The Horla
...te us, tame us, feed on us perhaps...”(Maupassant, 73). It is easy to assume that the narrator and the Horla are separate throughout the text, mainly because the narrator continually asserts his saneness to his audience, and is ever questioning the presence of the Horla among him. If the narrator is continually questioning the presence of the Horla, how could the narrator be the Horla? Naturally, then, because the narrator seems sane and constantly criticizes the Horla’s presence, it in some way validates that the narrator and the Horla are separate. The narrator, also, in an effort to assert his independence from the Horla, uses a third party to give his argument and experiences with the Horla validity. How can one argue that the narrator is being consumed by the Horla when there is a third party to corroborate his claims that he is, in fact, only being tormented by this “elusive neighbor”(Maupassant, 70)? However, a closer reading of the text presents the reader with an alternate interpretation. While the narrator and the Horla began as separate entities, one (the Horla) gradually consumes the other (the narrator), resulting in one complete entity. The narrator and the Horla interact with each other in a few different key situations, giving the reader insight into this consumption and how it is significant. One of the first interactions between the narrator and the Horla carries strong connotations of consumption. During the time when the narrator first starts to experience “peculiar and inexplicable feelings of uneasiness” (63), he also begins to experience crazy dreams of an outside force consuming him. In one of his dreams, the narrator is “suddenly, horribly jolted by the dreadful feeling of a crushing weight on my chest, and of a mouth that was eating up my life, on my mouth” (73). This interaction represents the first instance of the Horla taking over the life of the narrator. While the way it is represented is portrayed in a physical manner, it in actuality represents the beginnings of the absorption of the narrator’s mind. The second instance, which begins soon after, deals with the Horla consuming items that belong to the narrator, namely the water and the milk. By devouring these items that belong to the narrator, the Horla is essentially becoming increasingly like the narrator, making the doubling of the narrator even more apparent. Unlike the narrator, the Horla also consumes the milk that the narrator leaves out. The narrator mentions ...