The Necklace

2 Pages 551 Words

Guy de Maupassant was a French novelist and short-story writer. In his short story “The Necklace”, he focuses on a pretty but poor lady whose name is Mathilde. Her character is introduced as having the belief that she should have been born into a higher class. She was unhappy (“as she had gone through bankruptcy [5]”) because she did not have any connection to enter into high society and become well known, so she could marry a distinguished man. Mathilde finally got married with a clerk in the Ministry of Education and still depressed with her life.
Unfortunately society insists that true happiness requires ownership of many expensive possessions. Mathilde is a victim of materialism. She is a middle class woman who wants to be part of the upper class. Her desire to live a life of luxury prevents her from finding satisfaction with other aspect of her life. Her husband goes through a great deal of trouble to get an invitation to a fancy party however, when he tells her the news, she replies coldly: “What do you want me to do with this?” (Maupassant 6). He makes every effort to convince her to go to the party and even sacrifices his savings for her to buy a new dress. As they were getting closer to the party, Mathilde seemed upset with something. Finally, her husband finds out that it is because she did not have any jewelry
to dress up with therefore she did not want to go to the party. Her husband tried to convince her to wear a corsage of cut flowers, but it did not work, and he came up with an idea and told Mathilde to go to her friend Mrs. Forestier and see if she can borrow some jewelry. She treats her with kindness and lets her choose any piece of jewelry to borrow. After searching through Mrs. Forestier’s jewel collection, Mathilde chooses the one that she expects will draw the most attention. Without realizing, Mathilde loses the necklace at the party. Mr. And Mrs. Loisel sacrifice everything in order to buy a ...