Similarities Between The Necklace And The Gift Of The Magi

The author illustrates how humans feel pride in materialistic items by describing their reactions when they lose their item. In “The Necklace,” the precious item lost is a borrowed necklace. “She turned toward him despairingly,’I...I...I don’t have Mme. Forestier’s necklace”(Maupassant 204). The author illustrates that the character feels great pride in the item, and panics when the item is lost. “The Gift of the Magi” demonstrates that the two characters sacrifice their items that resemble their pride. “‘You needn’t look for it,’ said Della. ‘It’s sold, I tell you-sold and gone, too.’ (O. Henry 354)” The authors of these two short stories illustrate the same theme but in two different ways. Maupassant illustrates the theme through greed and social status. O. Henry uses sympathy towards the characters and love for one another to make a relationship with the reader and the

In the beginning of The Necklace Mathilde is described as someone who is beautiful but resentful of her economic and social background-having been born to a middleclass family and married to a clerk and into the same class. With her beauty she feels she deserves better. This shows that the couple love each other a lot and they are really poor. Then, the inciting incident is when her husband comes home with tickets to attend a very affluent party, and she is excited to go but scared that she might look bad. The rising action is that Mathilde is not wealthy enough as she dreams to be. Her husband gives her money to buy a dress. But she is not satisfied until she asks a wealthy friend for a necklace. At the ball, the necklace makes Mathilde look

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.

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

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

Thereafter, by learning a lesson from her doings there was a great transformation in Mathilde’s character from beginning to end of the story. After giving the diamond necklace to Forrestier she knew they have to live a “horrible” (5) life “of the needy.” (5) . Thus “with sudden heroism” (5) she decided to repay the debt taken for that necklace and “dismissed their servant, changed their lodgings and rented a garret under the roof.” (5) The woman who valued her youth and beauty the most lost it and became the woman of “impoverished household-strong and hard and rough.” (5) But sometimes she

Both Guy de Maupassant and O.Henry are two very recognized short story writers and they wrote respectively The Necklace and The Gift Of The Magi which are going to be compared in this text. In the Necklace, Mathilde, the protagonist, is a jealous, poor, unhappy person and she does not give values to thing that she has. She is married with a young guy that is poor two but is not jealous. Her biggest fear was becoming poor and it turns reality at the final of the story when she realizes that the necklace was fake. The Gift Of The Magi is a story centered on a young couple living in a small apartment located in New York. They are poor so they have to sell something to buy each other a christmas gift. At the end of the story, the couple realize that they do not need gifts. Both stories deal with young and poor couples who face in a objective and are surprised with a unexpected, ironic turn. The objective of this report is to establish clear differences between the short stories and to provide

In the second story, The Necklace, writers reveals the how the reality of a woman situation is that she is neither wealthy nor part of the social class of which she feels she is a deserving member, but Mathilde does everything in her power to make her life appear different from how it is. She lives in an illusory world where her actual life does not match the ideal life she has in her head—she believes that her beauty and charm make her worthy of greater things. The party is a triumph because for the first time, her appearance matches the reality of her life. She is prettier than the other women, sought

When her husband gave her the invitation to the ball, which was a perfect place to meet the rich people, Mathilde got mad and cried. It was a shame since she has nothing to wear. Mr Loisel gave his money to Mathilde and she got an elegance dress. But she didn’t stop and wanted to have jewels. Mathilde met her friend, Madame Forestier and chose an gorgeous diamond necklace. Of course, she became the prettiest woman in the ball, with everyone stared at her, as if she was the most attractive woman ever. She felt fascinated, just like her dream came true. But then a tragic came to her. She lost the necklace! Mathilde and her husband tried to find the necklace, but they found nothing. Mathilde lost her hope and had aged five years. The Loisels finally decided to replace the diamonds for 36 000 Francs, spent all of their money and accepted to pay the debts. It was such an unfortunate situation. After Mathilde lost the necklace, she was described as “ And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money”. (Maupassant 8). The family was suffering from poverty and have to pay the debts continuously. Mathilde changed immediately and did everything. They have worked so hard to earn every single penny for their life, to survive and pay all those debts. The third person limited

In the text it explains everything on how Mathilde had to work very hard for ten years to get the money to pay for the necklace that she borrowed and lost. Mathilde worked really hard to get some money, she did all the household chores, for example she washed the soiled linen, the shirts dish clothes, which she dried on a line outside;she carried slopes down the street every morning and carried up the buckets of water, stopping for breath at every landing. There is a lot more hard work that she did but that’s too much to

In the play The Necklace, the story of a beautiful and charming woman is told. This woman married an average man who she felt she was much too good for. Mathilde believed she was much more suited for a wealthy man with a luxurious lifestyle, not Claude the clerk. Claude was content with his ordinary life and found pleasure in the small things. Mathilde took Claude for granted and became increasingly irritated by him. She failed to notice all the good things he did for her, and he put up with it. She complained about having to do housework and never being able to go out and live an extravagant life. Claude listened to these complaints and managed to get them tickets to a ball. Rather than being thankful, Mathilde complained more about her lack of a dress nice enough for the ball. Claude saved up and got enough to buy her an elegant dress to wear, but Mathilde complained about not having any accessories to match. Claude proposed the idea that she could wear a flower, but Mathilde instead borrowed a diamond necklace from her wealthy friend Jeanne and promised to bring it back. She lost this necklace at the ball and, rather than confessing to Jeanne what had

In order to earn the money to pay the debt, “She did her share… completely, heroically” (Maupassant 191). She did not give up her work. She kept on to get the work done so that she could pay back the debt. She also accepted responsibility for part of the debt instead of pushing it off onto her husband making him to do it all. This is important because it shows that she is a hard working woman and will do whatever it takes to honestly earn back the money. Instead of relying on her husband to do all the work she accepts responsibility for her actions and her part in losing the necklace. Willing to do any work, “She learned to do the heavy housework, dirty kitchen jobs” (Maupassant 191). When called to it Mathilde will do what she needs to despite what society says. Because she is willing to do the hard, dirty jobs, her character over comes the social norms. She no longer buys into the lie that she deserves nice things because she is beautiful, and realizes that she must work hard for nice

Mathilde acts very self-centered and egoistic. Likewise, she was not thankful for the invite, her gown, or that her friend had lent her jewelry. Lastly, Mathilde’s character is revealed through her personality. “She had not gowns, no jewels, nothing.

In both “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Necklace,” Della’s and Mathilde’s wants and desires leads them to different outcomes. Della, in “The Gift of the Magi,” is a poor woman who, although isn’t unhappy for herself, needs money to buy her husband a Christmas gift, a chain for his watch. She then decides to sell her hair, which is her most precious possession, “Had the Queen Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out...just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts…” Due to her willing sacrifice for her husband, what ended up happening is that her husband ended up selling his watch to buy some jewels for Della’s hair, if she didn’t sell her hair to buy him a gift in the first place. Mathilde from

One, noticeable part that plays a huge part in the theme is irony and/or suspense. In “The Necklace” the readers are suspenseful of if Mathilde will come out and tell the truth or try to cover up her steps. Mathilde hurries to find the diamond necklace that she has lost, and to find someone willing to work with her payment plan. Throughout this short story Mathilde faces hard tasks of work to receive the money until she can pay it off. Also, It was very suspenseful when overtime we watched Mathilde try to conquer her external conflict. Suspenseful was a feeling that took over most readers because most of them were worried that Mathilde’s friend was going to find out about to lost of the necklace. Also, Ironically the necklace was fake causing all of Mathilde’s hard work to be useless. Overall, this taught Mathilde a lesson.