A Sense of Place in Maupassant's Vendetta

A Sense of Place in Maupassant's Vendetta

In the story “Vendetta”, Guy de Maupassant evoked a sense of place by

describing the setting of the story in the beginning of the text. He

describes the house of the widow Saverni, and where it was situated.

“A small mean house… Built on a spur of the mountain and in places

actually overhanging the sea”. The setting basically took place in

Corsica.

De Maupassant described the place as having humanlike characteristics

in order to reflect the isolation, the dreariness and the dreadfulness

of the place. “Clinging to the rock, gazing down upon those deadly

straits where scarcely a ship ventures, they look like the nests of

birds of prey…For ever harassed by a restless wind, which sweeps along

the narrow funnel, ravaging the banks on either side…trails of white

foam streaming from them like torn shreds of linen.” The choice of

words are sinister and menacing to set a dark dreary mood to the

story, and preempt the unpleasant things that will happen in the

story.

Unlike in the Vendetta where we picture the story’s setting through

the author’s use of vivid descriptions, in the School Teacher’s Guest

how the story is set is revealed in the plot. “The very evening on

which Riad Halabi had driven into Agua Santa from one side of town,

from the other a group of boys had carried in the body of the

schoolteacher’s son.” It is in this description that we know that the

setting for this story takes place in the small town of Agua Santa.

Both writers also give descriptions on what the place is like and how

community life is. In “The Schoolteacher’s Guest”, it is revealed

through descriptions...

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...e most likely outcome of these two stories;

hence, the need for law and not vigilante justice. In the “Vendetta”,

let’s say Ravolati’s kin finds out what killed their slain brethren,

they would have taken the knife and killed the widow. Also in “The

Schoolteacher’s Guest”, even though the man murdered by the teacher

was a stranger to their community, even if he was “an outsider who no

one really knew”, he might still have family and friends to trace him

and put two and two together, as to his disappearance. The vigilantes

would have faced a reckoning of some sort, and it would become a chain

reaction as the wronged would fight each other, until even those who

are innocent are also harmed. And so, this world wherein vigilante

justice exists is not ideal, and the law is still needed to make sense

of everything around us.