And Symbolism In The Necklace, By Guy De Maupassant

“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is a story about a woman, Madame Loisel, who throughout her entire life has always felt as if she deserved more than she had. Mathilde is so convinced she’s meant to be wealthy that she detests her real life and spends all day dreaming and despairing about the fabulous life she’s not having, when one day she loses what she thought to be an expensive diamond necklace, leaving her and her husband in poverty. Guy de Maupassant uses characters such as Mathilde to show that characters evolve as a result of their experiences and interactions with others. Universal ideas such as greed, fear of perception, and maturity are significant in the transformation of Mathilde’s circumstances from a pretty and charming middle-class woman, to an unrecognizable woman living in abject poverty.

Guy de Maupassant and Chinua Achebe show their opinions on materialism through the thoughts of their characters in their stories. In “The Necklace”, Mathilde, an avaricious and narcissistic character, believes she possesses “...no dowry, no hopes, not the slightest chance of being appreciated, understood, loved, and married by a rich and distinguished man” (de Maupassant 373). The author, Guy de Maupassant, mocks Mathilde’s attitude towards her life, claiming “...She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers” (de Maupassant 373). By showing Mathilde’s thoughts, the author shows how materialism can cause someone to unappreciate the life that they have, even when it is exceptional compared to

The quality of one’s emotional life changes over the years. But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In short story “The Necklace” written by Guy de Maupassant is about a woman by the name of Mathilde. She’s described to be average in the physical sense and was married to a clerk by the name of Loisel. The couple get invited to a ball and shortly after, Mathlide complains that her wardrobe was too embarrassing to wear to the ball. Loisel buys his wife a gown and suggests she borrows a necklace from her friend to complete the outfit. Mathlide falls in love with a necklace from the collection. “She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure” (Maupassant 44). The night of the ball Mathlide realized she had lost the necklace. The couple decide to replace the necklace ad work ten years to pay off the debt, finally finds out the original necklace was a fake. This short story created a perspective for who to blame for the outcome of the situation, which in this case is Mathlide.

In Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" is the story of Mathilde Loisel, who resents her "station" in life. Mathilde Loisel is shown to be a vain and ungrateful person who believes that she was born to have a better life. She feels that she has married beneath her, in spite of the fact that her husband is a hard working and dependable man. Mathilde is unable to recognize and appreciate the

In The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant, the theme discovered are of materialism, insecurity, discontent, happiness, sacrifice, selflessness, desperation and humility. Taken from The Complete Short Stories collection, the story was narrated in the third person point of view by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realised that Maupassant may be exploring the theme of materialism. Mathilde believes or at least fantasizes about the fact that her life would be better if her circumstances were improved by the wealthy finery that she imagines others to have. She never considered herself to be fortunate in any way. To have had a loving husband and a household that was not in debt. She longed for a different type of life one that

Socrates once wrote, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” The quote above shows how envy is able to take a toll on a person’s soul and is relevant to the story “The Necklace.” When Madame Loisel is invited to a prestigious party, she borrows a seemingly priceless necklace. Mathilde misplaces the incomparable necklace; thus Madame’s envy for the fame of the party and the accessory she desires causes her to plummet into deep poverty. She works and sacrifices for 10 years, suffering to pay off the immense the debt she dug for herself. Within the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel presents many negative characteristics including greed, the importance of status, and insecurity through her desire to look wealthy and prestigious. She offers all she has to please those traits within her, to mute and cover the echoing voices that come from within.

‘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

Over the course of 10 years living with only the bare necessities of life, each month trying to pay back a loan asking for a bit more time. Mathilde, now was living a life that was almost unbearable, although nothing other than her envy and greed brought a harder life for Mr. Loisel and her. Finally, they were able to clear all of their debts after 10 years they were free now to start over again. One day when Mathilde was walking, she saw Mrs. Forrester and blamed her for what had come upon her family for the last ten years. Mrs. Forrester was very confused at this statement, not understanding what Mathilde was trying to imply. Mathilde then said that they had lost her necklace at the party, and have lived for 10 years like paupers because they had to replace her 48 000 francs necklace. Mrs. Forrester then told Mathilde in a gentle voice that the necklace was a knock off and was no more than 500 francs. This dénouement that Guy de Maupassant wrote, showed the true destructive forces of envy and greed.

Have you ever want too many things even though your life was already fulfilled and lost yourself? Have you ever ask too much and regret for what you did? Every desire, ambition, selfishness and a bit of extravagant of a human being was carefully portrayed in this story, “The Necklace”. The story is about a young woman named Mathilde Loisel. Born in a family of artisans, she wasn’t rich, but beautiful and glamor. But she never feel satisfied of what she had and never stop dreaming to have more, to live a luxury life with expensive homes and glittering dresses, and eventually paid hard for her nonsense dreams. In “The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassant uses third person limited narration to show how Mathilde Loisel changes in how she

She finds that the unjust treatment she had was being born into no dowry and no mediocre social status. In this quote, she herself believes that she deserves better, “She suffered endlessly, feeling she was entitled to all the delicacies and luxuries of life” (Maupassant, Page 1). Her views are her own internal conflict as Mathilde lacks a lot of resentment and is full of contentment with her ordinary life and falls under the punishment of poverty at the end. She then uses the mask of perseverance to at least receive a tiny piece of pity or reward from both her friends and higher class society, whom she envied quite lots. Her persona of being a hard-worker puts her under a good light, an aura that makes her look good. This helps lessen the weight of her already existing problem, giving her a bit of hope to keep going at her simplistic

Her utter conviction to her station of life as a mistake of fate shows how egocentric she is. She seems really vain because according to Maupassant, Mathilde is “burned with the desire to please, to be envied, to be attractive, and sought after”. Mathilde also has a friend that she can’t even bear to see because she was driven mad with jealousy. Seeing her friend with her desired lifestyle irritates her that much that she chose not pay her a visit anymore. At the party she attended, she was so happy because Mathilde, for once, has been noticed by rich people.

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 keeps happiness and confidence to the people. The envy is the worst thing that a human could do, there are people that have done awful things because of the need of the t. We all want to have the life of a king or queen; some just born lucky and live that dream without doing 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 a 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. Marcia Reynolds states that "Envy on the other hand is about coveting something you don't have. The person you envy has what you want. The more unfair you think the situation is, the more you will find ways to demean the person you envy. Then instead of working to achieve more, you justify the reasons for staying in an inferior

Guy De Maupassant is known to express his fixations with facts and observations in his writing. Instead of exploring Mathilde’s desire for wealth or her unsatisfied feelings towards her life, Maupassant simply reports events as they happen. It’s because of his writing that we can form an accurate judgement of Mathilde Loisel in the story The Necklace. We discover that she’s a middle-class woman who felt she was poor and believed that she was destined to be rich. She always felt that the world had dealt her a bad hand.

The nineteenth century French writer, Guy De Maupassant, tells an intriguing story in "The Necklace." He depicts the painful life of a beautiful woman, unhappily born into an average family of clerks. She felt that she was destined to marry into wealth but sadly found herself settling as she married an average copyist. Unlike the women of today, women in the nineteenth century were not fortunate enough to have a career of their own; they were either born into a wealthy family or married a man with money. In "The Necklace", Guy De Maupassant creatively reveals Mathilde Loisel's dreams of a decadent lifestyle. As her struggles start to unravel, it becomes obvious that her heartache is solely

Guy de Maupassant, writer of “The Necklace”, is a renowned French short story author from the 19th century. Considered to have died at a young age from poor mental health, he still produced several short stories and six novels (e.g., biography.com). Guy de Maupassant is an author who can write in great dept with such little space. “The Necklace” is just one of his many great works that has his consistent technique. This particular short story is about a nice-looking and charismatic woman, named Mathilde Loisel. She is unpleased with her life and she wants a lot more. She desires a wealthy person’s lifestyle, and the things she does to accomplish her goals causes her constant worry. Her husband, Monsieur Loisel, inherits two tickets to the Ministerial Ball. Mr. Loisel is a man that is willing to do anything and everything for his wife, no matter the grievance it causes for him. Mr. Loisel then gives her money to purchase an acceptable dress; after she complains that she has not a thing to wear. The elegant ball dress that she now has is not enough, and she insists that she must have some trinkets. She receives a scornful suggestion, from Monsieur Loisel, to ask Madame Forestier for a piece of jewelry. Mme. Forestier is a woman who for the most part seems very wealthy and really fashionable, and she is the exact kind of woman Mrs. Loisel wants to imitate. After Mme. Loisel borrows a diamond necklace, her temporal happiness is short lived when she