The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

That is to say that in “The Necklace,” Mathilde’s perception of herself as a woman of higher social standing lead to her losing the one thing she had going in life, her true beauty. “It is Madame Loisel 's desire to be part of the upper class which sets the story 's events in motion” (Hatboro and Horsham). Mathilde is described as a beautiful woman who finds her life to be not up to her standards because she is not a part of the higher class. “She had no

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

They leave in a rush because Mathilde doesn't want the other ladies to her in a "modest, everyday wrap" while they were wearing expensive furs. When they arrive home they realize the necklace is gone, so they retrace their steps trying to find it. When they have no luck, they buy the necklace for thirty-six thousand francs borrowing every cent from people. They spend ten years repaying everything back including interest. When it is over, Mathilde confesses to her friend and receives the shocking news that the necklace was costume jewelry and only worth a mere 500 francs at most.

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

The quality of one’s emotional life changes over the years. But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In short story “The Necklace” written by Guy de Maupassant is about a woman by the name of Mathilde. She’s described to be average in the physical sense and was married to a clerk by the name of Loisel. The couple get invited to a ball and shortly after, Mathlide complains that her wardrobe was too embarrassing to wear to the ball. Loisel buys his wife a gown and suggests she borrows a necklace from her friend to complete the outfit. Mathlide falls in love with a necklace from the collection. “She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure” (Maupassant 44). The night of the ball Mathlide realized she had lost the necklace. The couple decide to replace the necklace ad work ten years to pay off the debt, finally finds out the original necklace was a fake. This short story created a perspective for who to blame for the outcome of the situation, which in this case is Mathlide.

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

Mathilde wanted to be rich and live a luxurious life. She did not just want to be rich but she thought that she deserved to be rich. Before she got married she was living a decent lifestyle,she even had a maid for the house “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born every delicacy and luxury.” (1). One night Mathilde and her husband got invited to go to a fancy ball. But she did not have any jewelry to wear so she borrowed a necklace from her friend. After the party she realized that the necklace was gone. She and her husband had to go out and buy the same necklace but for thirty six thousand francs. They had to be in debt for more than ten years. One day she decided to tell the woman that she borrowed the necklace from that she lost her original one and this is another one. ‘“Oh my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at very most five hundred francs!...”’(8). Mathilde and her husband were in debt for most of their lives and lived in poverty. The irony in the story is Mathilde wanted to be very rich but ended up the poorest of the poor and the necklace she lost was imitation and she ended up paying so much more money to replace it than she actually

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

But later in the story her discontentment caused her to terrible problem and sealed her fate. The necklace of Madame Forestier has been lost. It is her discontent that caused her to borrow the necklace which she lost. But it is an irony of fate that Mathilde and her husband faced 10 years of hardship for nothing but a fake necklace which cost “at most only five hundred francs.” (6) For this necklace they repaid a debt of “thirty-six thousand francs.” (5) If Mathilde and her husband had admitted to Madame Forestier about the truth of losing the necklace then the consequences would have been different and they would have avoided the hardship. This relates with another morality of the story which is to tell the truth.

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

Mathilde finds herself dissatisfied with her life. She craves for riches and glamour. Instead of appreciating what she has, Mathilde craves for jewels and high class commodities. One day, her husband receives an invitation to a formal party, which would give Mathilde a chance to experience the luxuries of high society. However, she seems upset because she does not own a formal dress to wear to the ball. Mathilde’s husband feels compassion for her and gives her his savings to buy a new and elegant dress. The night before the ball, we noticed Mathilde’s greed when she complains that she has no ornament to put on. She arrogantly tells her husband, “It's so mortifying to look poverty-stricken among women who are rich” (Maupassant). For this reason, he then advises her to borrow some jewelry from her friend, Madam Forestier. Blinded by greed, Mathilde follows her husband’s advice and borrows what looks like a diamond necklace. At the ball, she has a great time. However, when she and her husband get home, she realizes she has lost the diamond necklace. Worried by the consequences of losing a diamond necklace, Mathilde’s husband decides to buy a new necklace by using his inheritance, getting loans, and borrowing money from acquaintances. They return the necklace to Madam Forestier and focus on paying their debt. After 10 years of hard labor and misery, they eventually pay all their debts. At the end of the short story, Mathilde finds out that the diamond necklace she borrowed was fake. Ultimately, we see how greed drove Mathilde to misery and

Social classes exists since the years. Some people born rich and their generation stays rich all the time, while other born poor and all their stays poor all the times. However, there are other people who move from one class to another. Sometimes this mutation depends on the individual effort. In the Diamond Necklace, Guy de Maupassant describe the life of Mathilde who born poor and was not happy with her situation. Since she was unable to switch her social class, she tried for all occasion to appear as rich women. In this short story, Maupassant shows in different ways why Mathilde should recognize and accept her social class and live in the level of her class. Maupassant thinks Mathilde should accept her social class because her honor does not depend to her social class. Also, she should accept her class because happiness does not depend on the materials things. Finally Mathilde should accept her social class to avoid the deterioration of her life.

“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.