Short Fiction · Chapter
He? explained
The narrator explains to a friend his decision to marry, despite his belief that marriage is foolish and that men are naturally inclined to love many women.
What happens
The narrator explains to a friend his decision to marry, despite his belief that marriage is foolish and that men are naturally inclined to love many women. He reveals that his true motive is a desperate fear of being alone at night, stemming from a terrifying hallucination he experienced the previous year. He describes the onset of an irrational fear of solitude, a spectral presence he calls 'he,' and his conviction that marriage will banish this haunting sense of dread.
Themes in this chapter
Isolation and Loneliness
The narrator's primary motivation for marriage is to escape the crushing loneliness and fear he experiences when alone, especially at night.
Obsession and Delusion
The narrator is haunted by an irrational, obsessive fear of an invisible presence, which he acknowledges as a product of his own mind yet cannot control.
Illusion vs. Reality
The narrator is aware that his terror is baseless—'he' does not exist—yet the illusion of the specter feels overwhelmingly real, blurring the line between perception and truth.
Characters to notice
- Guy de Maupassant
The narrator, speaking in first person, recounts his terror of solitude and his decision to marry to avoid being alone at night.
Key passages
“I am getting married in order not to be alone. I don’t know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me. I do not want to be alone any longer at night; I want to feel that there is someone close to me touching me, a being who can speak and say something, no matter what it be.”
The narrator confesses that his reason for marrying is to avoid the misery of solitude at night, craving the simple presence of another human being.
Reveals the narrator's desperate psychological state and his instrumental view of marriage as a remedy for fear.
“I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear, afraid of the spasms of my terrified mind.”
The narrator's deepest fear is not of external threats but of his own irrational terror and the fragility of his mind.
Highlights the theme of internal psychological horror and self-alienation.
“I feel that the spectre is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to me again. And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in it and know that it is nothing?”
The narrator acknowledges that the ghost is a figment of his imagination, yet he remains unable to shake the feeling of its presence.
Illustrates the conflict between rational knowledge and irrational fear, central to the story's exploration of delusion.