Guy De Maupassant and David Foster Wallace write to express the challenges that occur during romantic relationships between men and women. However, the authors provide readers with a different insight into the challenges that face couples over periods of time and the lessons learned. Maupassant provides us with insight into turmoil a couple might face during the 1883, while Wallace provides us with modern challenges that face couples today.
Mays defines a character as “any personage in a literary work who acts, appears, or is referred to as playing a part” (Mays, Characters , 2013, p. 181). Analyzing the texts The Jewelry and Good People reveled a common factor of the role that men and women played as minor and major characters in each short…show more content… The dynamic male figures views the female figure as a choice of how to do the right thing and keep true his faith. The development of this character focuses on the internal struggles of the male figure, Lane, as he faces a difficult choice life. This rounded character goes through a wide variety of emotions developed and impacted by the actions of the minor female character. It is her reactions to the Lane that causes a shift in the plot and the final resolution of the internal conflict between what he viewed as the right decision between the right choices for his life and the right choices according to his faith. (Wallance, 2013, pp. 216 - 220) The characters relationship is much more complex then the view presented in The Jewelry. The character addresses the complexity of a battle between what a person morality is set based on their faith, versus the battle of what they feel might be right in their…show more content… In The Jewelry M. Lantin life is turned upside down by the sudden loss of his wife and secrets she kept from him, while Lane in Good People struggles with the emotional choice to keep or terminate a pregnancy. M. Lantin wife greatest impact is when the reader discovers that the jewelry she owed in fact were expensive gifts from other male figures. While M. Lantin does not continue to discover why these generous gifts were provided to his wife she does create a new desire for the finer things in life. In turn, Lantin remarries with his new love of money and in turn ends up miserable. (Maupassant, 2013) Lane on the other hand provides readers with a deeper internal conflict between God and morality. Lane wavers on what making the “right” decision between what his faith tells him and what his heart is saying. It is not until his girlfriend makes a final decision not to go through with terminating the pregnancy that final pushes Lanes character to making a final decision. (Wallance, 2013) This is the turning point that pushes Lane towards siding with his