“A Vendetta” by Guy de Maupassant

‘A Vendetta’ is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant pre 1914. ‘A Vendetta’ is set in Bonifacio, Corsica and is about a man who was savagely murdered and his mother swore over his dead body she would seek revenge.

After an argument, Nicolas Ravolati murders Antoine Saverini by stabbing him in the back. When his mother sees her son’s dead body for the first time, brought to her house by passers by, she sheds no tears however it is now that she swears she will avenge him. The old woman knows that she is too old and weak to carry out the murder herself. One night while Frisky the dog howled she was suddenly inspired. For three months she trained Frisky to kill by mistreating and aggravating her as a result of starving Frisky of food. When the old woman feels Frisky is fully trained she hitches a lift across the strait to the Island of Sardinia with a Sardinian Fisherman. For the duration of the trip across to the Island of Sardinia the old woman teases Frisky with a sausage to excite her. When they reach the island she enquires where Nicolas Ravolati is. She finds him working in the back of his workshop. She set Frisky on him. Frisky ripped his throat to ribbons killing him. That night the old woman and Frisky slept soundly knowing that she had avenged her son keeping her promise.

The moral of this story is ‘A dog really is a mans best friend’ because it is the dog who commits the murder to avenge his master.

Although Guy de Maupassant is not a brilliant storywriter, he is a superb storyteller. He crams ‘A Vendetta’ full of descriptive writing giving the reader a better understanding of where the story is set and the characters that are in the story. The first two paragraphs only describe Bonifacio, where ‘A Vendetta’ is set. Maupassant gives a very negative image to Bonifacio, describing its ‘ramparts’ and on its ‘bristling reefs’. By using dramatic imagery he manages to give the impression that Bonifacio is a very dangerous and unwelcoming place.

I like Maupassants use of similes especially ‘They look like the nests of wild birds clinging to the rock looking down on this dangerous channel’. This helps the reader to visualise the Mountain side.

Maupassant is good at using imagery in a very powerful way. The Imagery in the first two paragraphs

Maupassant uses personification, ‘The wind harasses the sea remorselessly’ because it is as if the sea has got a life of its own. Harasses is very strong language an this sentence conjures up a feeling of storms, thunder and lighting, again portraying that Bonifacio is a dangerous place.

The two main characters in ‘A Vendetta’ are the old woman and Frisky. They both have very distinctive features. The old woman comes across very old and frail with not much longer to live, ‘her wrinkled hand’, ‘the old woman’, ‘with not much longer to live’, ‘she prayed that her poor worn out body might have the strength to avenge her son’. Under the weak and wrinkled body of the old woman, there is a violent and stubborn side to the old woman, ‘She refused anyone to let anyone to stay with her’ and ‘I will avenge you son’. Frisky has had a very bloody life ‘as a gun-dog’, and it gets a lot worse as the old woman starves her ‘a great raw-boned bitch’, of food. Frisky is a black, bristly, longhaired of the sheep dog breed.

It was ironic that she should go to confession knowing that what she was doing was wrong. It was strange that she was to go to confession before she carried out this devious crime.

‘A Piece of String’ is also a short story written by Guy de Maupassant pre 1914. ‘A Piece of String’ is set in Goderville and is based on a man called Master Hauchecorne who is wrongly accused of keeping a black leather wallet that he found, containing five hundreds francs, some business papers. Master Malandain witnessed Hauchecorne, picking up something, which he believed to be the lost wallet. Malandaine and Hauchecorn had never been friends after a feud over a head-stall. Master Hauchecorne was actually picking up a piece of string, he thought it would be worthwhile picking up anything that could come in useful. He pleads his innocence but not a soul believes him. The wallet was actually found by another man. Unable to read though, he took the wallet back to an employer who could. The man then returned the wallet with its content back to Master Houlbreque. Master Hauchecorne was still being accused of stealing the wallet and getting an accomplice to return it. As Hauchecorne told his story to the public, they were fascinated but unwilling to believe him as his story became more elaborate and exaggerated. Towards the end of December he grew ill. He died in early January sill protesting his innocence.

The moral of this story is ‘Honesty is the best policy’ because he elaborated and changed his story so many times people didn’t believe him.

‘A Piece of String’ is again not a great story however Maupassant makes it a good story. ‘A piece of string’ is not a descriptive or as well written as ‘A Vendetta’. Immediately you get the feeling, Goderville is a much more pleasant and communal town than Bonifacio. Maupassant does this by not using language as dramatic as ‘A Vendetta’.

‘In a Piece of String’ a Maupassant uses the simile ‘out round the men’s bony frames like inflated balloons, with a head, two arms and two legs sticking out’. This conjures up an image of deformed men.

There is hardly any personification except for ‘issuded out of the fireplace’ as if it were throwing heat out.

Master Hauchecorne comes across as a thrifty person who doesn’t like spending much money, ‘it was always worth while picking up anything that might come in useful’. He is also a liar and a vain person as he plays on his story of what really happened, ‘making it longer every day, adding fresh arguments at every telling’.

It is ironic that the man that found the wallet couldn’t read, because there was a time lapse before the wallet was returned, the mayor thought that he could have been set up as an accomplice.

The similarities between the two stories are that Maupassant sets the scene for the both of the stories using very descriptive writing giving the reader a clearer understanding of the characters in both stories and the setting for the story. Both stories have a desire for revenge. Both stories end very flat. In ‘A Vendetta’ the story ends by the Frisky killing Nicolas Ravolati and then being able to get a goods nights sleep again. In ‘A Piece of String’ Master Hauchecorne just dies. They both end in bed.

The differences between the two stories are that both stories are set in different towns and Bonifacio is a much more dangerous and uninviting town because there seems to be a lot of murders in Bonifacio, ‘Antoine Saverini was buried the next day, he was soon forgotten in Bonifacio’. Goderville is far more inviting and warm because it is more of a community, ‘for it was market day’. The inhabitants of Goderville are meet at the market and they had meals together, where as in Bonifacio, the inhabitants keep themselves to themselves. There’s no evidence in the story that the inhabitants are very friendly. With Bonifacio being close to the sea their line of work involves fishing. In ‘A Vendetta’ the old woman hitches a lift across the strait with a Sardinian Fisherman. In Goderville they live simple lives and work as agricultural farmers. ‘A vendetta’ is written about a woman and ‘A Piece of String’ is written about a man. The woman is awfully determined to avenge her son and the man is

In ‘A Vendetta’, I have sympathy on Frisky because no one should treat an animal like the old woman did. For this reason I don’t feel much sympathy for the old woman. In the beginning of the story I did feel sorry for the old woman due to the lose of her son. Her son was really her only friend.

In ‘A Piece of String’ I felt sympathy for Master Hauchecorne because he was wrongly accused of stealing the wallet when it wasn’t him at all plus how the mayor believed Master Malandain over him as it was his word against Master Malandain’s.