125
Le Horla
Guy de Maupassant

1.  May 8  a. According to the narrator in this first entry of his diary, why is he attached to “this part of the country,” his house, and Rouen in the distance.  What doe they all represent for him?  What role does the past play in his present enjoyment of life? Why do you think he likes the Brazilian three-master?  What do his attachments suggest about his relation to change and disorder at the beginning of the story?

b.   Here is a correct translation of the second sentence of paragraph four:  “About eleven o-clock, a long line of boats drawn by a steam-tug, as big as a fly, which like a death rattle gasped in pain while vomiting thick smoke, passed by my gate.”  Which words in this description contrast with the rest of the passage?  Why?  What does the entire entry in the narrator’s diary say about his attitude towards his sensations, emotions , thoughts, and desires?

2.  May 12  a. To what does the narrator attribute the changes in his emotions?  Compare and contrast this cause to the source of his attachment to his part of the country in the May 8 entry.   What is blocking his power to satisfy his desire for happiness in his home and part of the country?  

b.  May 16, 18, 25, and June 2  What feeling does he constantly have, according to his entry of May 16?  What happens to him in the evening and what does he fear?  What happens to him in the forest? What relation do these events have to his meditation on “mysterious influences” and “unknowable forces” in his May 12 entry? Is this an example of the fantastic?   Is it an example of Freud’s uncanny?  [something seemingly normal evokes fears of danger, a fate that is blocking or satisfying all one’s desires, the double, repetition?]  Explain.

c.  June 3-July 2  How does the narrator describe the abbey of Mont St. Michel?  How does this relate to his concerns in the previous entries?  How does it relate to the fantastic? and to Freud’s uncanny? 

3. a.  July 5  What happened to the narrator the night before?  How does he explain his sleepwalking? Why is he frightened of being a sleepwalker?  

b.  July 6-10  What experiments did the narrator make between July 6 and July 10?  What different hypotheses was he trying to test?  What were the results?  Do they confirm his explanation on July 5?  Explain?  How do they relate to the fantastic?

c. July 12  Why does the narrator go to Paris?  What does the narrator now write about his previous hypotheses about his strange experiences? What does he conclude about the possibility of finding the causes of events? 

d.  July 14 What social critique does the narrator make about the masses and those who tell them what to do?  What critiques does he make of principles and perceptions?   What do these critiques say about the possibility of satisfying our desires to know what is right and true?  Given his previous experiences, why do you think he is so angry about this?

4.  a.  According to Dr. Parent, how do men try to make up for the impotence of their perceptual organs to perceive certain mysteries?    [The Nancy School of hypnosis argued that hypnosis was a form of psychological suggestion, not a form of neurosis or hysteria as the top psychologist, Charcot, believed at that time.  Freud, who used hypnosis with some patients, abandoned Charcot for the Nancy school, particularly its use of hypnosis to bring back forgotten memories]

b.   What happens when the Dr. hypnotizes the narrator’s cousin, Mme Sablé? What can she see that one cannot normally perceive with the senses?  [In reality hypnosis does not have these powers.  People may act according to a hypnotic suggestion after they are awakened, but not if it is against what they believe.]  Why is the narrator so disturbed?

c.  On July 12, the narrator wrote “We need men who can think and can talk, around us. When we are alone for a long time, we people space with phantoms.”   During his stay in Paris, what has he discovered about being around people?