essay

In the short story “Ball-of Fat”, author Guy de Maupassant transfixes the reader in a web of class and political conflicts in the guise of a simple tale of strangers on a journey. The prose is loaded with subtle characterizations which unwind in the course of the story. One almost feels, as the reader, that the plodding carriage ride is pulling us along with it into a zone of moral purgatory. In what may surprise readers, the ethical guiding star of this story turns out to be the prostitute. Here, de Maupassant is both chiding the reader and inviting them to take another look at their preconceptions. The class friction is spelled out in visceral detail through various plot devices as the story progresses. The story wouldn’t function as effectively as it does without the buildup of the first 3 pages, setting the mood of uncertainty and desperation. When we are introduced to the wealthier characters waiting to board the carriage, we find them a blank palimpsest for the reader, a moral neutral. They, very sensibly, wish to escape from an occupied township. The author goads us into accepting the three couples as the normative majority. The counter-balancing, lower class characters are presented almost as an afterthought. From this initial sleight of hand, perceiving them as the ‘other’, the rest of the story becomes a process of removing the gauze, bit by bit, which reveals the true face of the nobles and the reader’s notions. The feast in the carriage is an eloquent and amusing sequence which informs the unsteady balance, the tension between Ball-of-Fat and the monied couples. In a brilliant turn of fate, the author creates an ironic situation in which those who are accustomed to abundance are left wanting.Ball-of-Fat, in demonstrating a generous spirit.reminds us of their base needs and wants. They clearly consider themselves above her and her business activities but are ultimately more than happy to consume her provisions. It would seem that the fellow travellers are consuming their scruples here, just as they are dispensing with the glazed chicken. The soldiers in the story hold an interesting, if minor, position. While nominally the villains, the officer at the in and his lieutenant aren't worthy of much attention in the narrative. The former comes across as scatty and the latter foppish. Neither seems very imperious in the context. In fact, we get a distinct note of sympathy for the soldiers in the town helping with laundry and housekeeping, demonstrating that this story is much more about class conflict than military conflict. The crux of the story comes with all the maneuvering and conspiring through which the group convinces the prostitute to accommodate the officer at the inn. Here, the true colors of the three couples and the nuns are on display.Far from showing solidarity with someone who has provided for them and shown kindness, they see her as a solution to their problem, a tool to be applied. Once she has been plugged into the equation which they are stuck in, she is worth no more consideration than the horses pulling their conveyance. The ethical minority, the democrat, occupies a curious, detached corner of this drama. By all rights he should support her in her position, if for no other reason than being a patriot, yet he is aloof and detached. We are led to understand that he is more in kind with the propertied class in mentality than the common people who he claims to champion. The image of the conspirators gathering over a large urn of cabbage soup in the kitchen is something of a metaphor here, for the greasy, commoness of their methods. As the reader we are left with the poignant scene of Ball-of-Fat weeping in the carriage as it continues on its way, clearly to the indifference of the couples. What is the point de Maupaassant is making here? It is not just that her generosity of spirit and humanity should be recognized.The larger, more obvious conclusion, drawn across the background is that society’s “betters” are, conversely, of no superior substance to the woman who sells her body. The wine merchant is perhaps closest to the mechanics of her daily affairs: his mirthfulness and his profiting from the vices of the everyday people, yet he seems the most amused by the situation at the inn. Perhaps most galling, the “twist of the knife” that drives home the criticism of stated morals, is the actions of the two sisters. Their voluntary complicity in coercing Ball-of-Fat into accepting the officer’s terms is ugly and duplicitous.