Short stories
4. Lost [ Guy de Maupassant ]
5. Answer ANY Two Of the following in 100 Words each. [2x 4 = 8 M]
a) Attempt the character sketch of the lady in the story Lost.
b) Narrate the incident that led to the agreement between the lady and the baron.
c) What was the baron’s wish? Was it fulfilled? Explain.
d) Write about the character of the baron.
The short and interesting short story ‘Lost’ is written by “Guy de Maupassant”
“Guy de Maupassant” is a French writer, remembered as the master of the short story form. He represented the Naturalist school. His stories depict human lives, destinies, and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.
The baron in the story “Lost” is a young good looking man. He is from Palestine. He is a baron of the ghetto. He visits the universal exhibition in Vienna. He is not a man of good character. The arrogant baron sees a beautiful married lady in the exhibition in Vienna, he developed an immoral liking for her. The lady in the story is very beautiful and clever with the integrity of her character. She married a man who had a modest income. She values self-respect more than anything else. She ignores his advances. Yet, he continues to follow her.
One day she stood in a fur store and looks at a beautiful coat. She knows it well that it’s beyond her reach. The baron offers to buy it for her. The lady refuses. But he insists on her. When the baron from the ghetto advances toward her, she tries politely and firmly to keep him away.
He continues to make advances regularly. Animal desire in him started overpowering him, though she refuses him. But he wishes to have her somehow. He was blindfolded by lust, atlast he opened his dirty intention. And thought that she would yield to him as she had a modest income. But she felt insulted and embarrassed by his secret overturns, when the baron was prepared to do anything to have her, she proposed that she would listen to him if he was ready to receive twenty-five lashes. The agreement was made between the lady and the baron.
On the scheduled day, she mercilessly beat him twenty-four times with a whip and she cleverly skipped the twenty-fifth and called out her husband and two other men, found behind the curtain living the baron in shock and grief.
Thus the woman is loyal to her husband. When he crosses the limits, she teaches him a lesson. So he is punished aptly. He says “Lost”.
(OR)
The short and interesting short story Lost is written by Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant is a French writer, remembered as the master of the short story form. His stories depict human lives, destinies, and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.
The baron in the story Lost is a young good looking man. He is from Palestine. He visits the universal exhibition in Vienna. The arrogant baron sees a beautiful married lady in the exhibition in Vienna. She married a man who had a modest income. The baron developed an immoral liking for her.
But she felt insulted and embarrassed by his secret overturns. She proposed that she would listen to him if he was ready to receive twenty-five lashes. The agreement was made between the lady and the baron.
On the scheduled day, she mercilessly beat him twenty-four times with a whip and she cleverly skipped the twenty-fifth and called out her husband and two other men, found behind the curtain living the baron in shock and grief.
