MASTERCLASS
IN CHARACTER
Helen Walters explores the roles different types of characters might play in your short stories, with an example from Guy de Maupassant
This month’s story, ‘My Uncle Jules’ by Guy de Maupassant, could be categorised as a ‘rags to riches’ (and then back again) story, or maybe it’s just a rags to rags story. See what you think. As always you will get the most out of this masterclass if you read the story for yourself: www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/UnclJule.shtml
The first thing to notice about the story is that it is a ‘frame narrative’ – a story within a story. The opening of the story is a very brief snatch of action where we see our unnamed narrator interacting with a man called Joseph Davranche, who will go on to be the narrator of the rest of the story. In the brief incident at the beginning of the story Joseph gives a substantial amount of money to a beggar. The significance of this will become clear in the light of the rest of the story.
We are given a very clear signpost as we go into the main body of the story with the phrase, ‘Here it is:’.
In this main part of the story, Joseph recounts some incidents and explains some circumstances from the point of view of his childhood self. Firstly, we learn that his family was poor. This helps explain his compassion and empathy for the beggar, and will continue to be an important theme throughout the story.