1Ambition without talent
Duroy cannot write — Forestier says so to his face — yet he ends the novel chief editor. His real skill is reading what powerful people want and becoming it: the soldier's stories for Madeleine to shape, the devout lover for Mme Walter in her church, the eloping romantic for Suzanne. Every rung of his ladder is someone else's weakness. Maupassant's point is uncomfortable: in this Paris, charm and shamelessness outperform ability, and the man who knows it wins.
Characters:Georges Duroy (Du Roy)Madeleine Forestier (Du Roy)Suzanne Walter
2Journalism as prostitution
Norbert de Varenne warns Duroy at that first dinner that in this trade 'you must sell your soul, your thoughts, and your pen to the highest bidder.' The novel proves it: articles ghostwritten by wives, news shaped to serve the owner's Moroccan loan, a minister made and destroyed by one newspaper. The press is not a watchdog but a weapon in the hands of men like Walter, and Duroy's rise through its ranks is the story of a conscience never once consulted.
Characters:Georges Duroy (Du Roy)Norbert de Varenne
3Women as instruments
Every step of Duroy's ascent is a woman's contribution: Madeleine's pen and political connections, Clotilde's apartment and money, Mme Walter's passion, Suzanne's dowry. He takes each and discards each, and the one time a woman's gift wounds him — the louis slipped into his pocket — he vows revenge on the women who patronize him. The book is a study of exploitation so smooth it passes for seduction, and Maupassant lets the women see through him even as they fall.
Characters:Georges Duroy (Du Roy)Madeleine Forestier (Du Roy)Clotilde de MarelleSuzanne Walter
4Money, morality, and the Church
The sacred and the financial constantly interpenetrate: Mme Walter is seduced in the church of the Trinity mid-prayer, while her husband makes tens of millions on a Moroccan loan at the public's expense. Piety guards nothing; the adultery Duroy punishes in his wife is a crime he commits serially. Maupassant's Paris has no moral order above appetite — only rules, and the clever man's talent is knowing the rules are for others.
Characters:Georges Duroy (Du Roy)
5Death beneath the climb
Against Duroy's ascent Maupassant sets Norbert de Varenne, the old poet who confesses his terror of dying: 'Life is a hill. As you climb, you see the summit, but when you reach it, you see the descent, and at the end is death.' Duroy dismisses the gloom, but the novel does not. Forestier dies young at the height of his career; Mme Walter is broken by love. The summit Duroy reaches is real — and the book quietly asks what descent follows it.
Characters:Georges Duroy (Du Roy)Norbert de Varenne