Variegated points of view: focalization in Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

Abstract

Maupassant learned very early that art and talent are achieved through the look as Flaubert had taught him. In Bel-Ami (1885) the central point to the author is to transmit in a vivid way, using a narrator, the metamorphosis of an ambitious young man, and is also to show, especially using focalization, his growing capacity for love, social and material matters. More than telling a story, Maupassant shows to his reader the looks on the hero, looks that cross and reflect themselves explicitly and constantly along the narrative and through which the character reveals and situates himself in the reality sorrounding him.