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The truth behind money and happiness
What is the role of wealth in the creation of happiness? Can money make you happy? essay
What is the role of wealth in the creation of happiness? Can money make you happy? essay
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Essay 1: Explain whether money equals happiness. Being rich isn’t necessarily the path to cheer and joy. There are more ways to be happy, and they don’t need to involve money. Money can just bring happiness that is only temporary. In the story, The Necklace, Madame Loisel is a middle-class lady who is not satisfied with the life she has. Madame Loisel has a simple husband who works as a clerk and makes enough money to support both of them. She lives in an apartment, has a maid who cleans and washes for her, and has enough food for both her and her husband to eat. You can say that you think Madame Loisel has a pretty decent life, but for her, this was not enough. She daydreams of riches and jewels with a classy house and a fabulous wardrobe. …show more content…
She cried out in frustration, leaving her husband confused. “What’s wrong, my dear?” he asked her. “Why would I want to go to a party if I have nothing nice to wear? Everybody there will be dressed in only the fanciest clothing. I would be humiliated if I go without a classy dress and some jewelry.” she snapped back. Her husband wondered for a bit and tried to think of a solution quick. “How about I lend you some of the money I earned so you can buy a pretty dress, and you can go ask Madame Forestier to see if she’ll lend you some of her jewels?” he answered. Madame Loisel gleamed. “What a great idea!” So there she went on to buy a fancy dress with her husband’s money and asked her friend to see if she can borrow some of her jewelry. She found the most glamorous and expensive-looking diamond necklace there was, and she asked Madame Forestier if she could take it, and she said of course. Finally, the day of the party came, and Madame Loisel was the most beautiful lady there. She was having the time of her life, and everyone was admiring her. By the end of the
5. (CP) Madame Loisel borrows seemingly expensive necklace to satisfy her arrogance and attend a party that was way above her social class, only to lose it. She has been blessed with physical beauty, but not with the lifestyle she desires. She may not be the ideal protagonist, but she went through a tough time after she lost the necklace and had to make money to replace it.
In the short story “The Necklace,” the author Guy de Maupassant describes the life of a woman named Madame Loisel. Loisel spends endless hours imagining a more extravagant existence and dreads her poverty intensely. One night, her husband returns with an invitation to a formal ball and hopes that Madame Loisel would be excited as she doesn't get to go out much. Instead, she is upset because she feels like she has nothing nice to wear and no jewelry at all. Her greed comes back at her in the end when the necklace she loses is worth next to nothing, compared to the hardships they went through. There are many key literary elements that the author uses to help the reader understand the story well. Maupassant uses imagery, characterization, and irony to make the story much more interesting and vibrant for the reader.
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.
Instead she married a simple middle class man and lived a middle class life. All the while she dreamed of living the life of the rich. With beautiful gowns and glittering jewelry. Oh how happy she thought she would be. Then one day it happened that she and her husband where invited to a dinner ball. Her husband, Mr. Loisel thought this would make his wife so very happy since this is what she spent all of her time day dreaming of. Here it was, the thing that consumed her finally at her door step, but she was not happy. In fact, Mathilde was even more distraught because it brought to her attention that she had nothing proper to wear. Mr. Loisel sympathized with his wife and knowing he had money set aside for a new shot gun, he gave her 400 francs. This was enough money for a pretty dress, not too fancy, but pretty because he knew this would be a rare occasion.
Mathilde Loisel, the protagonist, is shown to be very vain, arrogant, and stubborn. This is presented to the reader through her immature pouting when she is offered the invitation to the ball but does not own a fancy dress or expensive jewels. As the story progresses it is revealed that Mme Loisel is a hard worker and that she doesn’t give up; this is displayed through her hard work both to find another version of the necklace she lost and to pay off the necklace over ten years. “The Necklace” is an excellent example of a story where the main character has both strengths and
If Mrs.Loisel wouldn’t have been so set on that necklace, or if she would have appreciated the items she already owned, then she could have saved herself from misery. By being selfish and wanting everything, her life was ruined because of a necklace. Within the story, the author also helped explain the theme in different literary elements. One way in which she did that was from the plot. The plot discuss Mrs.Loisel background and says, “She was one of those pretty and charming women...into a family of clerks and copyists.
In the story, “The Necklace”, Madame Loisel is very childish. She is the main character for this story. In the beginning of the story she thinks about all of the things she wants to have in order to fit in with the other wealthy people she lives around with. She is not poor nor is she filthy rich, but she seems very ungrateful for almost everything she does have. Her husband was in charge of keeping her happy and keeping each other on track.
When Mme Forestier said that Mme Loisel could borrow the gorgeous, diamond necklace, she was enlightened. Everything was going well until she lost the necklace. In order to replace the lost necklace, the Loisels would have to work every day of their lives, move into an attic, and use their life savings. In the end it turns out that the necklace that they originally lost was only worth 5,000 francs, but the one they got to replace it was worth 40,000. From middle class to poverty, Mme Loisel sure has had one kind of life.
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
Madame Loisel was a proud woman who was extremely poorly along with her husband, who earned a low amount of money, but she dreamed of being someone who owned extravagant clothing and jewelry that was worth plenty of money. Someone who has money would be seen as a highly respectable person who was elegant and looked up to. This could be seen in paragraph 3 where it says, “The modest clothes of an ordinary life, whose poverty contrasted sharply with the elegance of the ball dress.” Madame Loisel for example, wanted to pretend to be a high class individual while in reality she was only an average poor person. She had not realized what it actually took to acquire the money needed to a fine women so all she could do was dream. She did not value the life she had where she did not have to work and all she had to do was stay home and clean. Also in paragraph Add Paragraph “She had become strong, hard and rough like all women of impoverished households.” This helps develop the idea that valuable items have an emotional attachment because the necklace was so valuable money wise but it also helped her develop a different personality that was more accepting to what she had already. The necklace represented something to her that she could never own on her own but in the process of being selfish and greedy she learned many values of life. Treasurable
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.
In “The Necklace” Maupassant serves an ending in which is not only shocking but well deserved. With a similar theme as “The False Gems”, beauty is within, the author gives readers the non-expected also while expected. Coupled with this, Mme. Loisel throughout the entire story is an ungrateful, envious, spoiled person. She is highly uncontented with her current level of caste and constantly wants more. After her husband gives her 400 francs she wishes for more to support her materialistic beauty. When Mme. Loisel borrows the necklace from her friend she later loses it and lies about it to her acquaintance. With this, a deeper problem is issued. In the end the money Loisel paid to buy a new necklace was much more than its original worth, a difference of 22000 francs! Towards the ending this was very satisfying because appreciation is important. Within the 10 years Mme. Loisel lost her beauty, youth, and confidence. Together with this, some things are priceless and once it’s gone it will not come back. Maupassant symbolized the jewls, and with this readers can understand that youth is a gift and confidence is within. Therefore Madame Loisel’s ending was what she deserved for her actions and I found it to be
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.
Mathilde Loisel lived the life of a painfully distressed woman, who always believed herself worthy of living in the upper class. Although Mathilde was born into the average middle class family, she spent her time daydreaming of her destiny for more in life... especially when it came to her financial status. Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, tells a tale of a vain, narcissistic housewife who longed for the aristocratic lifestyle that she believed she was creditable for. In describing Mathilde’s self-serving, unappreciative, broken and fake human behaviors, de Maupassant incorporates the tragic irony that ultimately concludes in ruining 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.