Analysis of The Beggar by Guy Maupassant

THE ANALYSIS OF

GUY MAUPASSANTS

THE BEGGAR

Summary

In the village there is a beggar. His name is Bell. All the people called him Bell because he hung his body between two crutches like Bell. His food had an accident when he was fifteen. It made him use crutches everyday. Bell never speak up, so all people was not easy to communicate with him.

He lives alone without family. Every day he asks all the people in the village to give him food or money. For awhile, they give the beggar food and money, but it is not long because after a few days they are not given anything. They fell like Bell was only a parasit in their life. No boody in the village pity Bell anymore. Bell was very hungry because he not eat at all for several day.

One day, when Bell was hungry he did not eat anything for several days. He tried to ask one by one from one house to another house. But no one of them gave him food. Bell was very sad and decided to stay in the field of one farmer. There is no owner there, so he tries to save his strength for awhile. Rain come and Bell felt cold and sad in same time. He try to wait untill the rain not come anymore and try to not hungry. But he can’t, he is very hungry and he can’t do anything. 

He waited in the field hoping a miracle would come to him. Suddenly, in front of him there were a number of hens. Bell never imagined that he would do something wrong in his life, but Bell took a stone and killed the hen. The hen was died, and Bell was happy. He stand up and want to take the hen. When Bell tried to take it, the owner of the field saw him and some farmers came and beat Bell. Bell felt very sick and he still hungry. 

About midday, the police came and took Bell to the city and put Bell in the dark room. Bell never comes to the room before, and it's a very terrible room for him. Bell was very hungry and he didn't feel good in his body. He try to know where is it and finally Bell know that he is in the prison he is a criminal person now. Bell was sad and cry in the room. All people only saw him and not do anything. 

Along the night Bell fell very injure with his body and he can’t do anything more. He try to wake someone but no body wake up at that night. Bell stay in the corner, he hug his self. Bell never imagine if his life will make him become criminal and arrive him untill the prison. He found the next day, when the police came to his room. No one belief that Bell was died in the morning without eat anything and with bad injury in his body.

Plot

The story of Beggar is a progressive plot. It tells the reader about the introduction of Bell, and then continues about the problem that happens to Bell as the main character and the resolution from the story. This story tells the reader to start with a Beggar. The beggar is called Bell. The author talked about beggars from when he was a child until he became a beggar. The story of Bell explains that he had an accident when Bell was a child. and Bell does not have any family. He lives in a village with many farmers and becomes a beggar. 

At the age of fifteen both his legs had been crushed by a carriage on the Varville highway. From that time forth he begged, dragging himself along the roads and through the farmyards, supported by crutches which forced his shoulders up to his ears. His head looked as if it were squeezed in between two mountains.

All people pity him for the first sight, but every day beggars come to their house and ask them to give him food or beverage. For that reason, society in the village fell barring and annoyed Bell. They do not give Bell food anymore. 

In the villages people gave him scarcely anything—he was too well known. Everybody had grown tired of seeing him, day after day for forty years, dragging his deformed and tattered person from door to door on his wooden crutches. But he could not make up his mind to go elsewhere, because he knew no place on earth but this particular corner of the country, these three or four villages where he had spent the whole of his miserable existence. He had limited his begging operations and would not for worlds have passed his accustomed bounds.

Here is the problem starting, Bell does not eat for several days. He is very hungry. He came to every house in the village, but nobody wanted to pity him and give him food. Bell is not angry, because he can't speak anything, he is always silent and never adapts to society in the village. 

He had no refuge, no roof for his head, no shelter of any kind. In summer he slept out of doors and in winter he showed remarkable skill in slippingunperceived into barns and stables. He always decamped before his presence could be discovered. He knew all the holes through which one could creep into farm buildings, and the handling of his crutches having made his arms surprisingly muscular he often hauled himself up through sheer strength of wrist into hay-lofts, where he sometimes remained for four or five days at a time, provided he had collected a sufficient store of food beforehand. 

Then the bell came to the farm and stayed there. Bell stays on the farm and rain comes. He is very sad and feels cold. Bell is still waiting for the miracle. Maybe there is someone who will give him food. Several times he waited and nobody came. The rain is not down anymore, but he is still hungry. 

He awaited he knew not what, possessed with that vague hope which persists in the human heart in spite of everything. He awaited in the corner of the farmyard in the biting December wind, some mysterious aid from Heaven or from men, without the least idea whence it was to arrive. A number of black hens ran hither and thither, seeking their food in the earth which supports all living things. Ever now and then they snapped up in their beaks a grain of corn or a tiny insect; then they continued their slow, sure search for nutriment.

Bell saw some hens and decided to kill them but stone, gotta! He got it. The bell felt very happy and came to see the Hen. But, unfortunately, he was found by a farm and he got a bug from the farm and other society beat him. Bell did not know what he could do now. He can only stay and feel how hard his injury is. 

He did not reflect that he was going to commit a theft. He took up a stone which lay within reach, and, being of skillful aim, killed at the first shot the fowl nearest to him. The bird fell on its side, flapping its wings. The others fled wildly hither and thither, and "Bell," picking up his crutches, limped across to where his victim lay. 

Just as he reached the little black body with its crimsoned head he received a violent blow in his back which made him let go his hold of his crutches and sent him flying ten paces distant. And Farmer Chiquet, beside himself with rage, cuffed and kicked the marauder with all the fury of a plundered peasant as "Bell" lay defenceless before him.

When middaay, some policies come and catch him. The bell was brought to the prison in the city. 

About midday the police arrived. They opened the door of the woodshed with the utmost precaution, fearing resistance on the beggar's part, for Farmer Chiquet asserted that he had been attacked by him and had had great, difficulty in defending himself.

The last resolution from the story is when Bell comes to prison but nobody asks or gives him food. Along the night nobody knows that he feels very sick and sad, he is hungry and in pain. The next day, when the police came to him and saw him, the police were very shocked because Bell died. 

Toward evening he reached the country town. He had never been so far before. He did not realize in the least what he was there for or what was to become of him. All the terrible and unexpected events of the last two days, all these unfamiliar faces and houses struck dismay into his heart. He said not a word, having nothing to say because he understood nothing. Besides, he had spoken to no one for so many years past that he had almost lost the use of his tongue, and his thoughts were too indeterminate to be put into words. 

He was shut up in the town jail. It did not occur to the police that he might need food, and he was left alone until the following day. But when in the early morning they came to examine him he was found dead on the floor. Such an astonishing thing!

POV

The point of view from the story is the third person. based on the characteristics of the third person are he, she and them. 

He did not even know whether the world extended for any distance beyond the trees which had always bounded his vision. 

He did not ask himself the question. And when the peasants, tired of constantly meeting him in their fields or alongtheir lanes, exclaimed: "Why don't you go to other villages instead of always limping about here?" he did not answer, but slunk away, possessed with a vague dread of the unknown—the dread of a poor wretch who fears confusedly a thousand things—new faces, taunts, insults, the suspicious glances of people who do not know him and the policemen walking in couples on the roads. These last he always instinctively avoided, taking refuge in the bushes or behind heaps of stones when he saw them coming.

The story is told by the author and uses the third POV. We can see an example from the text of the Beggar story. 

He had no refuge, no roof for his head, no shelter of any kind. In summer he slept out of doors and in winter he showed remarkable skill in slippingunperceived into barns and stables. He always decamped before his presence could be discovered. He knew all the holes through which one could creep into farm buildings, and the handling of his crutches having made his armssurprisingly muscular he often hauled himself up through sheer strength of wrist into hay-lofts, where he sometimes remained for four or five days at a time, provided he had collected a sufficient store of food beforehand. 

The author gives a good point of view by showing the explanation about beggars as the main character from the story. Here is the proof. 

At the age of fifteen both his legs had been crushed by a carriage on the Varville highway. From that time forth he begged, dragging himself along the roads and through the farmyards, supported by crutches which forced his shoulders up to his ears. His head looked as if it were squeezed in between two mountains. 

From the story, we can learn that we should have a sense of humanity to care for each other. and we should have a good way to explain the situation, we can give another solution to giving a beggar job. Beggars also should adapt to society. As humans, we should adapt to our environment. 

References

Maupassant, Guy de. (1850). The Beggar. The Entire Original Maupassant Short Stories.