Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), is a French author of the naturalistic school who is regarded as the greatest short story writer. Though he didn't originate the short story genre, he promoted it. Maupassant was a prolific writer, between 1880 and 1890 he wrote around three hundred short stories. He was a master of his works and many of his famous works were associated with caustic endings. The Necklace is perhaps his most famous work, which has been also called Madame Bovary in miniature. The story depicts a middle class woman, Madame Mathilde Loisel, who was obsessed with luxuries of the noblemen.. Mathilde was invited for a ball, where she borrowed a diamond necklance from Mrs Forrester, Unfortunately, she lost the necklace and worked …show more content…
Throughout history, there has been discrimination between men and women. Some of these differences can be considered good; for example the concept of being a gentleman and a lady to each other. However, especially in times past, there has been highly negative discrimination as the female race for as long as time can tell. In this paper, it will be discussed just how the stereotypes of Mathilde represent the kind of woman she is and the kind of woman Guy de Maupassant made her out to be. Since this is a man’s perspective of a woman, many stereotypes are largely …show more content…
Clearly, this does not involve all women; however these are the negative sides in a woman that are portrayed in The Necklace. “She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her . . . she had not marriage portion . . . and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other . . . for women had no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family.” (Anonymous Par.
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
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
The necklace serves as a symbol for greed. When Mathilda Loisel loses the necklace that she believed was worth forty thousand francs, she desperately retraces her steps and gets her husband to help her find it as well. It ends up taking ten years to pay off the debt. The ten years were hard on Mathilda Loisel and her husband, and Maupassant told the reader that she “looked old now… with hair half combed, with skirts award, and reddened hands” (6). However, even after the long ten years of manual labor all because she lost the necklace, she “sat down near the window and though of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she has been so beautiful and so admired” (6). The necklace symbolizes that when greed controls emotions and decisions, it never leads to good results.
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
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 Necklace, the setting of Paris in the late 19th century is a world of elegance and wealth. If not born into a wealthy family, one would have two options: marry into a wealthy family, or stay in their social class. That is just the case for Mathilde Loisel, who is endowed with beauty but born into a family of clerks. She was born free and could have had a plentiful life because of her beauty. However, she was held back by the chains of her social status and forced to marry her wealthy husband Monsieur Loisel. Together they have an awkward relationship consisting only of their need for marriage.
‘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
Maupassant demonstrates that the extent of omission of facts is a lie becomes wrong when Mathilde has to sacrifice and endure a great deal of hardships. Maupassant states, “At the end of ten years, they had paid for everything...Mathilde Loisel looked old now. She had become the women of the impoverished households-strong and hard and rough”(65). The
During this time period, women’s role in society was that of a submissive, powerless position. They often relied solely on their husband for direction, allowing the husband to make decisions and take lead no matter what. In the story of The Necklace, Maupassant illustrates these
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
Guy uses diction when he says, “Natural delicacy, distinctive elegance and a quick wit determine their place in society, and make the daughters of commoners the equals of the very finest ladies.” At the beginning of the sentence he uses such words as “delicacy” and “elegance” to describe the kind of woman they shall be. These words also give the reader an idea that women should be looked at as delicate and elegant. He makes a point that she is miserable and not happy with her surroundings by saying, “All these things that other women of her class would not even have noticed, tormented her and made her resentful.” Not just in that quote; but throughout the story, she wishes she was of a higher state and had the luxuries that wealthy people had. The author shows that the rest of the husband’s life would be full of work and depression when he states, “by the black misory that was about to fall upon him.” This all is because of the necklace being lossed, which lead to them having to sacrifice many things and made them work longer and harder.
The nineteenth century French writer, Guy De Maupassant, tells an intriguing story in "The Necklace." He depicts the painful life of a beautiful woman, unhappily born into an average family of clerks. She felt that she was destined to marry into wealth but sadly found herself settling as she married an average copyist. Unlike the women of today, women in the nineteenth century were not fortunate enough to have a career of their own; they were either born into a wealthy family or married a man with money. In "The Necklace", Guy De Maupassant creatively reveals Mathilde Loisel's dreams of a decadent lifestyle. As her struggles start to unravel, it becomes obvious that her heartache is solely
“She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as if by an accident into a family of clerks” this is what Guy de Maupassant started “The Necklace” off by saying (Maupassant 221). Also, this helps describe the main character and to give the readers a visual of Mathilde Loisel. “The Necklace” is a short story that Mathilde Loisel, the main female character, wants to be a higher class than she really is. Mathilde’s life drastically changes one night after she loses the necklace. Guy de Maupassant incorporates his use of the social class into the short story.
In the first place, Mathilde Loisel from “The Necklace”, a woman who undoubtedly was a victim of her envy and ambition. Mrs. Loisel was a woman who lived in a poor place who never settled with what she had. As a result, her envy led her to lose the little things that she owns. Mrs. Loisel, lost her life in things she thought were more important. Mr. Loisel was confused to believe that luxury and wealth could bring happiness into her life. To which she was wrong and ended up losing her youth and strength, trying to pay something which was fake.