Century. New  York: Scribner’s, 1985.

“Guy de Maupassant – Biography and Works.”  The Literature Network.  8 Apr. 2003. <http://www.online-literature.com/maupassant/>.