"Am I insane or jealous? I know not which, but I suffer horribly. I committed a crime it is true, but is not insane jealousy, betrayed love, and the terrible pain I endure enough to make anyone commit a crime, without actually being a criminal?"
So speaks the unnamed narrator, the opening lines of Guy de Maupassant's classic short tale. And the question he posses is a good one. We need only think of all the thousands of men and women who have committed an act of violence against the one they loved.
The narrator's next impassioned lines are telling: "I have loved this woman to madness — and yet, is it true? Did I love her? No, no! She owned me body and soul, I was her plaything, she ruled me by her smile, her look, the divine form of her body."
This is precisely the reason I included the above photo of Julie Delpy. The lovely actress embodies Madison Avenue's ideal woman responsible for the beauty industry raking in millions of dollars every year.
Guy de Maupassant's French title, Un fou ?, could be translated as Am I Mad?. Ah, madness - a frequent theme of 19th century literature.
And when is a person judged mad or insane by the standards of society and the law? There appears to be various degrees of insanity. When it comes to the intense feelings a man can have for a woman, or a woman for a man, is there any point where that person can be labeled as insane? Keep in mind the recognition of what Schopenhauer called "the will of the species" taking over one's life for a time, say, from age eighteen to one's early twenties.
When the narrator asks his question, "Tell me, am I insane?" at the conclusion of the tale, how would you answer him?
Link where you can read this de Maupassant short story: https://ia601303.us.archive.org/17/it...
French author Guy de Maupassant, 1950-1993
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