Greed and Destruction
Like any good action movie, there is almost always a dramatic plot twist, an exhilarating fight, a sudden death; something that nobody ever saw coming. Most people hope for a happy ending, but this was not the case in the short story, The Necklace. Losing what appeared to be a diamond necklace, Mathilde Loisel, the main character, had to pay a great debt that leads to her moral destruction. Mathilde Loisel, undeniably egocentric, and pitiful, deserved the tragedy that happened to her. She had dreaded her own life, envying the life of higher class women creating a terrible impression that women should be of higher class to be deemed acceptable. Mathilde should not have deserved the things that she had because she was so unhappy with own middle-class life. She caused her husband to suffer because of her own debt. In The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, Mathilde Loisel is a greedy, self centered, undeserving woman. First of all, Mathilde was living an average middle class life, but she absolutely dreaded the life she had. Always thinking that everything she owned was not good enough, acting as if living in poverty. Mathilde hated her shabby furniture and ugly curtains. (Maupassant 1) She was so unnecessarily miserable all the time, the character that Mathilde portrays is a bad influence for women. She makes readers think that rich people live a better quality of life. The sight of the little Breton peasant girl who did her housework made Mathilde feel
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
People who are driven by greed end up focusing on what they do not have instead of being grateful for what they do have. This is relevant in the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant because Mathilde Loisel ends up losing everything she owns just because she lets greed drive her decisions and get the best of her. When receiving an invitation to an extravagant ball, she declines because she says she does not have anything nice to wear. In the beginning of the short story she says, “There is nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.(Maupassant).” The reader sees how she puts value in possessions and what others think of her. After finding a dress and then borrowing a necklace that she thought
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
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
“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.
In contrast to Mathilde’s greediness, she is forced to learn that the power of these material items may be her desired interest, but she cannot afford to let her craving for wealth take control of her life. After the purchase of the replacement necklace, her and her husband are put into ten years of debt forcing Mathilde to learn the ethics of being a lower-class housewife. Heavy duties in the kitchen, cleaning dirty linens and clothing, and fetching water was the result of dismissing the servant they could no longer pay for. Ironically, she did not only lose sight of the luxurious life that she
Many people wonder whether terrible things happen because of fate or because of their actions. In the story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, a young woman named Mathilde borrowed a diamond necklace from her friend and lost it. She secretly bought another diamond necklace to replace it and lived for ten years in poverty before discovering that her friend’s necklace had fake diamonds instead of the real ones she bought with which she replaced it. Mathilde is a victim of her own desires because she is not responsible, she is not honest, and she has a very poor attitude.
While her husband is only a lowly clerk in the Ministry of Education, he can afford to buy her modest things, and he appreciates the modest and simple. Rather than appreciate her modest life, Mathilde dreams of a world where she is dripping jewels and eating off fancy china. She has a negative outlook on her life and expresses the sorrow she feels for herself. Her husband wants a better life for them and tries to give her the best he has, money wise, but Mathilde still longs for more. She thinks that beauty and power only come from wealth and status; where wealth is money and expensive objects and jewelry. Her thought process was out of touch from her peers thinking at the time period. Elaborate jewels, decorations, and clothes were how people showed off wealth and
Have you ever thought about how dialogue reveals character’s aspects? In each passage, dialogue reveals a character’s emotion. In each passage dialogue also reveals the character's thoughts. Also, dialogue reveals the tone of a character’s voice. In the passage the bet , dialogue reveals a character’s aspects.
Mathilde’s greed and ungratefulness causes her and her husband to go into severe debt, and loose the good life they once had. She complains about the nice things she once possessed and does not appreciate what all her husband does to make her happy. Mathilde does not fully learn her lesson about greed and being ungrateful until she loses her middle class status and goes into extreme debt. Guy de Maupassant tells a valuable lesson about greed and ungratefulness in the short story The Diamond Necklace by showing what happens to Mathilde when she dreams of a better life, receives it for a night, and is still not satisfied.
When the story started she only cared about one thing and as the author states "She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. 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 many times over and over she proved that she cared for objects more than her own husband." Mathilde showed to her husband no affection and she wasn`t happy with their life and he did not fight that fact because they did not have the pleasantest life but to him it was something, but not to her. She was only happy when she got a new item, proving this fact, the story states that when she got the 400 franc dress she was over the moon, also when she acquired the necklace. But other than that she was always depressed.
Another quote that proves that Mathilde is selfish comes from page 335, which states, “‘How much would an evening dress cost…’ ‘ I think I could manage with 400 frances.’ He went a little pale, ‘Well, all right, then. I’ll give you four hundred francs.’” This quote shows that Mathilde is self-centered because she took money her husband the he was saving, in order to buy herself an expensive dress just for her self-fulfillment. Mathilde did not even thank him. This quote proves that Mathilde is narcissistic. Mathilde is characterized as conceited and selfish throughout the story “The Necklace.”
“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.