The emptiness and hypocrisy of bourgeois society and the power of money were depicted with irony and sarcasm in short stories and novellas written by Merimee in the 1830's and 1840's, including The Double Misunderstanding,"Arsene Guillot,"and "The Abbe Aubain."In the short stories "The Venus of Ille,""Colomba,"and "Carmen" (1845) the author focuses on the clash between bourgeois morality and primitive but more just moral norms."