Colette's "L'Autre Femme" and Buzzati's the "Falling Girl"

Colette's work, L'Autre femme reaches on a very common subject that can be found in most women, jealously. This emotion can be very intense and may teach people a lesson they desperately need. In this case the jealousy seems to be more naïve then anything. The story starts off with a husband and his wife in a café when the husband spots his ex-wife or ex-lover. What seemed peculiar is that there was no acknowledgement.

Usually one would suspect divorced couples might exchange a shared hello or a disgruntled glance, however, throughout the piece this does not exist. The language Collette chooses and the information provided suggests ex-lover more than ex-wife, and the man's new relationship is portrayed to be very serious despite the short time the two have been together.

The actions described by all three parties is very awkward and a bit uncomfortable to understand; the second wife was almost surprised and was very curious as if she was unaware that he had been married before. The questions she asks, her nervous behavior, her constant willingness to convince herself she is better than the other women with signs of jealously hints more towards ex lover more than ex wife .A women who marries a divorced man knows that sometime in his life he had another women and would be more excepting than curious.

The Falling Girl, a story by Buzzati, is a serious metaphor describing the bad choices of one sad girl and comparing it to society. He starts off describing how glamorous it all looks, the idea of not caring, of strolling instead of walking, and using all your time to just have fun and be almost carefree. This may seem dreamlike because the girl follows a compliment on a whim; it is as if overnight she falls head first into the wrong crowd, indivertibly the wrong life. Life seems to pass the young girl by extremely fast, putting truth into that old saying of time flies when you are having fun. Her failure to notice what is happening twists the story from what you thought was a light touching story to a dark surreal tale of how too much fun may be a bad thing. Overall the actions the girl does and does not do definitely show how bizarre her situation is.