Greed is a present theme throughout Maupassant’s short story ‘The Necklace’. Greed is a predominate trait in one character in particular, Mathilde Loisel. Mathilde wants to be wealthy and lives in a fantasy world built around this utopian world she builds in her head. Her husband does everything in his own power to accommodate to his wife’s delusions of being rich. Mathilde creates her own reality in which: “She let her mind dwell on the quiet vestibules, hung with Oriental tapestries, lighted by tall lamps of bronze, and on the two tall footmen in knee breeches who dozed in the large armchairs, made drowsy by the heat of the furnace. She let her mind dwell on the large parlors, decked with old silk, with their delicate furniture, supporting precious bric-a-brac, and on the coquettish little rooms, perfumed, prepared for the five o'clock chat with the most intimate friends, men well known and sought after, whose attentions all women envied and desired”(Maupassant 1). She hungers for the feeling of being rich and being noticed by other people, men in particular. This is one of the passages where her greed is brought to the attention of the …show more content…
The story begins with a middle class girl who dreams of being rich, and cannot achieve this so she lives in a utopian world she creates. Then in an attempt to please his wife, M. Loisel comes home with an invitation to a party, which Mathilde does not want to attend, only because she does not have a dress. When she is given money to buy a dress, she then lusts for fancy jewelry. She also does not have a necklace to show off to the guests at the party. Her husband suggest her theater dress and she does not want to wear that one, her husband also suggest a few roses but again she insists on a necklace. It is her greed that fuels the entire story plot, and it is her greed that causes the decline in social status in the
To start off with, Mathilde had many conflicts she had to face during the story. First, she was poor and low in the social class. In the textbook it says, “she dressed plainly because she could not afford fine clothes.” She does not have money to buy new clothes because she is poor. Secondly, she got invited to the ball but had no evening clothes. “Only I don’t have an evening dress and therefore I can’t go to the affair.” Mathilde is poor and does not own an evening dress and can’t afford a dress she thinks she can’t go to the ball. Next, she has no jewelry to wear. . “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or gem-nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look pauper.” She has no jewels or gems to go with her dress. Finally, she overcame many conflicts
Values are spread all around the world, and many people’s values differ. These can lead to people being judged, or indirectly characterized by other people. In “The Necklace” Mme. Loisel is a beautiful woman with a decent life, and a husband that loves her, and only wants to make her happy. She is not rich but she makes it along, she insists of a better, wealthier life. When her husband gets her invited to a ball, she feels the need for a brand new fancy dress and tons of jewelry. When the couple realizes they cannot afford jewelry as well, they search out to borrow her friend, Mme. Forestiers’ necklace. She comes to notice she no longer has the necklace on when she leaves the ball. This later troubles her, as she has to work for a long time to collect enough money to buy a new necklace. This story describes the relationship between a couple, who have different dreams, and how desires can revamp your life. Guy de Maupassant, the author of “The Necklace” uses literary devices to prove people come before materialistic items.
She comes from a good family that works for what they have. She marries a good hard workingman. But, Mathilde is not happy the way she is living and she daydreams about having the glamorous life. From having fancy tapestries, grand banquets to tall footmen. One day her husband, M. Loisel, comes homes extremely excited to show his wife an invitation that he has received to go to a fancy ball. She is not happy because she has nothing to wear and she doesn’t want to show up looking ugly with house full of rich people. She got the dress she wanted but then was not happy because she needed jewelry to go with this dress. Mathilde went to her rich friend to borrow jewels from. Of course she went with the most extravagant piece of jewelry, a diamond necklace. Showing up to the fancy ball with everybody adoring what a beauty she is, Mathilde was finally satisfied. When she got home after the fancy ball, she noticed that the necklace she borrowed was missing. Looking franticly for weeks, Mathilde then decided she had to replace the necklace. Replacing the necklace took everything they had and more. Mr. and Mrs. Loisel then became extremely poor with no money to there name. They then had to sell everything had and both now had to work. This went on for about ten years. Mathilde had no beauty to her anymore, she had to work, and do the house keeping. The
Greed is an eager sign for more and more is never enough. The story “The Necklace” written by Guy Maupassant clearly illustrates the destructive capacity of greed. The author guy Guy Maupassant uses Mathilde Loisel to depict the many characteristics of greed.
Other details in the story also have a similar bearing on Mathilde’s character. For example, the story presents little detail about the party scene beyond the statement that Mathilde is a great “success” (7)—a judgment that shows her ability to shine if given the chance. After she and Loisel accept the fact that the necklace cannot be found, Maupassant includes details about the Parisian streets, about the visits to loan sharks, and about the jewelry shop in order to bring out Mathilde’s sense of honesty and pride as she “heroically” prepares to live her new life of poverty. Thus, in “The Necklace,” Maupassant uses setting to highlight Mathilde’s maladjustment, her needless misfortune, her loss of youth and beauty, and finally her growth as a responsible human being.
Values are spread all around the world, and many people’s values differ. These can lead to people being judged, or indirectly characterized by other people. In “The Necklace” Mme. Loisel is a beautiful woman with a decent life, and a husband that loves her, and only wants to make her happy. She is not rich but she makes it along, she insists of a better, wealthier life. When her husband gets her invited to a ball, she feels the need for a brand new fancy dress and tons of jewelry. When the couple realizes they cannot afford jewelry as well, they search out to borrow her friend, Mme. Forestiers’ necklace. She comes to notice she no longer has the necklace on when she leaves the ball. This later troubles her, as she has to work for a long time to collect enough money to buy a new necklace. This story describes the relationship between a couple, who have different dreams, and how desires can revamp your life. Guy de Maupassant, the author of “The Necklace” uses literary devices to prove people come before materialistic items.
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 more than she could not afford. One day Mathidle’s husband brought his wife an invitation for a fancy party, but as a result of their low income, Mathidle’s was ashamed to wear flowers as decoration, so she decided to borrow an expensive looking necklace from a friend of her, Madame Forestier. After attending the fabulous party and spending a memorable great time looking stunningly beautiful, Mathidle discovers that she had lost the expensive necklace that she borrowed, so she decides to buy a similar copy of the necklace to her friend after loaning an enormous amount of money and narrowing the house outcome. The author surprises his readers with a perfectly detailed twist at the end of the story. Losing the necklace was a turning point in Mathidle’s life and the best thing that ever happened to her.
The first of many character traits of Mathilde Loisel that Maupassant makes evident in the "The Necklace" is greed. She longs for a better life, one in which all her wildest dreams are transformed into reality. This rapacity causes her to drift away from her lifestyle and come back wanting more than she has or can afford. The voraciousness that consumes her whole way of life is truly a sign of inner weakness, a weakness she has for wealth and beauty. She would get lost in her own little fantasy world where everything was just pristine and perfect, with things she knew she would never be able to afford. She would daydream of "silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the t...
It is evident throughout the story that Mathilde is caught up in a dream world because she feels the need to have luxury on daily basis. “She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings”(Maupassant). She never really seems happy, and her lack of luxurious things makes her feel even more worthless, kind of like a person with no purpose on earth. The main reason why Mathilde is so greedy for more things is because she feels like her life would be even more complete with glorious & fancy possessions. Mathilde may feel like by having clothes, jewels, and money, her life will be fulfilled. Mathilde may even feel that by Mr. Loisel not attending to her needs with showers of gifts she truly wants is because maybe he does not love and appreciate he...
Maupassant delighted me with this story. I especially liked how he present the character Mathilde, she seemed to be extremely ungrateful with her mediocre life. She dreamed of wealth and fame and it seemed like nothing would please her. She focused so much on her desire to have social status that when she got the opportunity to go a social gathering with elite members of society, she would not go unless she had a fancy dress and fancy necklace. For one night, she felt like “somebody”. I found this story to display themes of gross vanity, irony and suffering. Because in the end Mathilde worked hard to replace the necklace that she presumed was real. She was never able to have another day of pleasure or go out to any other events. She made such a big deal of the one event, she lost herself in the feeling of being social accepted by a higher class in society.
From the beginning of the story Mathilde seems to have a chip on her shoulder as if she has been done an injustice because of who she is married to. The time period, in which this story was set, the only way a women could move up the class scale was to marry a man who came from wealth. Ironically, Mme. Loisel’s husband is a clerk just like her father was. She longs to be rich. Her mind is concentrated on being in the social circle and living a life surrounded by everything that is fine and exclusive. She is greedy and unhappy with her modest but still quite tolerable lifestyle. It is illustrated beautifully in the passage where she describes her intolerable “worn out chairs” and “ugly curtains.” In the very next breath she speaks of her “little Breton peasant who does her humble house work” (Maupassant 178). When her husband comes upon the opportunity to go out for an evening to a ball, he assumes his wife would be overjoyed. Instead, she relishes in thoughts of looking poor among the rich. Try as he might there is no pleasing his deprived wife.
Upon attending the ball, she would have to come as either an upper class guest or a middle class guest. And after all, she wanted nothing more than "to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after" (Maupassant, 1). To arrive simply as a person of the working class and to receive no attention would have been deeply agonizing for Madame Loisel. In order to be presentable for the ball she pushes herself and her husband into an uncomfortable financial state, for the sake of appearing like she fits in with the higher class. The couple spent their saving of four hundred francs, which was initially saved with the intention of buying the husband 's gun so he could shoot with his friends, for Madame Loisel 's new dress (Maupassant, 2). Once the dress is obtained, she was in need of jewels or accessories. She expresses once again how devastating it would be for her to look poor amongst rich women. Madame Loisel and her husband reach a compromise and she agrees to borrow a something from her rich friend. Her friend, Mine. Forestier is willing to help Madame Loisel with her distress and offers her an assortment of jewelry to choose from (Maupassant, 2). After going through all the choices, she decides on the diamond necklace, seeming to be the most expensive. She does "unnecessary" things in an attempt to prove her
In the short story “The Necklace”, the main character, Loisel, is a woman who dreams of greater things in her life. She is married to a poor clerk who tries his best to make her happy no matter what. In an attempt to try to bring happiness to his wife, he manages to get two invitations to a very classy ball, but even in light of this Loisel is still unhappy. Even when she gets a new dress she is still unhappy. This lasts until her husband suggests she borrows some jewelry from a friend, and upon doing so she is finally happy. Once the ball is over, and they reach home, Loisel has the horrible realization that she has lost the necklace, and after ten years of hard labor and suffering, they pay off debts incurred to get a replacement. The central idea of this story is how something small can have a life changing effect on our and others life’s. This idea is presented through internal and external conflicts, third person omniscient point of view, and the round-dynamic character of Loisel. The third person limited omniscient point-of-view is prevalent throughout this short story in the way that the author lets the reader only see into the main character’s thoughts. Loisel is revealed to the reader as being unhappy with her life and wishing for fancier things. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.” (de Maupassant 887) When her husband tries to fancy things up, “she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls…” (de Maupassant 887) As the story goes on her point of view changes, as she “now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover all of a sudden, with heroism.” (de Maupassant 891) Having the accountability to know that the “dreadful debt must be paid.” (de Maupassant 891 ) This point-of-view is used to help the reader gain more insight to how Loisel’s whole mindset is changed throughout her struggle to pay off their debts. Maupassant only reveals the thoughts and feelings of these this main character leaving all the others as flat characters. Loisel is a round-dynamic character in that Maupassant shows how she thought she was born in the wrong “station”. “She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station.
The Necklace also displays distinctive realism in the use of socioeconomic influences which are essential to the plot. The major conflict in the story would be absent and the theme would not be obtainable without Mathilde Loisel’s insecurity about her own socioeconomic reputation. An example of Loisel’s self-deprivation nature is presented when she realizes she does not have a necklace, she says “I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party” (Maupassant, sec. 3). Another example of the self-conflict caused by social pressure is Loisel’s immediate attempt to replace the necklace and her reluctance to speak to her friend Madame Forestier about the necklace for ten whole years. If she were not conflicted by societal pressures she might have avoided the whole situation altogether. The Necklace establishes a realistic difference in value between the necklaces and proposed clothing. Her husband proposes flowers which were valued 10 franks so in any case if she had chosen the flowers there would have been an insignificant economic loss. Her decision not to tell her friend about the necklace ends up costing her seven times the worth of the original. The roses symbolize the simpler things in life to the theme of the story. Mathilde Loisel’s withered appearance at the end
Mathilde Loisel grew up in the working class and had no expectations in life. Mathilde settled for a lifestyle she was unhappy with. When she got married, she and her husband would sit around the dinner table and imagine they were eating a luxurious meal. Together, they had nothing. Mathilde had no clothes, no jewels, and only one friend (who was rich). Mathilde dreamt of wealth, fine clothes, and a beautiful house. She knew that those dreams were unrealistic and unattainable.