Maupassant uses a very tense atmosphere in the first paragraph he uses words and phrases such as ‘mean’, ‘broken winded’, ‘barren coast’, ‘ravaging’ and ‘rockstrewn straits’. Each one creates a dark and murky atmosphere to show that the place isn’t a nice place to be in. it would have an effect o n the story because it is about vicious revenge it is not all happy.
Maupassant also only briefly tells us about the death of the widow’s son because it has nothing much to do with the story, the story is called ‘vendetta’ therefore it means revene. So, this only provides areason for her revenge.
In the story the widow reacts very strangely when she first sees her sons body as it says phrases such as ‘shed no tears this maybe a sign that she is strong emotionally or maybe that she Is very shocked about the death of her son. ‘gazed long and silently at her sons corpse’ this could be another way of showing she is shocked because she puts her hand on his corpse as if to say I will never see you again.
Maupassant made the rest of the story very exciting, firstly by commenting on her inspiration of ‘savage’ (this is a very harsh word meaning terrible and horrible or unthinkable which shows she wants something bad to happen) vindictive ‘ferocity’ (this is another harsh word meaning ferocious and nasty). This will make the reader get quite excited as they would want to know what is going to happen next.
Also she prays to god for revenge as she knows she is to weak to kill Nicolas Ravolati it makes the reader want to know how she will kill him. In addition Maupassant builds up the excitement by describing the training which makes the reader wonder what she is going to do with the dog. Furthermore the woman is old and frail which makes this unusual because women don’t usually take vendettas into their own hands. Later when she is attacking Nicolas Ravolati she disguises herself as an old beggar man which is good because it shows that she doesn’t want to get caught. Another thing which adds is that when the dog jumps at Nicolas it says that he pulls and tugs at his throat but it is over very quickly also it says ‘he lay still while semillante tore his throat to shreds’ which is horrible because of what the death is like.
I also have a lot of views and thoughts of the woman in this paragraph I will express these. At the start of the story I thought the woman was old, frail and quite immobile but when she first saw her sons corpse she seemed rather unfeeling but when she realised what she had lost she realised how much she loved him. After the murder I think the woman was right to kill Nicolas. Although I think the way In which she killed him was very bad and the way she had treated the dog was wrong, be cause when she has died the dog might attack other people and ha so ve to be put down because of it also that the dog isn’t eating so it could be starving. Also the woman made the death as bad as possible which shows she might be a bit of a psychopath. But overall I think she was right to kill Nicolas Ravolati as he killed all she had left.
