Happiness And Happiness In The Necklace And The Painted Door

In the necklace the girl wanted to go to a dance but she had know dress or jewelry to addentend the dance. “She had no proper wardrobe, no jewels,nothing. And those were the only things that she loved-she felt she was made for them.” She felt like she was nothing without the jewels even no that is not something she needed but wanted. She felt as if she would have gotten made fun of for being poor or lower class. As shown in the quote… “No… there is nothing more humiliating than to look poverty-stricken among a lot of rich women.”

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

The Glass Castle is a book written by Jeannette Walls and is about her childhood growing up in the 1960s and 70s. Throughout the book, Jeannette shows that money does not determine happiness. At various points in her difficult life, she is happy with only the essentials. Jeanette feels she is rich in her family for many reasons. They also teach her to be strong and resilient and give her something to look forward to. Jeannette sees wealth as being subjective, and as an adult, feels guilty for having money when her parents do not. In the end, Jeannette realizes it's her family and their perseverance that determine happiness.

The texts, “High incomes don’t bring you Happiness” and “You can buy Happiness, if it’s an Experience”, completes the idea that monetary value does not bring true joy. In the passage, “High incomes don’t bring you Happiness”, the author states that bringing in an over excessive amount of money will not make one happy. The author said that an overall income of around $75,000 will complete one’s emotional well being, while anything over that will complete a life evaluation. Life evaluation is the idea that if one was to look at themselves while they’re in their deathbed, how would they rate their lifestyle. This is also supported through different statements within the passage, “You can buy Happiness, if it’s an Experience”. Within this study, it was proven that people enjoyed money, but often spent it on materialistic items which leaves them with a temporary feeling of satisfaction, while when they are given a fully paid trip to the Bahamas, the feeling of peace and joy lasts far longer than when they were to purchase an item of materialistic value. This

People who are driven by greed end up focusing on what they do not have instead of being grateful for what they do have. This is relevant in the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant because Mathilde Loisel ends up losing everything she owns just because she lets greed drive her decisions and get the best of her. When receiving an invitation to an extravagant ball, she declines because she says she does not have anything nice to wear. In the beginning of the short story she says, “There is nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.(Maupassant).” The reader sees how she puts value in possessions and what others think of her. After finding a dress and then borrowing a necklace that she thought

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

Around the world, values are expressed differently. Some people think that life is about the little things that make them happy. Others feel the opposite way and that expenses are the way to live. In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, he develops a character, Madame Loisel, who illustrates her different style of assessments. Madame Loisel, a beautiful woman, lives in a wonderful home with all the necessary supplies needed to live. However, she is very unhappy with her life. She feels she deserves a much more expensive and materialistic life than what she has. After pitying herself for not being the richest of her friends, she goes out and borrows a beautiful necklace from an ally. But as she

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 short story, “The Necklace”, by Guy de Maupassant, the author reveals the consequences of envy. In this story, Mathilde is a very desirous woman, who has always dreamed of a fantasy that she could not have. She is discontented and jealous of other women who are wealthy. Then one day, Mathilde fantasy became a reality, Mr. Loisel husband received an invitation to the Palace of Ministry ball. Her husband, Mr. Loisel, thought that this would make his wife very happy since that is what she spends all of her time daydreaming about. However, she reacts in a very negative way and is reluctant to attend the party due to her not having a fancy dress. Mr. Loisel sympathized with his wife and knowing he had money set aside for a new shotgun,

“She so much longed to please, be envied, be fascinating and sought after” (de Maupassant 67). The main character desires to be at the center of attention, she wants to be coveted by others. In his fictional short story titled, “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant writes about how the lusting for more may cause people to be blinded and unable to see/value the treasures they already have. The story begins with an introduction of a lady who daydreams about the happiness that materialistic yearnings can bring her, forgetting her situation and social class. After taking her husband’s recommendation to borrow jewelry, specifically a diamond necklace, from her close friend Madame Forestier to wear alongside her dress at the evening reception, the main character later discovers that she had lost the necklace. Following their failure to find the necklace, Madame and Monsieur Loisel devise a plan to borrow money to replace the necklace with another and in doing so, fall into years of debt. Moreover, Maupassant uses direct characterization, imagery and situational irony to further depict why you should be grateful for what you already have before it’s too late.

The internal conflicts established in “The Necklace” were a result of Madame Loisels perception of happiness. Because of her ungrateful and dejected views on life, she didn’t realize nor recognize true merriment. In the text, Guy De Maupassant shows how Madame “..was one of those pretty and charming girls born as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of

According to the narrator in “The Necklace,” Madame Loisel has a low middle-class economic status which causes her agony. Madame Loisel focuses on her inability to maintain a luxurious lifestyle. She feels, “that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightfully have been hers” (de Maupassant 333). She cares more about her wants rather than her needs while thinking she deserves a wealthy lifestyle. Madame Loisel’s selfish personality cannot compare to Della’s humble disposition.

Although this two stories deal with women wishing their lives were different, there are large differences between them. The woman in "The Necklace" is ungrateful. She puts others like her husband out so that she can have what she thinks will make her happy. In my opinion, I don't even think she learns her lesson about how unimportant having expensive things is. Even after her husband slaves to pay back the money, when he didn't even want her to get the necklace in the first place; she seems ungrateful for his efforts. On the other hand, Miss Brill does no harm to anyone. It's as if it keeps her sane to lead this imaginary life once a week. To some people, taking a break from life and stepping back is necessary. Miss Brill does just that and results in no harm of other but most importantly, happiness for herself.

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

In the Declaration of Independence, it states that all men, being equal by nature, have the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is interesting from Thomas Jefferson’s point of view that he says that we have the right to pursue happiness. When he said this, what did he mean in ways of understanding it and pursing this happiness? To live, as we have experienced, is itself a means to living well. The same applies to freedom. We cannot pursue happiness if we cannot freely carry out the choices we make. “If everything is determined for us, if the pattern of our life is imposed upon us, there would be no sense in talking about planning our lives or about adopting a plan for living well.” We need to stay and be