Originating in France, ‘The Necklace’ is a short story written by French writer Guy de Maupassant in the late nineteenth century, the period where literary movements realism and naturalism dominated French fiction. Maupassant played an important role in both the realist movement and the naturalist movement through his depiction of the setting as well as the character’s decision. The short story reflects upon the rigid patriarchal society during the late nineteenth century, demonstrating how the wealth of a person can lead to their generosity and greed; thus affecting their lifestyles. Through ‘The Necklace’, Maupassant aims to depict the conflicts between the upper-class and the lower class, how their inner desires vary. This essay will analyze …show more content…
When Maupassant narrates Madame Loisel’s fate, he states that “she felt that she was intended for a life of refinement and luxury.” The noun phrase “refinement and luxury” can relate to the theme of greed carried in the short story. Although she is currently living a steady, ordinary, middle-class life, she does not cherish what she currently has. She yearns for a wealthy life like all the other upper-class women, and strongly believes that she should not be living in a typical, ordinary middle-class life. She feels that “God had made her for such things.” The noun “God” with the reference of the Christian deity, suggests that Madame Loisel has extremely high expectations for her life. Rather than believing and accepting the reality she has to face, her selfish nature continues to grow. She is never satisfied to be in the middle-class. She expects to be in a position filled with wealth and attention; thus leaving people’s emotions and thoughts …show more content…
After Monsieur Loisel notifies Madame Loisel with the ball invitation, instead of celebrating the opportunity to attend a ball with all the upper-class people Madame Loisel replied “What earthly use is that to me?” The interrogative sentence illustrates Madame Loisel’s lack of respect towards Monsieur Loisel. In this quotation Monsieur Loisel can be seen as a foil. While he treats his wife kindly with love and care, what he has in return are harsh, disrespectful treatments. This once again highlights Madame Loisel’s self-centered nature. Despite of having a caring and thoughtful spouse, she continues to complain with her ordinary lifestyle, and believes that she is intended for a life of luxury and refinement. Madame Loisel fails to treasure what she already has, Madame Loisel’s impolite attitudes towards Monsieur Loisel continues to be prominent through her declination in her husband’s opinions. This is demonstrated when Monsieur Loisel suggested Madame Loisel to wear a posy to the ball, she replies “There’s nothing so humiliating as to look poor when you’re with women who are rich.” The direct speech demonstrates Madame Loisel’s excessive pride in her identity, she is too proud to look poor around rich women. Her declination towards her husband’s opinions furthermore suggests the fact that she puts pride and wealth over her relationship with
She was wishing for a more luxury lifetime, rather than being appreciative. At the beginning of the story, Madame Loisel emanated a materialistic perspective. The narrator stated, “She suffered constantly, feeling
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 short story“The Necklace” by Gui de Maupassant follows Madame Loisel and her husband who are living in the middle-class during the rise of the middle class in Paris, France.There are many different examples of irony throughout the short story, demonstrating Maupassant's talent at commenting on the society in which he was immersed in. The theme of “The Necklace” is revealed through the character Madame Loisel, irony, and symbolism.
Madame Loisel suffers from a severe case of greed and envy. Madame wishes to live in a world of florid garments and silk curtains. She believes - by an accident of fate- that she was born into a middle class family of clerks, married to an unworthy man. On page 208, Maupassant narrates, “She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of living.” Mathilde’s drab, average life isn’t enough for the life she believes she should be living. Instead of Madame changing her life to what she imagines it to be, Madame breaks down and lets herself to ponder about the life she could be living. Her envy for the people blessed with luxury takes Madame to believe that she deserves only the very best for herself. Furthermore, Madame displays gluttony on page 210, “She so much longed to please, be envied, be fascinating and sought after.” Her insane desire for wealth and status causes Madame to turn to the only thing that makes her feel needed, feel powerful, feel wealthy and rich; her imagination is with her throughout the whole story, letting herself deduce that she has to be envied and be sought after. The quote above demonstrates the act of coveting for Madame herself is drooling over the fact of being a person that people look up to.
Outcomes in life are diverse for Madame, like her ideas of materialistic pieces in comparison to her husband’s outlooks on important items. Guy emphasizes how Mme Loisel is not appreciating what she has in the right way as he uses juxtaposition to compare her to her husband, Mr. Loisel. A beginning example is the food that is set before them for dinner. Mr. Loisel seems to be very happy with his meal as he sits down and claims, ‘Ah! A good stew! There’s nothing I like better…’ (pg 190). But
In Guy de Maupassant’s story the necklace, Madame Loisel’s is a women in the middle class who’s unsatisfied with her lifestyle and envies the upper class lifestyle. Her personality takes her through a irony filled roller coaster throughout the story. The story shows three different types of irony in the story which are verbal, situational, and dramatic.
‘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
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
Madame Loisel had changed for the better in the end. In the beginning, her desires for expensive possessions were proven multiple times by details such as, "She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. " Not only did she sought after the high-class lifestyle, she felt entitled to be in it. "Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries."
Correspondingly, through the use of direct characterization, telling the audience what the personality of the character is, Maupassant implies that the main character doesn’t appreciate what she possesses. In the beginning of the story, the main character—Madame Loisel—ponders why her life is so terrible, to the point that “she grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the niceties and luxuries of living” (de Maupassant 66). Madame Loisel is characterized as someone who is constantly upset over the fact that she had been born into a family of clerks rather than one with a higher social status or with more wealth. She feels that her current lifestyle is unfair and she deserves better if not the best just because she does. By “grieving incessantly,” it means that she continuously feels great distress over her predicament. She mourned “that she had been born for all the niceties and luxuries of living,” probably because she felt her way of life wasn't good enough for someone of her caliber. To constantly whine about it, gives her the feel of having
Monsieur Loisel, in contrast, is content with his place in life. He too is proud, but of what he has achieved, not what he desires to be. He does not yearn for dainty dinners but is satisfied with plain cooking: “... her husband, who uncovered the soup-tureen and declared with an enchanted air, ‘Ah, the good pot-au-feu! I dont know anything better than that.’” (Maupassant 1). Monsieur Loisel is happy and shows pride in the simple things in life. He is also proud when he receives the invitation to the ball and cannot understand his wife’s negative reaction to the invitation: “Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain…” (Maupassant 2). He sacrifices money he has saved to buy a gun so that his wife can buy a suitable dress, but she is still not happy.
Madame Loisel has always believed that she deserves nothing less than an exquisite lifestyle. Since this desire never went away, Madame Loisel is considered to be egotistical and unappreciative because she is unthankful for what she has. Also, she cares about her desires and always getting instead of giving. Oppositely, Della sacrifices her hair, even though it is her most valuable
Mr. Loisel was obviously excited the day that The Chancellor of Education had invited them to an exquisite dinner. Surely he thought that this was finally a way that he could provide an outlet for Mathilde's deepest desires. Unfortunately, instead of being thrilled as he had predicted, Mathilde acted like a spoiled child, throwing the invitation on the table. "She had no decent dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but these; she believed herself born only for these" (5). She couldn't have been more manipulative than when she began to cry about not having anything to wear. Of course Mr. Loisel suddenly fell into her trap and suddenly decided to give her all of the money in his savings account to buy her a new dress. Most would assume that she'd be satisfied at this point; her husband has just made a huge financial sacrifice for her. However, as time drew near to the night of the party, she became insecure and restless because she thought she would look poor if she didn't have any fancy jewels to wear; she thought she'd look like a beggar. `I'd almost rather not go to the party (30)", she said.
Her persistent mindset of wanting and needing more, is how her internal conflict developed. All of Madame Loisel’s issues relate back to her internal fascination with becoming incredibly rich and valued by her peers. The text states, “She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.” (1) Madame Loisel’s mindset was simply set on materialistic things and being respected amongst her peers. Even throughout the years, her idea of ‘perfection’ never changed a bit. The story reads, “But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.” (5) Ten hard and stressful years later, Madame Loisel is still under the impression that everything she has must be beautiful and valued. This situation expresses irony because although she is beautiful, she still feels a desire to receive expensive things. The text states, “She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans… She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury.” (1) Although she is beautiful
Madame Loisel is a very stuck up character in the beginning of the story. She sees no value to money. She believes she was meant to live a wealthy life, and has high hopes for an elegant and luxurious life. This is shown in story when it says that “She suffered constantly, feeling that all her attributes of a gracious life, even luxury, should have rightfully been hers.”