Selfishness In The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

In Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace” the protagonist, Madame Loisel, is a dynamic character because she moves from a woman who places appearance and status above all else to a figure that puts value into hard work. When Madame Loisel is first introduced by the narrator she is described as “One of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans… She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of living. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her”.

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.”

Selfishness in The Necklace by Maupassant In Guy de Maupassant's, "The Necklace" all the characters in the story exhibit similar behavior by showing that they think of themselves rather than of others. A close look at the behavior of the characters in "The Necklace" reveals more than a story about a spoiled selfish woman, but what we see is a story about a whole society of selfish people. In "The Necklace" a woman named Mathilde lives a depressed life because she does not live the life style that she desires.

She took her husband and the all the things he provided for her for granted. Mathidle was not satisfied with just a new dress, she had to have jewels to go with it. “’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.’” She also did not care how much money the dress and the jewelry would cost. To her, all that mattered was if she looked good enough to fit in with the wealthy. She was fortunate enough to be able to borrow the perfect necklace from her wealthy friend. “All of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds; and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of

In Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" is the story of Mathilde Loisel, who resents her "station" in life. Mathilde Loisel is shown to be a vain and ungrateful person who believes that she was born to have a better life. She feels that she has married beneath her, in spite of the fact that her husband is a hard working and dependable man. Mathilde is unable to recognize and appreciate the

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

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

Everybody wants what they cannot or do not have. People want to lose weight, be more successful, or just be a better person. Somehow accomplishing goals like these in life are supposed to make us happier, however that is not always the case. In "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, a girl named Mathilde dreams to be a part of the upper class. She nearly goes crazy when she is married off to a poor man, M. Loisel.

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

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.

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.

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