“Sometimes we are so focused on what we want we miss the things we need” (Tew). How do we decide what we want versus what we need? This is a difficult question that everyone struggles with. People often mistake something they want as something they need. When this happens they tend to only use this product for a short time, then it sits in a corner collecting dust for years; that is not something you need. Something you need gets used often and for a long period of time. If it is only used once you probably didn’t really need it. People often collect more than what they need, resulting in an imbalance between want and need. Often people are so blinded by what they want that they don’t realize what might happen if they have too much, this …show more content…
‘And I have lost everything that my heart really cared for’” (Hawthorne). Midas realized that he never needed gold, he just wanted it. Even though this story isn’t realistic it still helps to show that there can be major repercussions from an imbalance between want and need. Someone may not be able to turn things into gold but they may still have more of what they want than need which could result in the loss of something more important to them. In Midas’ case, he got what he wanted the most, more gold, but he lost what he needed, his daughter. These events led Midas to realize that gold was never important and he began to appreciate what he had, instead of what he wanted. People like Midas can lose sight of what’s important when they’re chasing after something that they want. Sometimes these people wish for wealth and will go to any length to get it. In “The Necklace” Mathilde has everything she needs but wants wealth and would do anything to appear wealthy. .Mathilde buys a new dress for a party for four hundred francs but decides that she needs expensive jewelry too. She borrows what looks like the most expensive necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier. Mathilde has the best time at the party and loves the necklace. By the end of the night, Mathilde discovers that she had lost the necklace that she borrowed. She desperately buys a new necklace for 36,000 francs to return to Madame Forestier. She and her husband are
That is to say that in “The Necklace,” Mathilde’s perception of herself as a woman of higher social standing lead to her losing the one thing she had going in life, her true beauty. “It is Madame Loisel 's desire to be part of the upper class which sets the story 's events in motion” (Hatboro and Horsham). Mathilde is described as a beautiful woman who finds her life to be not up to her standards because she is not a part of the higher class. “She had no
The allure of precious metals and the shimmer of precious stones versus the blandness of the essential concepts of life: food, water and shelter, can be a difficult choice for some people. The hypothetical line between what is a need versus a want splits society tenfold, and is a major problem in world civilization today. The choices humans make on a daily basis determine the futures of thousands, so what are the choices in life that are driven by needs and wants? The choices that define needs and wants are greed, the desire to pursue wealth, and the desire to protect one’s self.
They leave in a rush because Mathilde doesn't want the other ladies to her in a "modest, everyday wrap" while they were wearing expensive furs. When they arrive home they realize the necklace is gone, so they retrace their steps trying to find it. When they have no luck, they buy the necklace for thirty-six thousand francs borrowing every cent from people. They spend ten years repaying everything back including interest. When it is over, Mathilde confesses to her friend and receives the shocking news that the necklace was costume jewelry and only worth a mere 500 francs at most.
In “The Necklace”, Mathilde Loisel is a woman who cannot tolerate her lower-class status, believing “herself born for every delicacy and luxury”(82). Mathilde’s vain materialistic goals, make her bitter and unhappy. The main point of irony in the story is the fact that Mathilde borrows the necklace and looses it. The necklace was very expensive, or so she thought, so she ended up in poverty
The necklace serves as a symbol for greed. When Mathilda Loisel loses the necklace that she believed was worth forty thousand francs, she desperately retraces her steps and gets her husband to help her find it as well. It ends up taking ten years to pay off the debt. The ten years were hard on Mathilda Loisel and her husband, and Maupassant told the reader that she “looked old now… with hair half combed, with skirts award, and reddened hands” (6). However, even after the long ten years of manual labor all because she lost the necklace, she “sat down near the window and though of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she has been so beautiful and so admired” (6). The necklace symbolizes that when greed controls emotions and decisions, it never leads to good results.
Her husband tries and tries until he comes up with a great idea to give her an invitation to a ball. She cheers up a little until she realizes she can’t afford a dress. Her husband asks how much and had given her the money to purchase herself a nice dress. She has the dress but still doesn’t feel pretty nor happy after she put the dress on. She wanted more than just the dress which was jewels but didn’t have any. Someone suggested that she should use flowers, but didn’t find happiness in the flowers. Madame Forestier offer Mathilde to borrow her diamond necklace, which gave her the emptiness that she needed to feel happy. She had a great night and was on her way home when she went to feel for the necklace but found that it was gone. She started to panic and retraced her steps but couldn’t find it anywhere. She and her husband went from jeweler to jeweler to find the exact necklace and to replace it. They worked and worked until they had paid it off and returned it to Madame Forestier. She was a little annoyed since she had got it a few weeks after the ball. Eventually she admitted to what she had done and was surprised with what she was told. She was informed that the necklace was a fake. That it was costume jewelry. In this story the Madame was an outsider towards Mathilde. Mathilde didn’t know who she was and had taken the necklace to wear for the
In Mrs Midas, Carol Ann Duffy takes the well-known story of King Midas from Ancient Greek mythology and places it in a modern context from the wife’s perspective. Originally, the story is about King Midas and the power he possesses that turns everything he touches into gold, which leads him to ultimately realise that wealth alone can’t make him happy - even unlimited gold. The moral of the King Midas story is that you can’t buy happiness, and also to be careful what you wish for as greed is sure to overcome you.
Mathilde wanted to be rich and live a luxurious life. She did not just want to be rich but she thought that she deserved to be rich. Before she got married she was living a decent lifestyle,she even had a maid for the house “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born every delicacy and luxury.” (1). One night Mathilde and her husband got invited to go to a fancy ball. But she did not have any jewelry to wear so she borrowed a necklace from her friend. After the party she realized that the necklace was gone. She and her husband had to go out and buy the same necklace but for thirty six thousand francs. They had to be in debt for more than ten years. One day she decided to tell the woman that she borrowed the necklace from that she lost her original one and this is another one. ‘“Oh my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at very most five hundred francs!...”’(8). Mathilde and her husband were in debt for most of their lives and lived in poverty. The irony in the story is Mathilde wanted to be very rich but ended up the poorest of the poor and the necklace she lost was imitation and she ended up paying so much more money to replace it than she actually
Now consider the role of Mathilde Loisel in “The Necklace”. She constantly grieves about her simple life and fantasizes about extravagant life style with rich people and food surrounding her. Her husband is a simple man and is satisfied with his life. He appreciates her for the food which is cooked and never complains. Being in the Ministry of Education their lifestyle is modest. Mathilde is not satisfied on the other hand even when her husband proudly announces that they have been invited at a formal party held by the Ministry of Education. The irony in the story is more or less the same with regard to the female characters. Mathilde cries and gets her prize in the form of a dress but she is never satisfied. She wants jewelry as well. The necklace that she borrows from Madame Forestier teaches her a lesson of life. Since she is not familiar with the real jewelry she picks the cheapest one from her collection and wears it to the party why she loses it. Upon not finding the jewelry her husband takes the pain of selling everything out just to purchase an identical necklace worth 40,000 francs which leaves them poverty stricken for the next ten years during which her husband does three jobs and
In The Necklace, the setting of Paris in the late 19th century is a world of elegance and wealth. If not born into a wealthy family, one would have two options: marry into a wealthy family, or stay in their social class. That is just the case for Mathilde Loisel, who is endowed with beauty but born into a family of clerks. She was born free and could have had a plentiful life because of her beauty. However, she was held back by the chains of her social status and forced to marry her wealthy husband Monsieur Loisel. Together they have an awkward relationship consisting only of their need for marriage.
‘The Necklace’ is a morality tale written by Guy de Maupassant where he portrays the life of a beautiful but dissatisfied girl named Mathilde who desires to live a luxurious life despite being born into a clerk’s family and marrying a clerk too. Mathilde’s discontentment in life instigates her to pretend someone rich that she is not. Moreover, it leads her to severe trouble that caused ten years of hardship to Mathilde and her husband. So, this suffering is a punishment for Mathilde which taught her a lesson and changed her dramatically over the course of the story by making her a person of completely different personality for whom appearances
When her husband gave her the invitation to the ball, which was a perfect place to meet the rich people, Mathilde got mad and cried. It was a shame since she has nothing to wear. Mr Loisel gave his money to Mathilde and she got an elegance dress. But she didn’t stop and wanted to have jewels. Mathilde met her friend, Madame Forestier and chose an gorgeous diamond necklace. Of course, she became the prettiest woman in the ball, with everyone stared at her, as if she was the most attractive woman ever. She felt fascinated, just like her dream came true. But then a tragic came to her. She lost the necklace! Mathilde and her husband tried to find the necklace, but they found nothing. Mathilde lost her hope and had aged five years. The Loisels finally decided to replace the diamonds for 36 000 Francs, spent all of their money and accepted to pay the debts. It was such an unfortunate situation. After Mathilde lost the necklace, she was described as “ And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money”. (Maupassant 8). The family was suffering from poverty and have to pay the debts continuously. Mathilde changed immediately and did everything. They have worked so hard to earn every single penny for their life, to survive and pay all those debts. The third person limited
Mathilde finds herself dissatisfied with her life. She craves for riches and glamour. Instead of appreciating what she has, Mathilde craves for jewels and high class commodities. One day, her husband receives an invitation to a formal party, which would give Mathilde a chance to experience the luxuries of high society. However, she seems upset because she does not own a formal dress to wear to the ball. Mathilde’s husband feels compassion for her and gives her his savings to buy a new and elegant dress. The night before the ball, we noticed Mathilde’s greed when she complains that she has no ornament to put on. She arrogantly tells her husband, “It's so mortifying to look poverty-stricken among women who are rich” (Maupassant). For this reason, he then advises her to borrow some jewelry from her friend, Madam Forestier. Blinded by greed, Mathilde follows her husband’s advice and borrows what looks like a diamond necklace. At the ball, she has a great time. However, when she and her husband get home, she realizes she has lost the diamond necklace. Worried by the consequences of losing a diamond necklace, Mathilde’s husband decides to buy a new necklace by using his inheritance, getting loans, and borrowing money from acquaintances. They return the necklace to Madam Forestier and focus on paying their debt. After 10 years of hard labor and misery, they eventually pay all their debts. At the end of the short story, Mathilde finds out that the diamond necklace she borrowed was fake. Ultimately, we see how greed drove Mathilde to misery and
In the text it explains everything on how Mathilde had to work very hard for ten years to get the money to pay for the necklace that she borrowed and lost. Mathilde worked really hard to get some money, she did all the household chores, for example she washed the soiled linen, the shirts dish clothes, which she dried on a line outside;she carried slopes down the street every morning and carried up the buckets of water, stopping for breath at every landing. There is a lot more hard work that she did but that’s too much to
“She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as if by an accident into a family of clerks” this is what Guy de Maupassant started “The Necklace” off by saying (Maupassant 221). Also, this helps describe the main character and to give the readers a visual of Mathilde Loisel. “The Necklace” is a short story that Mathilde Loisel, the main female character, wants to be a higher class than she really is. Mathilde’s life drastically changes one night after she loses the necklace. Guy de Maupassant incorporates his use of the social class into the short story.