The Analysis of the Story "The Umbrella" by Guy de Maupassant

INTRODUCTION

The umbrella

Oreille was a very economical woman; she knew the value of a centime, and possessed a whole storehouse of strict principles with regard to the multiplication of money, so that her cook found the greatest difficulty in making what the servants call their market-penny, and her husband was hardly allowed any pocket money at all. They were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children; but it really pained Mme. Oreille to see any money spent; it was like tearing at her heartstrings when she had to take any of those nice crown-pieces out of her pocket; and whenever she had to spend anything, no matter how necessary it might be, she slept badly the next night.

CONTENT

Exposition

Madame Oreille’s husband complained about his broken umbrella to Madame Oreille.

Madame Oreille was a woman who always worried about waste of money. She watched every cent carefully. She was a small woman about 40 years old. She was very tidy and neat woman. Her husband is Oreille complained to her about replace the umbrella which has much holes and he felt uncomfortable to use it because people around him making joking about his umbrella.

 

Rising Action

Madame Oreille’s husband got angry because Madame Oreille bought cheap umbrella.

After Mr. Oreille complained about old umbrella which full of holes and demanded her to buy a umbrella which good silk, Madame Oreille going to buy new umbrella but she decided to buy a cheap umbrella. When Mr. Oreille used it, people still make joking about that. Mr. Oreille suddenly got angry to Madame Oreille because she bought a cheap one and he wanted to a good silk. He demanded her to spend plenty of money at least $30 for umbrella.

Climax

Madame Oreille shouted and got angry about holes in new umbrella to Oreille.

Madame Oreille wasn’t happy because she was demanded by her husband to spend much money about $30 to buy a good silk. She thought many times to buy a cheap one again but that was not happened. She found a good umbrella about $25 and she saved $5 for her. At night, she gave a new umbrella to her husband. Finally her husband has a good one and there was no joking anymore. When Oreille came back to home, Madame Oreille stood in front of the door and checked the umbrella. She shouted to Oreille about the hole in new umbrella but her husband rejected if it was his fault. Madame Oreille was very angry because only a day that umbrella was having a hole and she thought if it was expensive umbrella.

Falling Action

Madame Oreille decided to go to Fire Insurance to pay her broken umbrella.

After both of them got high tension about new umbrella which was broken, suddenly Madame Oreille’s friend came to her house. Madame Oreille shared about what’ve her husband done to new umbrella. Her friend gave some suggestion to her starting to replace the silk but it was rejected by Madame because it wasted $10. After that her friend suggested to go to the fire insurance to claim about paying her broken umbrella. She agreed with it and she begged her husband to go to fire insurance but Oreille denied to do that. After that, She tried to make herself be brave to come into fire insurance office alone.

Resolution

Madame Oreille was successful to convince Fire insurance to pay her umbrella and went to shop buying new umbrella.

After Madame trembled many time to enter fire insurance, she was successful to come in and talk about her complain to two people who worked at the office. Fire insurance officer thought if Madame claim was funny because they told if the company didn’t fix umbrella or held little thing such as umbrella but in the end of story Madame was successful to convince them to pay it and she wasn’t worry about buying new umbrella because fire insurance will pay it.

CONFLICT

The conflict of this story is about Madame Oreille got angry to her husband about new broken umbrella.

Kinds of conflict:

Oreille wasn’t happy when people at his office made joking about his umbrella (Man v Group) = External Conflict

Madame Oreille got angry to her husband about new broken umbrella (Man v Man) = External conflict

Madame Oreille struggled to not buy an expensive umbrella (Man v Mind) = Internal Conflict

SETTING

Place

The setting of the story of the Umbrella are Oreille’s house, Oreille’s office and Fire Insurance Office

Time

In the morning and at night

Function of Setting

Function of the setting in this story is as background. The main conflict is between Madame and her husband about umbrella. Even the setting is changed, the conflict still can happen.

CHARACTERS

Madame Oreille

She was a small woman about 40 years old. She was a very neat and tidy person. She walked with quick steps. Sometimes she had bad temper. She always worried about money. She never wanted to waste money event thought it was important.

• Based on the main part or roles in this story, Madame Oreille belongs to main or major character. Because the story focuses on Madame Oreille and most of the story is talking about her from the beginning until the end of the story. In the beginning of story tells about a woman who worried about money until she can convince fire insurance to pay her new umbrella
• Based on personal traits, Madame Oreille belongs to Flat character, because she shows a simple personality in the story. At the beginning until the end of the story, she was greedy woman because too tight about spending money even though it was important thing.
• Based on the possibility to change, Madame Oreille to Static character because the character of Matilda is still remaining the same. she was greedy woman because too tight about spending money even though it was important thing. Her husband felt how greedy her when he always calculated to buy something.  

Madame Oreille’s Husband

He was a clerk who worked at an office. He was not poor man but his wife was too tight to save money until his clothes were not good and his umbrella has much holes. Automatically it made joking around other clerks.

• Based on the main part or roles in this story, Madame Oreille’s husband belongs to minor character. Because the story do not focus on Madame Oreille’s husband and he appeared at some part of the story.
• Based on personal traits, Madame Oreille’s husband belongs to Flat character, because he shows a simple personality in the story. He was patient because whether his clothe was old. He never complains about that but he was happy to show his stuff such as new umbrella to other clerks at office
• Based on the possibility to change, Madame Oreille’s husband belongs to Static character because the character of Madame Oreille’s husband is still remaining the same. At beginning until the end of the story, he was patient man but show off his new stuff to people.

THEME

The theme of this story is “ We should spend money for appropriate things  ”

In this story, Madame Oreille as a figure who worried about money until she or her husband need something important such as clothes and umbrella, there’s still confusing to spend money about that because of those thing maybe worst situation will be came. That’s why money should use for important things. 

POINT OF VIEW

The point of view from this story is Limited omniscient/selected point of view (third person omniscient point of view because the story is not told from the point of view of any of the characters but just through Madame Oreille and also the author knows what the people are thinking but not all the time. The author not just telling us what happened but also telling about what Madame Oreille is thinking but we don’t know what anyone else is thinking.

SYMBOL

The Umbrella: It means that thing has valuable price.

The kind of symbol is Traditional symbol because it is the thing in real life that exist

CONCLUSION

This story is quite interesting because umbrella as an object that make this story to be interesting. A woman was very tight with money tried to many ways to get new umbrella. She started to buy her husband cheap umbrella to save more money with reason to anticipate something happens in the future. Umbrella is also making this partner have high tension and sometimes they fight with their own argument about buying a new umbrella.

Madame Oreille was surprised woman because her passion about money to save more and more. She tried to be brave to go to fire insurance to claim about her umbrella which was broken . She used her argument to convince fire insurance officer to pay her broken umbrella. Finally she got it.