Ten years of suffering is the cost of having pleasure for only one night! In “The Necklace,” by Guy de Maupassant presents Mathilde Loisel, an attractive, charming but vacuous and selfish middle class lady transforms to selfness, poor, satisfied and hard-working lady. Even though, Mathidle owns a comfortable home and married to a faithful and kind husband, Monsieur Loisel, who seeks her happiness and satisfaction; she was ungrateful to the things that she had been given, because her greed and desire of wealth had captured her thoughts and blurred the real meaning of happiness in her perspective. Mathidle spends most of her time surfing in her day dreams of being wealthy and suffering from accepting the reality, because her imagination was …show more content…
Guy de Maupassant had suggested clearly through the line of the story the difference between greed and dreams. Dreaming is pursuing and chasing a goal with passion, hopes, and huge efforts; while greed is a desire to acquire more than what one needs with a no effort. Mathilde could bring her dreams to reality by finding a job instead of deciding to stay home day dreaming of her thoughts. As the author had illustrated in many parts of the story Mathidle was never satisfied with her assets for example, when her husband offered her all of his saving to buy her a dress she asked for jewelries and when she had the chance to borrow some. She did not get contended with Madame Forestier’s jewelries, but she kept asking her to show her more until she noticed the most wonderful necklace of Madame Forestier’s jewelries. After losing the necklace, Mathidle social class was lower, but she seemed happier. In the story, the necklace had symbolized more than just jewelry or decoration. The necklace was a symbol of the dominant features of Mathidle’s personality such as selfishness, arrogance, superficial, and imitation. Mathidle always considered her happiness above her husband’s happiness. For example she spent the money that her husband had been saving to buy a gun over a dress to attend the party. Mathile’s arrogance and superficiality had ruined her happiness; she classified people based on their income. She always
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
Guy de Maupassant and Chinua Achebe show their opinions on materialism through the thoughts of their characters in their stories. In “The Necklace”, Mathilde, an avaricious and narcissistic character, believes she possesses “...no dowry, no hopes, not the slightest chance of being appreciated, understood, loved, and married by a rich and distinguished man” (de Maupassant 373). The author, Guy de Maupassant, mocks Mathilde’s attitude towards her life, claiming “...She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers” (de Maupassant 373). By showing Mathilde’s thoughts, the author shows how materialism can cause someone to unappreciate the life that they have, even when it is exceptional compared to
She took her husband and the all the things he provided for her for granted. Mathidle was not satisfied with just a new dress, she had to have jewels to go with it. “’It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress. I should almost rather not go at all.’” She also did not care how much money the dress and the jewelry would cost. To her, all that mattered was if she looked good enough to fit in with the wealthy. She was fortunate enough to be able to borrow the perfect necklace from her wealthy friend. “All of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds; and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of
Throughout “The Necklace” the couples have opposite character traits which plays an important role in the story. The husband, Loisel was completely fine with the lifestyle they had and was very grateful. Meanwhile his wife was never satisfied, blames herself for not being married into a wealthy family. Prior to the ball she wanted jewelry to compliment the gown, her
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.
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
‘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
In "The Necklace" the authors choice of words, or diction, is very well articulated. I enjoyed this story because the narrator, Guy de Maupassant sets us so much suspense with the tone of the story. Madame Louisel essentailly loses a valuable item, or so she thought, and goes to major extents and even life-deminishing problems to just make it seem like she was not responsible enough to take care of a necklace for a night.
Have you ever want too many things even though your life was already fulfilled and lost yourself? Have you ever ask too much and regret for what you did? Every desire, ambition, selfishness and a bit of extravagant of a human being was carefully portrayed in this story, “The Necklace”. The story is about a young woman named Mathilde Loisel. Born in a family of artisans, she wasn’t rich, but beautiful and glamor. But she never feel satisfied of what she had and never stop dreaming to have more, to live a luxury life with expensive homes and glittering dresses, and eventually paid hard for her nonsense dreams. In “The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassant uses third person limited narration to show how Mathilde Loisel changes in how she
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
“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.
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