Colonial Conflict in Maupassant’s Mes Voyages en Algérie

Abstract

This article examines Guy de Maupassant’s stance regarding the colonial conflict that marked nineteenth-century Algeria, as voiced in his Mes Voyages en Algérie. Drawing on the analyses of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Ranajit Guha among others, it argues that notwithstanding his denunciation of colonial malpractice, the writer reveals an insidious support for the French occupation by deploying a set of colonial rhetorical strategies. These include the de-politicization of native revolts, an Orientalist representation of the colonized as primitive, immoral, and therefore colonizable, and a tendency to classify the Algerians along ethnic/religious lines. In opposing Muslims to Jews and Berbers to Arabs, the chronicles perpetuate the divide-and-rule policy that seeks to facilitate the control of colonized territories by weakening their populations.