the necklace

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Recommended: Essay on "The Necklace

In “The Necklace” Guy De Maupassant writes a story about a woman and her husband and how a necklace changed their lives. The story begins with Maupassant describing Mathilde Loisel as a woman that was born into the wrong path of life due to her characteristics. Mathilde liked all the aspects of a rich lifestyle but she could not partake in these aspects because she was poor. She spent most of her time visualizing herself with a higher social status and interacting the things that came with it. One day her husband, Mister Loisel, was able to procure for her an invitation to a ball at a palace. Evidently, she wasn’t as excited as he was. She was sad that she wouldn’t be able to look good at the ball because she was to plain. Her husband decided that in order to please her, he would use his savings that he was going to use to buy a gun and give it to her in order to buy a dress. After she got the dress she was still sad because she didn’t have any jewelry to go along with it. She went to one of her richer friends that she was particularly close to and asked to borrow a piece of jewelry. She picked out an extravagant necklace from Madam Forestier’s collection. When she was at the party she stuck out more than anyone else and had an amazing time there. After the party they went home and when Mathilde got home, she noticed that the necklace was missing. After searching a long time they weren’t able to find it and decided to find a way to replace it. They went to the jeweler and got a brand new necklace for thirty-six thousand francs. They borrowed eighteen thousand francs in order to purchase this necklace because the husband had a inheritance of eighteen thousand francs. After 10 years of slaving away trying to pay back everythin... ... middle of paper ... ... fake in the end, it stood for wealth and beauty. An example of irony in this story is that the necklace she “remained lost in ecstasy” is what ended up “ruining” her life. The irony is that if she wasn’t so obsessed with appearing wealthy to other women who probably didn’t really care, she wouldn’t have asked to borrow the faux necklace and she wouldn’t have lost it. The dialogue and use of French in this story is important. “Ah, the good pot-au-feu!” This is important because the use of French helps the reader visualize setting. A very important language feature in this story is the use of symbolism with the necklace and the descriptive use of wealth. These are important because it helps explain how obsessed Mathilde was with wealth and social status. The central idea ties with the conflict because money doesn’t always bring a person true happiness forever.

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