Mathilde, a pretty and charming young girl born into a family of clerks and married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction. In those days woman had no rank, they were perceived by their beauty or to what family they were born into. Mathilde was unhappy because she thought she was not meant to be born in poverty. She agonized constantly about her life, the way she lived, the furniture she had, and all of her surroundings. She was even unpleased at the humble peasant girl who did her housework. She dreamed of having oriental tapestry, illuminated tall bronze candelabra, dainty cabinets containing priceless things, and elegant dinners with fine food. She was unhappy, she wasn’t meant to be born unfortunate.
One evening her husband came home with an invitation and he thought that it would make her cheerful because she never goes out and she is always unhappy. The invitation was to attend a ball, but instead of being joyed, Mathilde was unhappy and complained she had no gown to put on her back. The husband had some savings of his own to buy himself a gun to treat himself for a shooting trip, but instead he gave her the francs to please her and for her to buy herself a gown. But, she was still unhappy because she did not have a jewel to wear that evening and she would not look rich or the same as other woman. He then suggested to ask her friend Madame Frostier to lend her a necklace. She then, went to her friend house and told her friend her distress. Madame Frostier took out her black box full of jewels to choose from, but instead her heart pounded when she saw this beautiful diamond necklace. Her friend lend her the necklace.
The night of the ball arrives and Madame Loisel was the prettiest among the other woman, sh...
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...he False Gems story, Monsier Lantin thought that the bohemian jewels his wife had were paste and then after her passing he discovered the reality of how she was able to take care of their household and how she got possession of those gems. On the other hand, the story of the Diamond Necklace, Mathilde borrowed a paste diamond necklace thinking it was a real one, which she lost and changed her life for the worse. In either story you can’t go back again. Monsieur Lantin can’t go back and take his words when he tells his wife to ask her friends to accompany her to the theatre instead of him doing so. Mathilde can’t go back to that evening when her husband gives her that invitation to attend the ball and she cried for not having anything to wear or any ornaments to wear on her neck, which led her to borrow a friend jewel. You can’t go back again, what is done is done.
She thought that she had a horrible life when really she was a strong woman with a lucky life and a loving husband. Towards the end of the story it says, “Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the sort of strong woman, hard, and coarse, that one finds in poor families”(Maupassant 300). Loisel was, again very poor from the ten years of trying to pay off her necklace debts, but not only is ten years older, she looks much older than that from the constant working. At the end of the story, she runs into the woman whom she borrowed the necklace from, and the woman says this, “Oh, my poor, poor Mathilde! Mine was false, it was only worth five hundred Francs at the most”(Maupassant 301)! Loisel, after all the hard working her and her husband did finds out the the necklace was false and worth thousands less than what she had payed off. At the end of “The Necklace” Madame Loisel is much older from the ten years of aging work, and realized that the hard life she thought she had before. She did not actually have until now, but all the hardships made her a stronger and tougher woman than
“Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings” (1-2) --these opening words written by Marie de France in Milun reveal a thoughtful consideration for a response from the reader. Marie makes an implicit connection between the narrative and her reader. This tells me that there is something to be learned and taken from this romantic tale. My perspective as a young mother allowed me to relate to the unnamed woman in the story. One of the most endearing aspects is the lack of descriptive details of the female character that left room for visualization and imagination. I imagined myself as the beautiful young woman; I recognized her emotions, and in a simplistic yet astonishing way the story spoke to m...
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.
Mathilde lives in an illusive world where her desires do not meet up to the reality of her life. She yearns for the status of being upper class, and she believes that her beauty and charm are worthy of much more. Mathilde spends her life doing everything in her power to create the dream life she has always imagined, to be beautiful, rich, and admired. Her husband provided her with a well-off lifestyle that she neglected and treated poorly due to her selfishness and greediness, and took advantage of his hard work at the first chance possible. When presented with the invitation to the party, she immediately rejects the request due to her fear of others judging her “middle class appearance”. But her loving husband offers her the hard earned money he had been saving up so she can treat herself to a brand new dress for the party. Her actions are centered around the happiness of herself, and have no good intentions towards her husband or
He borrowed “asking a thousand franc from one , five hundred from another” (Maupassant 3) to spend the next ten years of his and Mathilde Loisel life to repay the thirty thousand to everyone they have had borrowed from. After completing the long and dreadful ten years of hard labor Mathilde Loisel quiensidently ran into Mme.Forester to only find out that the necklace she had worn that night was fake and worthless. Being a female that has absolutely no authority over her assets and has no say what so ever in where the are placed thus meaning that she is practically worthless. Realizing all of this it is no longer astonishing that Mr.Loisel went out of his way to borrow 36 thousand francs in loans without the permission from his wife Mrs.Losiel. She understand the fact that they would have to repay these outstanding loans and had spent the next ten years of her youthfull life paying back all the money that was owed. In efforts to pay of this debt Mrs. Losiel works around the house and does her daily duties with no intensions of having control over her finances and accepts that the debt of her husbands is a debt of
Until the time of her mishap, Mme. Loisel expresses ardent dissatisfaction with many (if not most) areas of her life; discontent defines her character. Her lofty expectations cause her to believe that, because she is beautiful, she deserves the "best" that life has to offer, but the reality of her situation greatly troubles her. She should have a prestigious husband, yet "she let herself be married to a little clerk" (de Maupassant 46). Mme. Loisel thinks that she deserves to reside in an elegant home, but instead she "suffer[s] from the poverty of her dwelling"(46). She longs for "delicate furniture" and experiences "torture" from the look of her "worn-out chairs" (46, 47). Mme. Loisel is even dissatisfied with her cuisine; while her husband dutifully compliments her cooking, she dreams of "dainty dinners" and "delicious dishes served on marvelous plates" (47). Truly, this woman finds little in her life which brings joy or even contentment.
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.
Knowing how she feels he surprises her with a ticket to the ball. He gives her his savings in order for her to buy a new gown. Though he was unable to get her any jewels he suggests her to tell her rich friend to let her borrow a necklaces in order to see his wife happy. On the contrary, the husband from "The Jewel" does not fully satisfy his wife in the way that she wanted. He dreads going out to the opera while his wife loves it. He was also unable to buy her luxurious jewels so she pleases herself with false jewels and ornaments. Though both men adore and love their wife, one tries harder than the other, even though neither one can afford paying the objects the ladies truly desire.
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.
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.
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or fa...
In “The Necklace,” Mathilde’s internal struggle is with herself. She mentally battled with the physical and financial limitations placed on her, but more with her own soul. She was unhappy with her place in life and could not accept the simplicity of her station, believing it to be truly beneath her. “All those things… tortured her and made her angry. “ Her husband’s blatant acceptance of their place only fueled her frustrations further.
To help out, she gets a job and helped her husband pay off the debt in ten years. In those ten years she had lost her beauty and had not seen Madame Forestier face to face in danger of feeling ashamed in front of her rich friend because of her poverty. After they had paid off all the debt, she finds Madame Forestier down the road and talks about what had happened in her lifetime since the last time they had meet. They start talking about the necklace and the incident that happened the ball night. Mathilde talks about hardships that had taken her to pay off the debt of about twenty thousand francs. And suddenly Madame Forestier says “But mine was fake. It wasn’t worth more than five hundred francs.” ( Maupassant 179 ). This mesmerise Mathilde’s brain and the story ends.
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
The night of the ball came and Mathilde looked great; everyone admired her. The evening ended and everyone went home. Mathilde decided that she would look at herself in the mirror one last time before getting out of the clothes. When she did, she noticed the necklace that she admired so much was gone. Mathilde and her husband had to borrow thirty-six thousand francs from people they knew to buy another just like it so they could return it to the friend. Mathilde and her husband were deeply in debt. For ten years they worked day in and day out until finally the debt was paid off.