The Necklace

545 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The necklace, essay

The story the necklace is about a young lady named Mathilde Loisel and her husband living a modest lifestyle. Somewhere along the line she begins to desire more out life materialistically. One day she gets invited to a fancy ball and wants to dress to impress, since there would be other wealthy people attending the ball. Due to this desire she borrows a pretty necklace from one of her wealthy friends Madame Forestier. Under assumption Loisel assumes the diamond necklace she borrowed was real and very expensive. During the ball Loisel loses the necklace and instead of being honest with her friend she goes out and buys a replacement necklace that looks precisely like the one she originally had and returned it to her friend. After years of strenuous exertion, heartache, and struggle Mathilde Loisel is told …show more content…

This also showed that wealth and status cannot buy true happiness and peace. Being honest may have not brought the wealth Madame Loisel wanted but it would have produced happiness in the end. At the end of novel after Loisel finds out that the necklace was never real it then commences to click that her and her husband hard work was in vain. Another edification in this is to be content and grateful with the things given to you and appreciate them because love, family, and jubilance hold a greater value than money and materialistic things. In the end it was evident that Loisel missed out on her youth and no longer had the opportunity to have the family she wanted. A simple truth could have avoided what seemed to be a complete change of life for Madame Loisel and her husband. Something as minuscule as a necklace ruined what could have been a good life for her and her husband. It accentuates on the conception that even when the matter is small, to still be honest because if not it can turn into something way bigger and create avoidable

Show More
Related

  • Irony In The Gift Of The Magi

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    So Madame Loisel goes out and buys a nice dress and borrows jewelry from her friend. She attends the ball and has a wonderful time. When she arrives, she is horrified to see that she has lost the diamond necklace that her friend Madame Forestier lent her. After searching for the necklace for hours on end, she buys an expensive replacement and hopes that Madame Forestier won’t notice. After 10 years of hard work, Mathilde and her husband finished paying off the debt of the necklace.

    Read More

  • How Does Maupassant Use Irony In The Necklace

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the many years that have passed by with Monsieur and Madame Loisel working hard to make up the money that they spent on buying a replacement necklace, Madame Loisel finally went to talk to her old friend. She found out the necklace cost close to nothing compared to their replacement when the author writes, “Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at most five hundred francs!” This quote signifies how Madame Loisel and her husband worked so hard and the necklace was dirt cheap. The ironical ending makes the reader feel sort of sorry for Madame Loisel as now she is living a life worse than before. It also causes the reader to be a little happy as she sort of got what she deserved. In the end, it just didn't turn out so well for

    Read More

  • A Fools Payment

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story, “The Necklace,” a greedy and selfish woman brings financial ruin upon herself and her husband. They go from a comfortable lifestyle in a slightly shabby apartment to an impoverished existence in an attic apartment. Mathilde Loisel was born to a lower middle class French family, but she wished that she could have of noble birth. Her longing for a better life caused her great grief. When she could have been happy with her situation in life, instead she would dream of a grand home and wealthy, dignified friends. When she borrowed a diamond necklace from a friend and lost it at an elegant party, she brought downfall to her husband and herself. Not only does Guy de Maupassant use the necklace as a vehicle for the hard times that the Loisels had to endure, but he also uses it as a symbol to teach a lesson about the repercussions of greed, ruin, and regret.

    Read More

  • The Necklace

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant tells of Mathilde Loisel who “by error of destiny” was born poor and winds up marrying a clerk. Mr. Loisel surprises Mathilde with an opportunity to taste the luxurious life for an evening and she unexpectedly bursts into tears because she has nothing to wear. Mr. Loisel agrees to buy her a gown and suggests that she borrow jewelry from her wealthy friend. The evening turns out to be a dream come true until the Loisels arrive home to find that the borrowed necklace is no longer around Mathilde’s neck. The Loisels secretly replace the necklace with an expensive duplicate that takes them ten long, hard years to pay off. Shortly after the loan is paid off, Mathilde runs into her rich friend and confesses her secret. Mathilde is distraught to find that the necklace was not the expensive gem she believed; but a faux. The central idea of this story is that when you desperately seek a life not destined for you, you end up sacrificing your own happiness.

    Read More

  • The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassant

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story, Guy de Maupassant clearly and effectively proves that people come before materialistic items. Such literary devices such as symbolism, situational irony, and juxtaposition are used to prove the theory. Symbolism was expressed through the necklace having a greater meaning within itself. The situational irony was expressed in three different ways. Mme. Loisels’ beauty, her judgment of character, and that her old life she hated, turned out to be greater than what was to come her way. The juxtaposition was shown through her and her husband marriage and values. In conclusion, people always have values that can change, or stay the same. Sometimes people’s values are poor and misleading, but it doesn’t mean they are not a good person at heart.

    Read More

  • Deception In The Necklace By Mathilde Loisel

    251 Words  | 1 Pages

    Mathilde Loisel borrows a necklace from her wealthy friend. She loses the necklace and replaces it with a thirty-six thousand francs one. She goes into debt, and ten years later she tells her friend the story of what happened to the original necklace. Then her friend tells her it was a fake and only costed five hundred francs. In this short story, deception is shown through appearance and in actions too.

    Read More

  • The Necklace

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    As the day drew near Mathilde’s envy overtook her once more and she became distraught. She decided that she could not go. When Mr. Loisel asked why, she replied that she had no jewelry to wear and that she would look l...

    Read More

  • How Has Madame Loisel's Character Changed

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the beginning of the story, “The Necklace” Madame Loisel was young, beautiful, and had a loving husband, but was very concerned about her looks, reputation, and status. She wishes for an elegant upper class life and longs to have much more than she does. The story starts off by telling about the beauty and youthfulness of Loisel, “ She was one of

    Read More

  • The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassant

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    A common literary device, symbolism is used in this story. Symbolism is when something has a greater meaning within itself. The example of this in the story is the necklace. When looking at necklaces at Madame Forestier she finds one that just jumps out at her. She believes it is everything she wants in life. This is symbolic because it was only a necklace it could not fulfill all of her dreams of a rich high-class life. “She wasn’t at all convinced “No… There’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among a lot of rich woman”. This quote is said before borrowing the necklace, but it is the reason she borrows it from Madame. The necklace is not really going to change who she is in reality. The necklace ...

    Read More

  • The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

    1340 Words  | 3 Pages

    Loisel repaid the necklace together with their sweat and tears. Mathilde didn’t have a choice; she had to change from a vain, ungrateful, material, bored wife, into a hardworking proud and loving wife. She even says, right before she runs into Mme. Forestier, “What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!”(39) In that quote I saw 2 things, when she asked herself what would have happened if she didn’t lose the necklace, she doesn’t go into some fairytale about what life she could be living, she just accepts what she is now, even if it’s not the easiest life in the world. At the very end of that quote “How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!”(39) The fact that she added “or to be saved!” to her thought, tells me that she realizes that she was vain and unappreciated and that she lacked character, but now she is grateful, even though it was such a terrible thing, she was grateful that she was able to say that she was a better person now, even after everything that happened to her than she ever “dreamed” of being before. Guy de Maupassant certainly described a very difficult hardship for Mathilde in “The Necklace” but in the end, everything that happened to her, made her a much better and stronger woman inside and out. This story teaches a very important lesson, you have no idea what you can do and who you can become, until your chips are down and you’re put between a rock and a hard

    Read More

  • The Necklace

    1345 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The Necklace” ends up to be a very ironic story as it explains why valuing the more important things in life can be very effective towards a person’s happiness. One example of the story’s irony is when she is at the party dressed as a beautiful and fancy woman. ‘She danced madly, wildly, drunk with pleasure, giving no thought to anything in the triumph of her beauty, the pride of her success…’ (pg 193). This is a form of dramatic irony because Guy explains earlier that Mme. Loisel is just a middle class woman who dreams of a wealthy life, but she is just alluding herself as a luxurious woman. Another example of irony in the story is when Madame found out that the necklace was paste. On page 196, Mme. Forestier, Ma...

    Read More

  • The Necklace

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Short Story 'The Necklace' By Guy De Maupassant

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    As I did research on how others interpreted the story, the same conclusion would pop up. The necklace was used as a symbol of higher class of wealth. We use symbolic items to try and fit into societies belief of “fancy”. The deeper meaning is within the true value of the necklace. It is a fake just as she is! She is trying to be something she is not and ends up losing the necklace which holds a false value as well. This is why a person should not take everything as it

    Read More

  • Realism In Guy De Maupassant's 'The Necklace'

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Values In 'The Necklace' By Guy De Maupassant

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    At many places in the story he shows the irony of Madame Loisel’s situation. From the time of her marriage, through her growing years, Madame Loisel desires what she does not have and dreams that her life should be other than it is. It is only after ten years of hard labor and abject poverty that she realizes the mistake pride led her to make. At that point, the years cannot be recovered. In my opinion, the moral lesson of the necklace story is that we should not judge people on appearances because they may appear to be rich and successful and they may not be. It also explains us we should not pine after material possessions, but realize we are happy with what we have and we must be satisfied with what we have and what we are. We must be honest enough to confess his mistake instead of running from situations and turning back. There’s nothing wrong in have wishing though and dreams, but you must know your limits and your condition as

    Read More

More about The Necklace

Open Document