Guy De Maupassant'ın Güzel Dost Adlı Romanında Sömürgecilik

Maupassant, who went to Algeria as a journalist of the Le Gaulois Newspaper in 1881, got the opportunity to personally observe the problems and exploitations of the colonial administration. The author, mentioning those problems in some of his short stories, also deals with the politicians and businessmen who burge on their wealth thanks to the colonies of Tunisia and Algeria as a plot in his novels called BelAmi. In this novel written in 1885, Maupassant presents a genuine picture of the French colonial events occurring between 1871 and 1914. He very clearly presents the plots brewed in colonial countries of Tunisia and Algeria by the French politicians, newspaper owners and financial bodies for their own profits. Georges Duray, who is one of the protagonists of the novel and in fact has norelation to journalism but has got it as a profession, draws a very clear picture of the “colonial soldier” while recalling his days in Algeria as a soldier and thus displays how badly the French soldiers treated the local people of the country. The case that Mr. Walter, who is the owner of the newspaper La Vie Française and boss of Georges Duary, and Minister Laroche Mathieu departed from the colony and burgeoned their wealth in the stock market via speculations is a very interesting phenomenon. In his novel, Maupassant, preferring to use the name Morocco instead of Tunisia, merely presents the historical and political events and does not assume a critical attitude toward his characters. Maupassant, not opposing the idea of colonialism very much, presents the problems in the application of this system to his readers. Georges Duray’s, the protagonist of the novel, flash back of the prosperous days in Algeria in the very first pages of the novel, his mentioning the negotiations related to recolonization of Algeria in the French Assembly, and his displaying how the journalists and politicians gathering with a desire to earn Money exploited the colonial policies are the most outstanding points pertaining to colonialism. Bel-Ami is not a novel that assumes a critical attitude toward colonialism. It is a fascinating and impressive novel presenting what methods people utilize for the sake of earning money in a period called the Second Republican Era in French history. The manipulations that the businessmen and politicians use with this greed in the colonies form an important part of the novel.