"We want what we can't have": This renowned adage has been the cold reply of many parents to their sobbing children as they walk out of the toy store. At the time, the heartbroken children might not fully grasp the words of their parents, but as they grow up they will understand that the well known adage holds true to its meaning. Almost everybody has experienced this feeling, whether it is as young children or as wise adults. Examples of this noted proverb is evident both in print and on screen. Now, since this is the case with most people around the world, it is not difficult to see how this byword applies to Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace." Its protagonist, Mathilde Loisel, longing for a lavish lifestyle rather than …show more content…
She even contemplated how much money she could squeeze out of her husband without "drawing on herself an immediate refusal" (453, Maupassant, "The Necklace"). Her greed filled every aspect of her life and she ended up paying for it at the end. Another character trait of Mathilde is being unrealistic. Instead of focusing on the things in her own life and fulfilling her own obligations, she just stargazes about how her life could have been better if she lived a life of luxury. She constantly imagines a life filled with grandeur, of fine furnishings, and clothes. It is observable that she is not satisfied with her husband, and often dreams what life would have been like if she were married further up the social class. She yearns for a luxurious life that is highlighted with candlelight dinners, large rooms, and servants willing to meet her every need. Rather than trying to improve her lifestyle, she wastes her time imagining if she had taken a different path in life. She even wanted to go to parties and have "talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after " (452, Maupassant, "The Necklace"). Even as she had supper with her husband, she couldn't help but dream about "dainty dinners [and] of shining silverware " (452, Maupassant, "The Necklace").
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
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.
Socrates once wrote, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” The quote above shows how envy is able to take a toll on a person’s soul and is relevant to the story “The Necklace.” When Madame Loisel is invited to a prestigious party, she borrows a seemingly priceless necklace. Mathilde misplaces the incomparable necklace; thus Madame’s envy for the fame of the party and the accessory she desires causes her to plummet into deep poverty. She works and sacrifices for 10 years, suffering to pay off the immense the debt she dug for herself. Within the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel presents many negative characteristics including greed, the importance of status, and insecurity through her desire to look wealthy and prestigious. She offers all she has to please those traits within her, to mute and cover the echoing voices that come from within.
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
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
When people want more than they need, they can lose sight of what is really important in life. They can become obsessed with material goods, and it can ultimately ruin their lives to some extent. This happens not only in the stories that we read, but in real life as well. However, some people know the importance of not valuing material possessions so much. For example, the man in Civil Peace gives up all of his money just to keep his family safe because that is what he finds truly valuable. More often than not though, material possessions can go straight to someone's head and negatively impact their lives. The stories “The Golden Touch”, “The Necklace”, and “in La Rinconada” are prime examples of the consequences of greed.
Mathilde was being very selfish at the beginning because she complained about not having fine clothes or having enough space in her huge apartment. She wanted to be envied and fascinating even though she was in middle class. Her husband had saved 400 franks in order to buy a rifle so in the summer he can go he can go hunting with his friends. But her selfishness made him give her the money for a new dress for a ball everyone is going too. She be's even more greedy and asks for a necklace
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
A person’s desire for more always ends up in them regretting it. When selfishness overcomes a human being they won’t stop at anything until they get what they want. This is very evident in “The Scarlet Ibis” and “The Necklace”. In “The Scarlet Ibis” when the narrator leaves his brother behind. In “The Necklace” when Mathilda’s needy conscious kicks in ,she ends up regretting it for the rest of her life.
“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 dictionary definition for the word greed, is “excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions” (Dictionary.com). In many stories, greed plays an important role. Usually when a character is overcome with greed, it leads to a disastrous results. In the story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, the author acknowledges that the main character Mathilde is very greedy. The author lets the reader compare Mathilde to a foolish person taking life for granted instead of her realizing she already has everything she needs. Mathilde finds herself wanting a fantasy life that she did not have, when in reality her future fades it away. In “The Necklace,” Maupassant is able to show that Mathilde learns a devastating lesson because of her envious nature.
In "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, the character Mathilde is a dynamic character. From the beginning of the story, Mathilde takes money for granted. Her husband works hard every day and all she does is feel sorry for herself because she is not wealthy. Once, she lost Madame Forestier's necklace she had to start doing housework, like cooking and doing laundry. By doing this she had a slight insight on how hard her husband works to earn what they have.
Ten years lost on repaying debts, losing money, time, and her beauty; Guy De Maupassant illustrates in his 1884 short story “The Necklace,” that self-indulgence can cost more than intended. De Maupassant uses irony and symbolism throughout this common tale of greed. He illustrates the main character Mathilde Loisel, a very sad and selfish woman, never happy with things in her life, always in search of finer, richer, and better possessions. “Mathilde suffer[s] ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries” (para. 3). When her devoted husband provides all he can; even an invitation to the ball at the palace, Mrs. Loisel is not content. She needs a new dress, and jewelry, inevitably she borrows a diamond necklace, so she can pretend she is more and has more. She loses the necklace, and then Mr. and Mrs. Loisel spend 10 years paying off the replacement; only to find out the original is a fake. Mathilde is a very greedy and selfish woman, with the use of symbolism, characterization, and social class; De Maupassant illustrates how these traits in human nature can cost a person everything.
In Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” Mathilde is an unhappy French woman who has an apparent desire to live a more luxurious life. Because Mathilde is unhappy in her marriage, she is not shy to let her husband know that he is not enough to keep her happy. Throughout Maupassant’s story, we can see the transformation of Mathilde’s selfishness, unhappiness, and materialistic nature into a newly found humbleness after an incident that causes her to learn that there is more to life than material things. Throughout the first few paragraphs, Mathilde is portrayed as being obsessed with material wealth, and as being selfish.
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