The False Gems - Guy de Maupassant

The false gems is a simple and straightforward story albeit with a couple of convoluted morals. Before I begin with the interpretation, I’ll provide the summary.

The story is about a man whose yearly income is just about average. Though they lead a happy married life, he abhors her habit of wearing fake jewellery. One day she gets a cold and dies. Sad and pennyless, the man finds himself broke and homeless. Desperate for a meal, he gets the idea to sell his dead wife’s fake jewellery. The jeweller however, tells him that the necklace is real and is worth 4 years of his salary. Overjoyed, the man ecstatically sells all of the jewellery and becomes rich again. The story ends on an ironic note. The last lines are as follows:

Six months after, he married again. His second wife was a very virtuous woman;

but had a terrible temper. She made his life very miserable.

The moral of the story is that honesty is not always that important.  He was happier with a woman who was unfaithful and dishonest, although he didn't know it, just as he didn't know that her false gemstones were actually the real thing. Finding what he thought would make him happy, he actually had a worse life.

Arraignment Of The Men - Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

As we are introduced to the poem, and particularly its name, it is made very clear, as to what is going to be imparted to us in the five minutes of this beautiful piece of poetry.

This piece is written by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz during the latter half of the 17^th century. 

Considering the context and the background of the poetess is very important in this case, as there is a brief lapse that distorts the ideas of the 21^st century from the ideas of the 17^th century.

From being a self-taught scholar and poet, she was also a Hyronymite Nun of New Spain. Considered to be a well-known Mexican writer and also a writer of the Spanish golden age, she has carried two literary emblems to her deathbed. Being a woman and realising the potential of women as human beings (with lost hope); through her work, she has made it a point for everyone to realise that women are no less than men.

In this piece a very particular trend can be noticed; that of degrading men and accusing them of the women’s societal problems (which of course make sense). Right from the name of the poem to the last stanza, words such as, ’perverse’, ’witless’, ’levity’, ’crass’, ’creatures’ etc. are either used to describe men or what they do to the women or even the reaction to the thought of woman. 

Considering the context the argument seems feasible. It can be said that the social concept of gender equality didn’t really exist. Women never got a chance to explore or show their talents unless they were asked or allowed to do so.

Men and their dominating nature was narrated in this piece as well. Almost in every stanza the will of men is discussed and the fact that everything that the man wants to happen will happen and has to happen. ‘Witless Laws’ made by men with ‘logic crass’ isn’t exactly the best thing to have in this world. How these laws restrict women from achieving anything and the minimal freedom that is parted to them is reflected after a good reading of this poem.

Women being just objects of use and the hypocrisy that men employ when it comes to women is also a prevalent motif among the piece. The last stanza rightly proves so.

In this very biased piece of verses, she has brought about a certain disruption in the thought of equality and contrasts the point of the poem as she makes the user think of distinguishing man and woman instead of equality. Considering the time period this poem was written in shows us the inhumane gender inequality that existed. With the extreme gender partition that this poem creates, enchants one into thinking of man and woman as two different entities opposed to just human beings. That seems to be the only downside to the poem’s conclusion.

Passion in the Desert - Honore De Balzac

The story Passion in the Desert by Honore De Balzac is a short piece on a friendship shared between a man and a panther in the Egyptian desert. Its primary theme is that of the beauty and simultaneous callousness of nature, and also explores the emotions generated when love and distrust mingle.

The story begins with a man talking to a woman who has just seen a man (M. Martin) working with a hyena. While she is convinced that M. Martin must have used some vile means to domesticate the creature to such an extent, the man insists that animals too, can be swayed by the same vices as men. In justification, the man begins to recount his first encounter with M. Martin. The first time they met, they went out to lunch where M. Martin recounted the story of when he was lost in the desert.

During the Nile war, a French soldier had been captured by an Arab regiment and made their prisoner. When provided with a suitable opportunity, the man escaped, only to find himself hopelessly lost in the scorching desert. He camps out near a well, where he finds a small cave in which to rest and shelter him from the sun’s rays. At night however, he wakes up to find that a giant Black Panther is sleeping beside him. Too afraid to move, the man sits, paralyzed in fear, waiting for the morning. In the morning, the panther wakes up, yet strangely makes no move to attack him, its appetite already sated by its meal from the other night.

For a while (the duration of time is not explicitly mentioned in the story) the man and panther live at peace together. They provide each other with a source of companionship. Despite the panther now allowing him to pet her, the soldier still acts warily around the panther. She eventually responds to his call, and he becomes passionately fond of her.

Eventually however, the distrust reaches a climax when, in a moment of fear, the man stabs the panther, owing to the latter biting his leg. He is found by soldiers of his regiment weeping over the lifeless panther.

The beauty of nature is dwelled on extensively in the piece as can be noted through the extremely descriptive language used by the author when speaking on the desert. He compares it to “An endless sea of black grains” and in the very end of the story, “God without mankind.”

The intensely clashing emotions of inexplicable love and logical mistrust are used to draw out the complex emotions that humans can feel only when love and distrust mingle. While such a concept could be likened to many surrealistic and interpretive notions (life, death, relationships, morality, etc.) it is wiser not to introduce any such comparisons as the story seems to be written to exist in a very realistic scope. The author was well known for being one of the first to introduce realism to the European literature scene. In his stories, the human characteristics of his characters serve to convey much more to the reader than a metaphorical analysis of their actions would.

The story is titled aptly as the passion of the relationship between the man and the panther is described accurately and in depth through the thoughts of the man and the actions of the panther. The idea of human insecurity is dealt with extensively in the story as the man continually suspects the panther of wanting to eat him, despite having only experienced love and warmth from the creature. The endless fear of what could happen and what logically should happen, eventually overpower the flickering beacon of optimism in the relationship of the man and the beast. This could be a means of the author implying that we should be less cynical in life, that we should enjoy things as they are, simple and beautiful, and not be overly suspicious, insecure, and distrustful of others.