The Necklace

The short story, “The Necklace”, written by Guy de Maupassant, displays the the theme of

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

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.

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

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

Guy De Maupassant is recognized as one of the finest writers of the modern short story. Maupassant’s literary career began in 1880 in France. He was a marvelous writer of short stories which were based upon the aspects of the French Society, frequently touching sensitive subjects such as social and moral principles. The beauty of Maupassant’s stories is the unpredictability of them, quite identical to life, where things do not always turn up the way one may expect. The short story, Jewelry by Guy De Maupassant is an insightful piece, with a compelling theme of appearance versus reality and that the life is full of irony.

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.

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

Maupassant demonstrates that the extent of omission of facts is a lie becomes wrong when Mathilde has to sacrifice and endure a great deal of hardships. Maupassant states, “At the end of ten years, they had paid for everything...Mathilde Loisel looked old now. She had become the women of the impoverished households-strong and hard and rough”(65). The

"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.

The author of Mathilde’s story, “The Necklace,” right from the start, showed readers how prideful Mathilde was, and how her pride led her into the mindset that she should be of the noble class. A passage that expresses this, one taken from the first page of the story, goes: “She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers” (Maupassant 333). Although not expressive of her pride’s consequences, this passage gives readers an informing amount of insight as to how deeply rooted and corruptive her pride is. Furthermore, Mathilde even went so far as to reject a kind offer from her husband to join him at a noble’s ball, simply because her pride kept her from going in an outfit that was any less than fabulous. One passage that acutely describes Mathilde’s feeling about going to the ball is: “I hate not having a single jewel, not one stone, to wear. I shall look so dowdy. I’d almost rather not go to the party” (335). Moreover, the most prominent consequence Mathilde goes through because of her pride is the losing ten years of her life to repay a debt that stemmed from her overflowing pride. Before going to the ball, but after her husband had spent a gigantic portion of their saving into buying a dress, Mathilde buys the necklace

Evidence shows that women in the nineteenth century had to rely solely on men, preferable husbands for materialistic things. She depended on her husband for her social mobility, making her seem ungrateful for the dress that he had already purchased her because she requested more things soon after. Maupassant sees Mathilde and her husband as " victims of the society in which they live," meaning that they were born into this state of need and that they felt they had to be accepted by society, no matter the cost. The story mentions how, " Mathilde still felt cheap after she put on the dress," explaining how it seemed to be worthless ( The Necklace). Mathilde was shown to be greedy by placing her husband under pressure by searching for a way to obtain a necklace in order that she could be happy, rather than settling for what she had been given. Furthermore, Maupassant uses a device that allows him to, "lay bare his characters inner life," meaning that what they feel inside is what tends to be the cause behind the character's choice of actions (Bell). This ultimately demonstrates that Mathilde might not have been able to control her wants or limit

In the short story ‘the Necklace’ Guy de Maupassant employs the use of literary realism for his readers to understand his view on social hierarchy in France during the 1900s. Maupassant achieves this by making several references to everyday, mundane activities; and the allure of Paris’s aristocracy. Maupassant uses an abundance of linguistic techniques which often make the theme of the Necklace; a contrast between an enchanting lifestyle to a common life of the middle class. Maupassant uses this to make it seem as if the stories of daily life and the struggles that come with it are sometimes more meaningful than grander stories of dragons and princesses. The fact of the matter is that Maupassant adapts his writing for his readers desires. The Necklace was written during the post-romantic era, when common folk wanted to believe, and to read that they weren’t the only ones who yearned for precious, materialistic objects and the acceptance of those above them (the noblemen and aristocrats’). In this essay I shall illustrate how the writer uses literary realism in his short story to manipulate his ideas towards the reader.