Learning
outcomes
· Learner will be equipped with new
culture, custom and tradition.
· Learner will understand the
consequence /adventure of space travel
· Learner will read, analyses and
interpret the travelogue
GIST
Images
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| Hot air balloon |
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| Author-Guy de Maupassant |
Guy de
Maupassant was a French writer who lived in the nineteenth century. His short stories
are well-known. ‘The Trip of Le Horla’ is a travel essay. In the essay, he
recalls his balloon ride experiences. The first name of this travel essay
was From Paris to s Heyst. The balloon journey took
place between La Villette in Paris and Heyst in Belgium. The balloon’s name was
‘Le Horla.’ It translates as ‘the outsider.’
The Horla,'' or ''Le Horla''
(French), is a story composed of diary entries from a middle-class man that
relate his descent into madness because of an otherworldly spirit. The short
story opens with the introduction of an unnamed bourgeois narrator. The
narrator has recently suffered a series of experiences that convince him he is
either losing his mind or haunted by something. He recalls a dream about a
Brazilian ship he had days before he began to feel unwell. During his dream, he
recalls compulsively waving to the ship. Unbeknownst to him, his wave invites a
supernatural being into his home.
In his diary, the narrator
complains of a severe fever and an inability to sleep. He frequently awakes
with a feeling that someone is watching him, a suspicion supported by his
experience of physical pressure on his chest that he describes as someone
kneeling on him. The Horla begins to dominate the narrator's thoughts. As a
result, the narrator experiences a state of delirium where he struggles to
distinguish reality from imagination.
The narrator begins to doubt his
sanity after he pours himself a glass of water at night and finds it empty in
the morning despite having no recollection of having drunk the water. The
narrator's resolution builds as he considers his sanity. He decides he is sane
and attributes his experiences to something supernatural.
The narrator reads about a
population of Brazilians fleeing their home. The impetus for these Brazilian's
exodus was a spirit that possessed their mind and, notably, lived on water,
just like the Horla. The narrator connects his dream about the ship to the
Horla's presence.
The narrator resolves to kill the Horla. He traps the Horla in a room. With the Horla trapped, he burns his house to the ground, burning several servants alive in the process. The Horla survives the fire. In a desperate attempt to escape the unbearable presence of the Horla, the narrator dies by suicide
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