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 "The Necklace" the authors choice of words, or diction, is very well articulated. I enjoyed this story because the narrator, Guy de Maupassant sets us so much suspense with the tone of the story. Madame Louisel essentailly loses a valuable item, or so she thought, and goes to major extents and even life-deminishing problems to just make it seem like she was not responsible enough to take care of a necklace for a night.
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.
Guy De Maupassant's short story "The Necklace" remarkably demonstrates how misfortune can lead to self improvement through the character Mathilde Loisel. Madame Mathilde was one of those beautiful and delightful young ladies with not very many high expectations, achievements, and no way to be accepted into the elaborate society and lifestyle in which she finds herself daydreaming about day and night.
The short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is about a young beautiful woman named, Mathilde who was born into a family of clerks but despite her station believed she deserved to live a life of wealth and luxury. She always dreamed of living a glamorous lifestyle; attending glamorous parties, engaging in charming conversations, and being admired by many. This story is set in France during the late 1900s. In this time women could not work for their status. A woman’s status was solely determined on who she married. To Mathilde’s disappointment, she married into the middle class. Every day she is tortured by the reality of her life. Her husband, Monsieur Loisel, is content with his status and belongings, unlike his wife, and works exceedingly hard to make Mathilde happy even if it means sacrificing his own. A necklace is a small item that turns out to be Madame and Monsieur’s ultimate status downfall. Guy de Maupassant uses imagery, symbolism, and irony to show how greed and materialism can drastically effect one’s life and character through the protagonist, Mathilde.
‘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
In the story, the necklace had symbolized more than just jewelry or decoration. The necklace was a symbol of the dominant features of Mathidle’s personality such as selfishness, arrogance, superficial, and imitation. Mathidle always considered her happiness above her husband’s happiness. For example she spent the money that her husband had been saving to buy a gun over a dress to attend the party. Mathile’s arrogance and superficiality had ruined her happiness; she classified people based on their income. She always
How you ever met a person who is different on the inside than on the outside? Mathilde Loisel is a pretty, middle-class woman who lives in Paris in the late 1800s. The story “The Necklace” is written by Guy de Maupassant. She doesn’t think about others/selfish. Her husband treats her like he should and she isn’t happy with it. She cares too much about her outward appearance. Besides the fact that she is pretty, Mathilde Loisel is also a closed-minded, selfish, and a vain person.
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”, 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
In the beginning of The Necklace Mathilde is described as someone who is beautiful but resentful of her economic and social background-having been born to a middleclass family and married to a clerk and into the same class. With her beauty she feels she deserves better. This shows that the couple love each other a lot and they are really poor. Then, the inciting incident is when her husband comes home with tickets to attend a very affluent party, and she is excited to go but scared that she might look bad. The rising action is that Mathilde is not wealthy enough as she dreams to be. Her husband gives her money to buy a dress. But she is not satisfied until she asks a wealthy friend for a necklace. At the ball, the necklace makes Mathilde look
The Necklace illustrates be careful what you wish for. First of all, O. Henry describes Madame Loisel: “she dressed plainly, and she was unhappy about that she couldn’t afford fine clothes. She daydreams about being rich” (80). Also mention about her beauty by “All the men turned to see her. They asked who she was and begged to meet her.” (O.Henry 82) Yet, she lost the necklace and she has to replace back
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
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breaths away”-Maya Angelou. This quote demonstrates that life isn’t about the amount of things one has or can do, but the time one spends with joy and fun, appreciating what they can do and have. In the short story, “The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant, the main character does the exact opposite of what this quote represents, she learns the hard way. Madame Loisel, the main character, doesn't appreciate her ways of living and wants something to represent the lifestyle she wants to live. Madame borrows a diamond Necklace, loses it and rather than telling the truth, she lies and buys another. She ends up wasting 10 years of her life working hard to pay off debt. Madame then finds that the diamond necklace was nothing but paste though the replacement was real. Maybe if Madame had been grateful for who she was and what she had, she would’ve lived a better life. De Maupassant uses multiple internal and external conflicts to teach the reader that people should just be grateful for who they are,what they have and what they can do.
Mathilde is an example of any individual that is the situation of having hopeless dreams in their mind that transform a person into somebody else. Like, Mathilde is an example of a woman who dreams of wealth and of being envied by other women. She believes that she deserves the whole world for her. A world that having luxury is significant for a person in order to get attention from other people. Materialistic stuff that keep happiness and confidence to people. The envy is the worst thing that a human could do, there have been cases that people have done awful things because of the need of the satisfaction that comes with it. We all want to have the life of a king or queen; some just born lucky and live that dream without do anything about it. Mathilde is not the option, she was born in the Third Estate class; the French social class was determined by one's birth. She is already imagining the life of queen in a poor apartment. Regardless, She has envy for not having what others have, but she does not do anything in order to get the type of life full of luxury. In order to have those privileges you work hard to have the money to buy what you want. However, she feels so important that she is not able to use her delicate hands to have a job. She makes herself the victim in the tragedy that she is living, although it is not that bad. Physiciatrist Neel Burton say "People with