Greed in the Necklace: Mathilde's Rebirth The Necklace, a short story written by Guy de Maupassant, is about a greedy woman in poverty, who learns that being selfish can hurt her and others around her. Her greedy behavior indicates that she has been struggling during her years in poverty. When she scrambled to find out her purpose in life, she portrayed anger and malevolence towards others. Acting selfish and rude to one another can trigger one's own feeling of hate and rage. Mathilde asked Madame for jewels in a very hostile way, "Haven't you any more?" (3). As she asks for more jewels from the Madame, it reflects her greed for wanting more items, which shows her deprivation. The more items one possesses, the more they feel entitled to obtain more items. She feels …show more content…
This is clearly portrayed in the story. When leaving the ball, she screams at cabmen driving by, "..shouting after the cabmen whom they say passing at a distance" (3). When Mathilde is leaving the grand ball, she screams at the cabmen, which shows her absolute inconsideration towards others. She portrays her anger and hostility towards others, which shows that her rage can cause her to look inferior. During the ball, her tempers would flare at a distance, "But she did not listen to him, and rapidly descended the stairs" (3). Mathilde's tempers can become thrown off at an instant because of her greed and mixed emotions, which are what caused her to throw a tantrum in front of others. As Mathilde worked hard to recover the money she owed to the Madame, she finally sees and reflects on the mistakes she made in her previous life. In the process, she internally becomes wiser and truly understands what went on during her former life. After her self-centered and thoughtless behavior vanished over time, she became the woman she always had dreamed of
The short story, “The Necklace”, written by Guy de Maupassant, displays the the theme of
‘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
Mathildas envy and desire to be wealthy and to live a lavish lifestyle becomes a much larger problem, when she can no longer visit her friends because of the suffering and jealousy she would experience afterwards. But when Mathilde asked her wealthy friend to borrow some jewelry, she did not seem to experience any suffering, misery, or even
She was self-righteous and egotistical. Mathilde felt she deserved better then Claude and treated him poorly. She displayed this when she was rude to Claude about preparing and eating stew. Her only desires were insignificant and meaningless little things, mostly relating to wealth. She was so concerned with what she didn't have that she took what she did have for granted. Her insecurity about her possessions and how others view her was what lead her to borrow Jeanne’s necklace in the first place. Another one of her character flaws was her dishonesty. If she had told Jeanne she lost her necklace she would have saved herself and her husband a decade of strenuous work and unhappiness. Mathilde’s character flaws played a major role in her
Mathilde did not learn her lesson. She just remember the day of the balls as something beautiful to remember, but finally she still being the same jealous and avaricious woman. She did not feel for her husband effort and love. The roll that Maupassant create is gave to Mathilde a humility lesson.
First of all Mathilde wants to feel pretty and things only white girls will understand. So she gets some stuff that make her feel pretty and that's when the problem starts. Mathilde loses her necklace where she gets a panic attack and starts to lose it. When she prepares to attend a fancy party, she borrows a diamond necklace from her friend Madame Forestier, then loses the necklace and must work for ten years to pay off a replacement. Her one night of radiance cost her and Monsieur Loisel
Another time we see her love for material items is when Mathilde says to her husband, “It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress. I should almost rather not go at all” (69). Instead of just owning her materials, Mathilde is constantly letting her materials define her. It is apparent that Mathilde is not happy where she is and is not happy with her husband.
This is the second time Celie is told she needs to take assertion and give Mr. _____ what he deserves. Later, Sofia asks Celie the last time she actually got mad. Celie says she cannot remember the last time, but when she was younger she used to get so mad felt like throwing up and then she would suppress the pain and feel nothing at all; which is what she still does. Proudfit calls this repressed rage and this is how she learns how to deal with the pain; but now Kate and now Sofia are telling her that it is okay to get mad and act on it.
“ The Necklace,” by the Guy de Maupassant, is about an unsatisfied young woman who wants a high class life style that she has. Madame Loisel born in a middle class family and married a little clerk. However, her dreams is more than that life style. She wants to lead her life just like a high class people which is never come true in her whole life. Madame Loisel’s husband tries to give her better life and make her happy but he is not satisfied her. One day Monsieur Loisel manages an invitation card for a ball dance at a minister residence. Madame Loisel refuses to go there because she does not have a nice dress. Her husband sacrifices his dream to buy a gun for the summer and gives his all savings to buy Madame Loise’s dress. Again, she refuses
The short story “The Necklace” is a very inspiring and it depicts reality. It is about a pretty woman (Madame Mathilde) of low social status that feels unsatisfied with her husband and her life. When she was little, she always imagined herself in a high social position with wonderful jewels. Her husband to pleased her, bought her tickets to go to a social event and used his savings to buy her a fancy dress. However, she wasn’t happy because she didn’t have any jewelry to wear and no money to buy anything. Her husband tells her to borrow a necklace from her friend but than she lost it. The irony of this story is that Madame Mathilde and her husband gave up so much of their lives to pay for the necklace that they borrowed and lost because it
Mathilde’s is downright inconsiderate to her husband as she declines her husband's attempts to appease her. This shows her lack of compassion towards anything but her status and possessions because she is only thinking about herself. Monsieur Loisel is blind and will do anything to make his wife happy even at his own expense yet she cannot see this and asks money of him that he gives over. Mathilde doesn’t seem to see how loyal her husband is to her and would do anything for her. As for her friend Madame Forestier, Mathilde despite saying she is good friends with madame Forestier cannot visit her house without weeping. Mathilde is envious of what Madame Forestier’s wealth and possessions. During the dance, Mathilde lavished in all the attention she received from her male admirers. The only time in the story where Mathilde is truly happy is when she is surrounded in admiration and envy of the
I choose “the necklace” because this story has a lot to do with realizing material things don't have much of a meaning. In the necklace, the main character dreads the fact that she doesn't have as much as others. Or how much she would expect herself to have. Nevertheless, she comes to a realization after she loses a necklace that was lent to her, she works until she gets enough money to pay off this debt. To find out later that the necklace wasn’t real. This story reminds me of me of when I was younger and I was trying to fit in the with some would say the “Joneses”. The “Joneses” is an Idiom in the English speaking world, basically stating that comparing yourself to one neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods.
Also the main character in The Necklace thinks certain objects will bring them self happiness but instead they find themselves unhappy.Basically, in the middle of the story the main character is happy because she is beautiful and popular at the party because of the Necklace. (Maupassant
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
The meaning of "The Necklace" is developed through the depiction of the characters and the plot of the story. Maupassant stated that