FAIT DIVERS ET PARODIE(S) Étude du Crime au père Boniface par Maupassant

Resumo

This study explores the playful dimension of the fait divers through Maupassant's use of it in the short story Le Crime au Père Boniface. The superimposition of two crime stories - one is read in the newspaper, in the form of a fait divers, by the factor Boniface; the other is invented by him because of a misunderstanding under the influence of the same fait divers - exposes the problem of reproduction, an obvious feature in Maupassant's work. Here, it is examined through literary parody, a form intimately linked, according to some theoreticians, to the denunciation of
a fixed, too conventional form. The form of this short story thus shows an aesthetic awareness which could be related to Maupassant's literary evolution, i.e. towards more developed formats and also to more complex reflections on the referential world.