The Diamond Necklace Affair Essay

Marie Antoinette was the Archduchess of Austria, and became Dauphine of France after several years. Many French citizens dislike her because of her behaviors. Some citizens blamed on her that she was one of the reason to cause the French Revolution. Some of the people said that she was not a serious problem for forming the French Revolution. There were also some people said that those behaviors were came from Louis XVI or influenced to Marie Antoinette, and actually he was one of the reason that caused the French Revolution. So what is the truth as one of the cause of French Revolution? Was she really a cause of the French Revolution?

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.

While many people may be familiar with the story of the French Revolution and history of Marie Antoinette, they may not fully comprehend the lively debate that continues to exist around Marie Antoinette. A debate over how Marie Antoinette should be remembered exists, with some arguing that Antoinette was spoiled and careless and others taking the stance that Antoinette was a victim of her harsh circumstances. Before delving into this controversy, background knowledge of Marie Antoinette’s life can assist in understanding the controversy. In 1770 at the age of fourteen, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Austrian empress Maria Theresa, was married to Louis XVI of France to strengthen French and Austrian relations. In 1774, Louis XVI became king and Marie Antoinette became queen. Dissatisfaction toward Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and economic turmoil led the French Revolution to begin in 1789, with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette eventually being guillotined in 1793 (Covington 56-65).

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

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

Many people may argue that Marie Antoinette was the biggest factor for why France fell into a revolutionary state, however, Marie Antoinette was a queen victimized and forced to play role from a young age to satisfy the French people who disapproved. Marie Antoinette was falsely blamed for her actions when in fact it wasn’t her fault. Marie Antoinette was forced to accept a society where she had to learn new customs and traditions. She had to leave everything behind, consequently become something she isn’t. Her frustration and unhappiness with Versailles was no surprise. Marie Antoinette was frustrated by her marriage. At Versailles her husband-to-be, Louis Auguste had no interest in her. In the film, Marie Antoinette, the director clearly

The story intially takes place at a ball that Madame Louisel has been invited to by her husband. In the beginning of the story Madame is very indecisive about making an appearance at the ball. She complained she did not have a dress, any jewels, and she was scared she would look like a "pauper"(174). She did not want to look poor around a bunch of rich woman, so she had asked a friend for a piece of jewelry to wear for the night. Excited, she picks out the diamond necklace that seemed to stand out to her. She adored it. The narrator describes it as "lovliest of all, elegant, smiling, and radiating with joy"(175). Having a blast at the party, dancing, drinking, and not thinking about anything else, Madame left the ball around four in the morning. Calling a cab, Madame and her husband were on their way home, delighted with the fun night that they had. Finally arriving at home, they begin to get into comfortable clothes when suddenly Madame notices that the diamond necklace she had borrowed from a friend for the night had gone missing. Searching everyhwere

participated in the scandal they accused her of: the scandal that led to her death by guillotine: the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Marie Antoinette was also blamed for The French Revolution and the suffering of the poor people, but the citizens of France were already poor long before she became queen. The French Revolution was a time of political and social disruption, and the change of their absolute monarchy. Marie Antoinette was part of the monarchy, so she was disliked, but she was not the cause of The French Revolution. Her husband, King Louis XVI, made known

The story of revolution and resistance in 18th-century France is a complicated one, and no two historians tell the story the same way. However, it is clear that for the revolutionaries, Marie Antoinette’s significance was mainly, powerfully symbolic. "She and the people around her seemed to represent everything that was wrong with the monarchy and the Second Estate: They appeared to be tone-deaf, out of touch, disloyal (along with her allegedly treasonous behavior, writers and pamphleteers frequently accused the queen of adultery) and self-interested"( Moore 17 ). What Marie Antoinette was actually like was beside the point; the image of the queen was far more influential than the woman herself.

"God, but your silly! Go to your friend Mrs. Forrestier and ask her to lend you some jewelry. You know her well enough to do that." (The Necklace, Pg 7) When Matilde's husband suggests that she borrow some jewelry from one of her wealthy friends, he really had no idea what a terrible mistake he was making at the time.

Guy De Maupassant’s short story, “The Jewelry”, is about a man, named M. Lantin, who marries a woman who is infatuated by fake jewelry. She compiles all sorts of jewelry and in time her husband discovers that all of it is actually real. The author uses a myriad of literary elements to make it the absorbing short story he meant for it to be.

In the short story, "The Jewelry", written by Guy de Maupassant, there is an eventual ironic twist that ends up enhances the main character's characterization. The plot is that a young woman, whom is adored by many, is married to a clerk, who earns a modest salary each year. Together the Lantins live quite happily, despite their financial situation seems to lack the ability to provide a lavish lifestyle. However, Mrs. Lantin has a trick; she dresses up her dull clothes with "fake" jewelry that could fool anyone into thinking they were pure gems. Later in the story, Mrs. Lantin dies, leaving Mr. Lantin in a struggle to stay afloat. In an effort to scrap up some extra cash, the man goes to jewelry stores and asks for the necklaces to be appraised. Controlled by utter shock of how much the jewels are worth, Mr. Latin starts living the lavish lifestyle he's always wanted, spending money carelessly. This eventually attracts his second wife: a woman who makes him miserable. "The Jewelry"'s events show that Monsieur Lantin is characterized as a round, and dynamic character, who shows traits through indirect characterization.

Citation- Price, Munro. The Road from Versailles: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Fall of the French Monarchy. New York: St. Martin 's Press, 2003.

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.

Before Marie Antoinette married Dauphin Louis XVI in 1770, the situation in France was already beginning to become disordered. The peasants, which made up about 90% of the population at the time, were treated unfairly and began to feel frustrated and upset with the Monarchy. At the time, Marie Antoinette was distrusted because of her foreign birth and many of the peasants saw her as the source of their problems and disliked her. She was often seen in the past as a bad Queen due to her careless spending and seemingly frivolous lifestyle, now with more evidence and sources, opinions have shifted. Many see Marie Antoinette as a victim of her own circumstances, as it can be seen by the state of affairs in France before her arrival, her upbringing and public opinion before her death during the French Revolution. This essay will illustrate that Marie Antoinette was indeed a victim of her circumstances.