Chad Pugh
English 2025
Dr. Bovey
Sept. 25, 1996
Jealousy and envy are among the greatest
of sins and have been the down fall of many.
Maupassant's "The Necklace" is the story of a woman who is overcome
with jealousy and envy. Mathilde
Loisel feels she has been cheated by
life from all of the wonderful things it has to offer. The reader learns how these qualities in
Mme. Loisel come back to haunt her for many years as the story unfolds with an
ironic ending.
Mathilde Loisel, as the main character of
the story, is truly believable. She is
described as "one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes,
born into a family of clerks"(900).
The author describes how she suffers from her lifestyle of being middle-class. There is a stereotypical "rich man, poor
man" quality as Mme. Loisel longs for the material things that her old
schoolmate Mme. Forester has. The
physical appearance of the characters as well as their actions, thought, and
emotions are very detailed throughout the story. The main character's life, as well as her
husband's, takes a dramatic turn and the
author describes the physical and emotional changes in great detail.
The story's title does not signify the theme
however, the theme of the story is
reiterated throughout the story.
"She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that. She would so have liked to please, to be
envied, to be charming, to be sought after"(900). Mme. Loisel was envious of her friend and
anyone else who had more than what she had.
She felt that she deserved these things.
The plot grows completely out of the
personalities of the characters. As the
story opens, Mme. Loisel's husband comes home with an invitation to a ball at
the palace. He had hoped that this
invitation would lift Mme. Loisel's spirits but it had an opposite effect. She insisted that she could not go because
she had nothing to wear. Mme. Loisel's
husband reluctantly gave her the money he had been saving for a gun so she
could buy a "suitable" dress.
Next, Mme. decided that she would rather not go than go without
jewelry. Her husband suggested that she
borrow a piece from her friend, Mme. Forestier. Mme. Forestier allowed Mme. Loisel to borrow
"a superb necklace of diamonds"(902).
Mathilde Loisel had a wonderful time at
the ball. "She danced with
intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the
triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of
happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these
awakened desires, and of that sense of complete victory which is so sweet to a
woman's heart"(902). Upon arriving
home, Mme. Loisel realized that the wonderful necklace she borrowed from Mme.
Forestier was gone! Mathilde and her
husband looked everywhere but could not find the necklace. Mathilde called Mme. Forestier and told her that she had broken the clasp of
the necklace and was having it fixed for her.
The next day, Mme. Loisel and her husband bought a necklace to replace
the one she had lost for thirty-six thousand francs. Buying the necklace was not a simple process
for the couple. They borrowed a great
sum of money from several different people and they both took on several
jobs. "She came to know what heavy
housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen"(904-905). "And dressed like a woman of the people,
she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her basket on her arm,
bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou"(905). After ten long years of hard work, they
finally finished paying their debts.
Mathilde wondered what life would have been like if she had not lost the
necklace. "How little a thing is
needed for us to be lost or to be saved"(905).
The climax of the story comes when one
day, Mme. Loisel was taking a walk and saw Mme. Forestier. She called out to Mme. Forestier, but she
insisted that she did not know Mme. Loisel.
"Mme. Loisel looked old now.
She had become the woman of impoverished households - strong and hard
and rough"(905). When Mathilde
told her who she was, Mme. Forestier replied, "Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"(905). It had been such a long time and Mathilde had
been working her fingers to the bone to pay for the necklace she lost.
Mme. Loisel felt that her lie had gone on
long enough so she told Mme. Forestier what happened to her original necklace
and what she had been through to pay for the replacement that was thirty-six
thousand francs. Mme. Forestier was
terribly suprised and replied, "Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred
francs!"(906).
Mathilde Loisel was an envious
woman. She desperately wanted to be like
her friend Mme. Forestier, with plenty
of money, jewels, and beautiful clothes.
She felt cheated from all of the good things in life that she felt she
deserved. This overwhelming feeling of
envy cast a shadow throughout Mme. Loisel's life as she found out that things
are not always as good as they seem to be.
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