Essay about Country Lovers versus The Necklace

Short story telling can often portray attributes of the human condition. Unfortunately, for the two male antagonist characters in Ernest Hemingway's “ Hills Like White Elephants,” and Charlotte Perkin's Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper,” these truths can be less than flattering. While both Hemingway and Perkin's Gilman use themes of dominance, lack of communication, and selfishness to illustrate the isolation of the protagonists from their antagonist husbands; the differing plot techniques, use of imagery, and climax, set the writing styles apart and distinguish the uniqueness in both marriages. Central to both stories, are the protagonist's sense of isolation. Both authors' use this theme stemming from conflict between the protagonist wives and the antagonist husband characters.

In "The Necklace," Mathilde is very selfish throughout the story. Mathilde shows her selfishness when she longs to be rich and live in a nice home, wear expensive clothing and wear flashy jewelry with her clothes. "These…show how materialistic Mathilde is and how selfish she is for caring only about gaining these things for herself," says one critic (Directessays). Mr. Loisel provides the basic necessities for her to live a good life, but she wants more than just the basic necessities.

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

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

One of the comparisons between the stories is the fact that the primary character, which is also the protagonist, has made incredible efforts in trying to gain the love and the expectations of their love lady, and mainly focused upon especially toward which he places all his emotions

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 both short stories there is considerable discussion about love but in different ways. In Munro’s short story the love is discussed as it relates to the day to day actions and events. This is unlike Carver’s short story where the characters discuss

Thereafter, by learning a lesson from her doings there was a great transformation in Mathilde’s character from beginning to end of the story. After giving the diamond necklace to Forrestier she knew they have to live a “horrible” (5) life “of the needy.” (5) . Thus “with sudden heroism” (5) she decided to repay the debt taken for that necklace and “dismissed their servant, changed their lodgings and rented a garret under the roof.” (5) The woman who valued her youth and beauty the most lost it and became the woman of “impoverished household-strong and hard and rough.” (5) But sometimes she

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

The similarities between the two husbands seem to outweigh the differences. The main one is that neither wife is particularly pleased with their husband and in each story the husband is made out to be the bad guy. This is because of the husbands’ inability to understand the wants and deeper needs of their wives. Henry praises his wife as if she is a child that just accomplished something worthwhile, which in a sense belittles that she can do more with her life than

Many similarities that are narrated in the stories are familiar to the reader that may be going in their lives. Thus, the imaginations of these two authors brings the love to life as the reader is memorized of his/her own imagination is intrigued as the story unfolds increasing the excitement of what is to come next. The love between two people that grows deeper with every stolen moment. each precious touch no matter risks for that love. Falling in love is easy, but true love is much harder to find. relating to the events that occurred with the characters in the stories is what brings the excitement of reading.. Love has many effects on people and no two people react the exact same way. The perception of love plays a big part on the person(s) involved and the outcome of the relationships will vary from one person to another. Murder, deceit, lusting, underhanded maneuvers, cheating all are events that could occur in romance. Falling in love is a beautiful thing and in these stories dangerous enough to end up in death. Reality is; true love is hard to

Two different stories written within sixteen years of each other; could they really be that different? Could they even be so similar? These short stories were written in two different cultural environments. “The Jewelry” was written in 1883 by a man named Guy De Maupassant, who based the story in Paris, France. It tells of a man, his wife, and the wife’s two flaws that actually make the man wealthier. “The Lady with the Dog” was written by Anton Chekhov, who wrote the story in his hometown Moscow, Russia. This author composed a story of a disloyal husband and his adventures with the new foreign woman in town. With those summarizations, it is probably hard to believe that they are actually so similar, really they are. Two different stories that are of such dissimilar content are actually the same. It can be assumed these stories had no influence upon each other. Therefore, environment and the time period is truly of the essence in these short stories. It is brought a couple of times throughout the stories of where they are and how the men feel and act around women. They are both told with such an ironic tone throughout and the protagonists are both men that could not live without women. Both tell a story of how women affect their lives, but do not truly realize how important they are until the women are gone. The men show who they truly think they are early in the stories and slowly, and even painfully, are shown that they are

Though she cannot afford the luxuries of life, she comes across an extravagant diamond necklace that changes everything. The necklace serves as a symbol for Mathilde's hopes and dreams and the cost of deception conveying the theme that you cannot change who you really are. At the beginning of the story, the necklace represents

The two are short stories based on racial prejudice in South Africa and America respectively. Welcome table is a story of an old black woman who was thrown out of church that was attended by white people. The story depicts the opinion the congregation hard on her, showing the way they saw her was a reflection of who they really are. On the other hand, Country Lovers is a story set in 1975 of a young black woman who fell in love with a the master's son of the place where they worked. This kind of love was forbidden so they choose to keep their love affair secret (Hunt, 2006).

In ‘The Necklace’, it shows us the consequence of Mathilde’s poor choice and helps us learn for the future. The text says, ‘Oh my poor Mathilde! Why my necklace was only paste! It was at most only 500 francs!’ (Page 7)