The figure of the ‘Horla’ in Guy de Maupassant’s short stories: from isolation and alienation to annihilation

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the crisis Maupassant’s self-isolating bachelors face when the separation they initially sought from their peers becomes stifling isolation. As the noose of loneliness slowly tightens around them, their own house becomes the scene of terrific visions: the loners, unaccustomed to company, hear footsteps, and are soon confronted by a ghostly Other (le Horla), a recurring figure in many of his fantastic tales. The essay argues that in Guy de Maupassant’s short stories, the paradoxical and liminal figure of the bachelor and his Double, the Horla, crystallize the crisis of masculine identity at the end of the nineteenth century. The Horla appears as more than a fantastic trope. It is an expression of the anxiety associated with shifts in gender roles, and the inability of Maupassant's bachelors to connect with others. Following the journey of broken men who end up inhabiting no liveable psychic or social place, this essay shows that Maupassant’s bachelor-protagonists become ‘hors-là’.