The Critic is Paul Marx. This story is formed very well it has good structure. it tells about all the people in the story. The people in the story are great people with great bring up and a good background. Basically the story, stated toward the end, is that the one who sparks up and who sparks up and goes out of her way, to stand out will be the most thoughtful person. Indeed, the ladies become even more scornful and “they would have liked to Hi her, or throw her and her drinking cup, her basket, and her provisions out of the coach into the snow of the road below.” Nevertheless they do partake of their food and drink. The Prussian officer who lives at the hotel wants Ball of Fat to go to bed with him but she will have nothing to do with an officer of the enemy. When the journey is resumed, the pillars of society cannot allow themselves to be grateful to the prostitute; instead, their scorn is greater than ever. (Marx 65)
Arthur Symons: “His appeal is genuine, and his skill, of its kind, incontestable. He attracts, as certain men do, by a warm and blunt plausibility. He is so frank, and seems so broad- and is so skillful, and seems so living. We can now be assured that among the stories of Maupassant there are at least twenty or thirty that will not perish.” (Lindquist 9)
The Critic is Albert H. Wallace. Guy de Maupassant’s literary apprenticeship ended in 1880 with the appearance of ‘Boule de suif’ (’Ball of Fat’). About eight years Maupassant dedicated himself totally to his work, a tribute to Flaubert’s influence, and also possibly because of a premonition of how especially desperate was his own race with time. The great stream of stories, novels, travel accounts, and essays that flowed from his pen in astonishing for its high quality. He has attracted a large and appreciative audience among general readers and critics with his highly developed powers of observation. He is saying that real virtue is something people have; it is not something they talk about. Women characters in Maupassant’s stories monopolize heroic efforts. It was evident to him that conventional morality was shaped in such as to suppress the female in favor of the male. He depicts the situation of the unhappy and undutiful married woman. In his personal life he had the reputation for being a misogynist. Most of his characters are Normandy peasants. Subject to autoscopic hallucinations, pathological loneliness, and suicidal tendencies, reflect some of the pain of struggle with fatal malady. He is continually troubling himself with the question of why mind was given dominion over its own futility, just as the hero of the masterpiece, Pierre and Jean, troubles himself over the absurdity of being forced to accept the unacceptable. Such, for Maupassant, was the profit of giving thought to the meaning of life. That is why he preferred to observe and present what could be seen with the eye. (Wallace 199)
The “Madame Tellier’s Establishment”, is critiqued by Dylan Blackman. And in his review of the story he states the following. Maupassant is regarded as one of the best short story writers of all time; a reputation based on his gift for detailed observation, his sinful prose style, and his incisive characterization. “Madame Tellier’s Establishment’ features a juxtaposition of apparently incongruous elements common in Maupassant’s fiction in this case, prostitution and religion. Although this story is similar to the earlier, much respected “Boule de Suif ‘in its use of prostitutes as characters, “Madame Tellier’s Establishment” is farcical in intent and lighthearted in tone. Nevertheless, it provides a revealing glimpse into human nature in a relatively nonjudgmental portrayal. The story is also distinguished for its revealing depiction of the landscape and people of Normandy, the region of France in which Maupassant was born and raised and for which he retained a lasting roundness. Madame Tellier is the cheerful, popular proprietor of a small-town brothel. Perfectly virtuous herself, she inherited the establishment from an uncle and now runs it with competence and dignity. (Blackman 44)
What I thought about the story was the following. The story begins in the town of Decamp in the French region of Normandy. There the good-natured, virtuous Madeline Tellier operates a popular brothel; its ground floor contains a kind of saloon to accommodate the cruder, more raucous customers, and its upper level is reserved for more sophisticated patrons. The five prostitutes employed by Madame Tellier are each supposed to embody a different female type, so that all of the brothel’s customers may attain their ideal women. There is Fernande, Raphaelle, Louise, Flora, and Rosa la Rosse.
In Virville the group meets Madame’s brother, Monsieur Rivet, who transports them to his home in a rickety wagon. The regular customers of Madame Tellier’s establishment include the most prominent citizens of Decamp, such as Monsieur Poulin, the town’s former mayor, Monsieur Tournevay, a fish-curer, the tax collector, Monsieur Pimpesse, and Monsieur Philippe, the son of a prominent banker. Monsieur Vasse is a judge whose platonic relationship with Madame Tellier has, by the end of the story, transformed into something more. The Critic Morgan Fishstone, states the following. Praised for his observant eye, clear, powerful prose, skillful use of irony, and insightful characterizations, Maupassant is recognized as one of the finest short story writers of all time. Originally published in a collection of anti-war stories by six young writers that was sponsored by such French naturalist writers as Emile Zola, “Boule de Suif’ immediately established its author as a major talent. Its historical context tends the story drama and thematic resonance as well as authenticity, for Maupassant himself served in the Franco-Prussian war, the experience is said to have destroyed his youthful idealism and awakened him to the waste and degradation of war. In juxtaposing the socially condemned practice of position with the glorified ideal of patriotism, Maupassant exposes the shallowness and hypocrisy of those who claim to love their country but behave selfishly and hypocritically when confronted with a difficult situation. Initially controversial for its element of eroticism, “Boule de Suif’ continues to be lauded as a portrait of a turbulent period of French history and as a universally compelling glimpse into human behavior. (Fishstone 5)
The story, which takes place in French during the Franco-Prussian War 1870- 1871, begins with the passage of bedraggled; defeated French troops through the town of Rouen. Soon a great number of Prussian troops arrive and take control of Rouen. The focus then shifts to a group of residents, three married couples, two nuns, a single man named Cornudet, and a prostitute, Elizabeth Rousset, who is called “Boule de Suif,” ball of fat because of her plumpness. The trip takes longer than expected and the passengers grow increasingly hungry, but it seems that no one has thought to bring food. Eventually Boule de Suif unpacks a basket of food she has stowed beneath her seat; she shares it with her fellow travelers.
The title character’s name is actually Elizabeth Rousset, she is known by the nickname Boule de Suif, reinforcing the concept that she is judged by her appearance and occupation rather than by her real worth. She is short and fat but healthy, looking and attractive, with a ruddy, shiny face, dark eyes, and a sensuous mouth. Boule de Suif also reveals her basic kindness and generosity when she shares the sumptuous contents of her food basket with her fellow passengers, which seems to win their approval.
On the night of January 2, 1892, Maupassant made an unsuccessful attempt at taking his own life. On the 7th of January he was interned at Dr. Blanche’s mental hospital in Passy, near his beloved Seine. Maupassant captured in his art the timeless joys and tragedies of human existing work have received the imprimatur of the French literary establishment, publication in the prestigious Pleiades edition. Maupassant captured in his art the timeless joys and tragedies of human existence, and his characters, as recognizable today as they were one hundred years ago, have withstood the test of timeistence, the test of time ten months. He knew a terrifying succession of hallucination, seizures, convulsions, and attacks of delirium. He died on July 6, 1893, at the age of forty-two, of third-stage syphilis.
Its creative life was cut short by a degenerative condition stemming from syphilis, which he had contracted as a young man. The disease led to recurrent problems with emotional collapse. Struggling with bouts of debilitating mental illness, Maupassant attempted suicide in 1892 and was subsequently confined to a sanatorium in Passy, where he died.
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