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Why is Guy de Maupassant known as a master of the objective short story?

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Analyze short fiction elements evidenced in “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Necklace,” and “The Magic Shop” — short story American editor and anthologist Clifton Fadiman discusses the elements of a short story, 1980. The video features clips from Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation's dramatizations of O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi,” Guy de Maupassant's “The Necklace,” and H.G. Wells's “The Magic Shop.”

Guy de Maupassant is considered a master of the objective short story because of his commitment to presenting characters and their lives with dispassionate, rigorous observation. Rather than imposing personal moral judgments, he focused on l’humble vérité (the humble truth), capturing the daily preoccupations, gestures, and words that reveal his characters' essential personalities.12

His mastery is defined by several key techniques:

Detached Realism: He described the physical and social backgrounds of his characters with precision, allowing their motivations—often driven by greed, lust, or ambition—to emerge naturally from the narrative.2
Concise Economy: His art is characterized by vigor, concision, and a rigorous economy of style, which avoids unnecessary sentimentality.2
Revealing Moments: His stories typically function as anecdotes that capture a single, crucial moment in the lives of ordinary people, effectively exposing the hypocrisy and dishonesty often masked by everyday appearances.13
Balanced Perspective: Even when dealing with complex or dark themes, his prose remained lucid and well-balanced, maintaining a clear, objective distance from the subjects he portrayed.2