Karen O’Regan

The Uncanny in Guy de Maupassant’s Toine

In Toine, Guy de Maupassant’s realistic style evokes the familiar images of peasant life only to subvert reality with the uncanny predicament of a paralyzed innkeeper forced to hatch eggs. Initially, the humorous description of rural life entertains the reader as impartial observer. Soon, however, the author’s use of the absurd forces his audience to participate in the creation of the text and reflect on the unresolved denouement.

While the linear narrative begins in a deceptively traditional manner, interpreting the text becomes increasingly problematic as the tale unfolds. An omniscient narrator introduces the characters and the environment that governs their behaviour. As with the rest of the natural world, the peasants’ physical needs are the focus of their lives. Thus, Toine resembles a pig, his wife a bird of prey, and later their friends are compared with a fox and a tree. The dehumanizing descriptions are humorous at first while the reader retains the position of spectator. However, the distance between the observer and the observed soon diminishes.

The reader begins to identify with the characters when they display certain human qualities. The innkeeper is first likeable because of his social nature and his affinity for physical pleasure, and his wife less so for her puritan work ethic. However, when the second and central action of the text reveals the unsettling strangeness of Toine’s situation, his weaknesses appear less comical and more disturbing. The unfortunate innkeeper has become a rather pathetic figure, inspiring both sympathy and revulsion. This ambivalence undermines a binary world of good and evil, and reflects the ambiguity of social mores. In this way, the text presents a mirror (the same yet different) image of the world that challenges the reader’s perception of reality. As a result, the reader participates actively in the narrative in an effort to interpret the text.

The rupture with reality is complete when Toine is asked to hatch the eggs. A plausible situation becomes fantastical, and the resulting confusion of the reader reflects that of the villagers. This blurring of the line between the possible and the impossible creates a liminal space in which the reader can create a new ‘truth’ or understanding of the world.

The concluding scene invites the reader to contemplate a reality outside of common experience. The protagonist has come to terms with his fate, yet the reader remains unsure of the outcome. Accustomed to the short story format, which traditionally propels the narrative towards closure, the reader is left perplexed and forced to examine why it is difficult to appreciate the character’s happiness. Ultimately, the innkeeper is imprisoned in a hell of his and his puritanical wife’s making. Moreover, all those around him are both products of and fodder for his insatiable pursuit of pleasure and her determination to control this weakness. Even Prosper Horsville falls victim to Toine, the progenitor of all his gendres, for his cleverness has turned him into yet another of Toine’s chicks. The characters in Maupassant’s looking glass are both victims and perpetrators of the violence done to them, and as their doubles his readers must re-evaluate their conception of reality.