The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

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Honesty can prevent years of misery, guilt and regret which Guy de Maupassant depicts throughout “The Necklace.” Guy de Maupassant, a French writer, born in 1850, was considered one of France’s greatest short-story writers. His writings were mostly influenced by the divorce of his parents when he was thirteen years old and by great writers such as Shakespeare, Schopenhauer, and Flauber. His parent’s divorce caused his stories to depict unhappiness of matrimony, deceit, miscommunication, and a profound misunderstanding (Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893). In the short-story “The Necklace,” Madame Mathilde Loisel, an unhappy person living in Paris, France, is given an invitation to a party at the Ministerial Mansion, but she will not attend without a fancy dress to wear and fancy jewelry. Her husband tells her to borrow jewelry from her friend, Madame Forestier, but this ends up being her downfall. She borrows the necklace, and eventually loses it after the party. She ends up paying for it with 10 years of hard labor, only later to find out that it was a fake. In “The Necklace,” Maupassant proves the theme that things do not always turn out as one expects through the use of point of view, characterization, and irony.

Guy de Maupassant uses point of view in third person limited, where the reader only knows the thoughts of Madame Mathilde Loisel. “For her, it was all over. For him, there was the thought that he would have to be at the Ministry at ten o’clock” (Maupassant 230). Madame Loisel is never content with her lifestyle, being a part of the middle-class, unlike her husband who accepts the lifestyle and did not dwell on it. “She pretends through role-playing to be a member of the upper class, and her longings promote...

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