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Analysis Of The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

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“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is a timeless classic symbolizing different themes and meanings. The necklace itself symbolizes the effect of how greed and pride overshadows Matilde’s life, which lead to a series of conflicts. From the beginning to the end of the story, the theme shows that materialistic things do not always make people happy and to appreciate the things in our lives. In the story, the necklace sets a tone of irony because it represents wealth and the upper class, but in the end, it leads to Matilde’s life of poverty and suffering. In the critical essay “The Necklace: A Critique of Class-Consciousness” by EA Gamini Fonseka, his story shared similar and different views to mine. Fonseka gives great examples of irony, …show more content…

Mathilde believed that pursuing material values would lead to happiness, but after she lost the necklace, it only created a life of suffering that attributed from her thinking. Even though Mathilde led a comfortable life, she failed to see what she had because she was a common woman and not a member of the higher class. In the critical essay, EA Gambini Foneska also wrote, “In that society, despite one’s beautiful features and ability to speak intelligently of various interesting subjects, one has to live in a villa in a posh region, move in places of prestige, eat at grand hotels, travel in elegant cars, and wear rich clothes and jewelry, in order to earn respect from the elites” (Fonseka). This correlates with my view of how Mathilde created a façade of who she was. Mathilde disguised her appearance by belonging to the upper class at the ball. She had insisted on wearing the necklace to showcase her wealth and influence, even though she didn’t have both. Both of our view is similar to what Guy de Maupassant is trying to make regarding the nature of life. Our society cares too much about clothes, money, shoes and cars. These things don’t hold importance to us in the long run, but we failed to realize see that. People like Mathilde often lose their personality trying to fit in to a lifestyle that they can’t attained. This common theme is shown in French 19th century society in the story, and it is still true in today’s 21st century. Another similarity is the theme

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