In the short story “ The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant the main character Mmd. Loisel is a selfish and dishonest person. The first character trait is that she shows is that she’s selfish. Mmd. Loisel demenstrates selishishness by crying about not having the right dress so her husband had to give her money to buy a fancy dress. She says in the story “oh, nothing only I don’t have an evening dress and therefore I can’t go to that affair”(29). Mmd. Loisel demonstrates her selfishness again in the story. Another way she demonstrates is when she wouldn’t wear what she had, she had to have something rich women would wear. She demonsrates when she says, “No…. There’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among alot of richbwomen”(30).
Loisel is overdramatic about the little things that should not even matter. Her husband asks her what is wrong when she crying about the invitation she replies, “Oh, Nothing. Only I don’t have an evening dress and therefore I can’t go to that affair” (2). Mme. Loisel does not see the invitation as her husband doing something sweet for her; she sees it as an issue. The fact that she cannot just be happy about being invited because she might not have the perfect dress is ridiculous. Later when the dress situation is solved with the help of her husband, she is once again unhappy, “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a gem-nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper; I’d almost rather not go” (3). Once again, she makes a big deal about not having something nice to go with her dress; this makes more unnecessary problems and adds to the negative portrayal of
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.
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,
How you ever met a person who is different on the inside than on the outside? Mathilde Loisel is a pretty, middle-class woman who lives in Paris in the late 1800s. The story “The Necklace” is written by Guy de Maupassant. She doesn’t think about others/selfish. Her husband treats her like he should and she isn’t happy with it. She cares too much about her outward appearance. Besides the fact that she is pretty, Mathilde Loisel is also a closed-minded, selfish, and a vain person.
Irony is the use of words or actions that mean the opposite of what they say literally. It is a difference between what might be expected and what actually occurs. In other words, it is a form of sarcasm. The use of irony in writing for humorous or dramatic reasons. The irony in the short story “The Necklace” is that the diamond necklace Matilde borrowed and lost was an imitation and her husband and her spent all their savings and takes out vast loans to replace it. The necklace was intended to make Matilde happy but ended up doing the opposite. When people try to pursuit wealth or status it is easy to forget the things that one already has to appreciate. In “Desiree’s Baby” irony also plays a big part of the story. The end reveals the truth
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
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.”
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.
“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.
Madame Loisel’s pride demands more: “It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress” (Maupassant 2). Ironically, it is Monsieur Loisel who suggests that his wife borrow jewelry from Madame Forestier, and subsequently has to spend the next ten years borrowing money to replace it. As May puts it, “Her husband exhausts his meager inheritance and then borrows the rest, mortgaging their life away to buy a replacement for the necklace” (May 7). Monsieur Loisel sacrifices everything to salvage his wife’s pride.
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.
In “The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassaut uses the irony with the necklace to criticize Madame Loisel’s need to make a false impression and her equally false desires. Madame Loisel shows her desire for everything throughout this short story. Guy de Maupassant uses an angry tone showing the reader he disapproves of Madame Loisel actions and need for attention. In the beginning of this short story, Guy describes Madame Loisel as “one of those pretty and charming girls born” (CITATION). Guy de Maupassant immediately lets the reader know Madame Loisel is incredibly beautiful. Her husband even says “Why the dress you go to theatre in. It looks very nice to me” (CITATION), yet Madame Loisel does not care. Madame Loisel needs to make a false impression
As a team, the goal of this presentation is to reveal to the class, how the Necklace can relate to modern day society. In order to understand and apply the reading to modern day society, we set the event to take place in court as an exaggeration to a situation that can be solved behind closed doors. By questioning the characters in the story, each will slowly reveal how the reading is applied to our everyday lives (such as modern day mentality, christian beliefs, and moral standards between friends).
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