Guy De Maupassant Irony

2/6/14
Fiction Paper
Jewelry at a Cost The short story “The Jewelry” by Guy de Maupassant displays a theme of irony throughout the story through an objective narrator. The story begins by leading the readers to think that the relationship between M. Lantin and his wife is stable and pleasantly upright. Irony strikes after the sudden death of Lantin’s wife. The irony emphasizes hints that are given earlier in the story through symbolism of material and non-materialistic things.
Irony is a clear theme of this short story. Monsieur Lantin loved his wife and when she passed away he left her things exactly the way he found them, “He had kept his companion’s room just in the order she had left it… (Mays 91).” However, when Lantin went broke
because he could not seem to finance his money like his wife did so well, he chose his wife’s most prized possession, her pearl necklace, to sell. This is ironic because M. Lantin wants to honor his wife and remember her by leaving everything just as it was when she died yet he chooses to pawn her favorite necklace.
Earlier in the story, Monsieur Lantin’s annoyance with his wife’s obsession with her jewelry is clear. “There were only two points upon which he ever found fault with her—her love of the theatre, and her passion for false jewelry (Mays 90).” His dismay foreshadows that he would want to get rid of the one thing he disliked most about his wife but in the happy marriage they appear to be living, he would have loved her for her skills and her weaknesses which are theatre and fine jewelry. Jewelry is symbolic of wealth and dignity. Jewelry was worn to show high class and money by socialites and upper class women in Paris in 1883. The jewelry that M. Lantin’s wife possessed is a strong symbol for the double life she was living. The so called fake jewelry is portrayed as inexpensive, pretty eye candy. Mrs. Lantin lives a happy, simple life of adequate income and peaceful marriage which is symbolized by the pretty, yet cheap, fake jewelry. Real jewelry is always a prime victim of robbery because of its beauty and value which signifies that it can cause deceit. The fact that the jewelry is not fake at all unveils the lies and depraved life she lives by the betrayal of her husband which was not expected from the given description of M. Lantin. Madame Lantin is described as a very innocent young lady in the beginning of the story. “[She] seemed to be the very ideal of that pure good woman to whom every young man dreams of entrusting his future.(Mays 90)” She makes her husband happy and finds a way to live a luxurious income on a low salary. After she passes and Monsieur Lantin sells all of her jewelry, he is still happy because of her. Even though he is upset by the realization of her alternate life, her indecencies left him a large amount of money which, in turn, makes him a very happy man. When Lantin discovers the betrayal by his wife, he has an epiphany.
At first he is very hesitant to return to the jewelry store to claim the money for the pearl necklace. M. Lantin felt embarrassed of how the necklace came into his possession and tried to enter the shop to claim the money multiple times but was stopped by his own shame. When he finally goes into the store, persuaded by hunger, the money gives him relief. “Then, as he was on the point of leaving, he turned to the ever-smiling merchant, and said, lowering his eyes: ‘…I have some other jewelry, which came to me in the same—from the same inheritance. Would you like to purchase them also from me?’ (Mays 94).” Lantin decides the money is what he wants to ease his pain. He sells all of his wife’s expensive jewelry, quits his job, and begins to spend money like a rich man. He turns from being a man ashamed of selling his dead wife’s false jewelry for money in a time of need to a man that finds happiness in the misfortunes of his marriage.
Monsieur Lantin gets remarried after the death of his wife but is completely miserable with his second wife. Although she was as honest as they come, she had a terrible temper. This second marriage that the reader learns about in the last few lines of the book symbolizes a question that Lantin probably pondered himself; is living in happiness brought on upon immoral values better than living in unhappiness brought on by moral values (Baccellia)? This is another example of irony that
supports the theme because it is expected that happiness would come from an honest, true marriage but this story tells otherwise.
When Monsieur Lantin is asked for proof of ownership over the pearl necklace he says that his address is Rue des Martyrs. A martyr is most commonly known as someone who is killed because of their beliefs. This could be symbolic because Monsieur Lantin’s idea of his wife is figuratively killed because the whole time she was alive he believed that the jewelry his wife had was fake. The address could also symbolize her because martyr also means someone who suffers or pretends to suffer for sympathy.
Lantin’s wife flaunted her jewelry in front of her husband and gave him the impression that it was all fake and that she was longing for more, but she actually had what she wanted. Madame Lantin also acts as if going to the theatre without her husband would provoke a bad reputation; although, the reputation it would give her would be all too relevant. This fake suffering or anguish is Madame Lantin’s way of drawing sympathy from her husband so that he may not suspect her sinful behaviors; she is a martyr. Maupassant often writes of poverty in his short stories and jewelry is a reoccurring theme.
His story “The Necklace” is about a piece of jewelry, that is meant to be real, that gets lost and a man and his wife spend ten years in poverty paying back the debt that they owed upon replacing the necklace. The end of the story reveals that the original necklace was fake and not worth much money. This contrasts “The Jewelry” because fortune is gained from the jewelry in one story and poverty is struck because of another; however, both stories have similar settings and characters and a central theme that things are not always as they
appear. The lesson to be learned from “The Jewelry” is that things aren’t always as they seem. The use of irony emphasizes this idea by giving the reader expectations that do not end up coming true. The use of an objective narrator forces the audience to infer many things through text analysis which induces critical thinking of the text that leads to the exposure of the symbols used throughout the story. The ironic ending gives the plot a curve that makes the reader rethink the whole underlying story and ponder what the cost of happiness is.

Works Cited
Baccellia, Autumn. Short Story Analysis the Jewelry by Guy De
Maupassant. Humanities 360. Helium. Web. 4 Feb. 2014.
Guy de Maupassant. The Necklace. Shenet. N.p. Web. 5 Feb. 2014
Wilson, Kathleen, comp. Short Stories for Students. Detroit. Gale. 1998. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Norton: U of Nevada, 2013. Print.