The Necklace

How does Maupassant represent the female character in "The Necklace?"

"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant portrays the female character in a number of different ways. This is a short story about a woman, and because of her vanity, ruins her life at the end. The author gets this idea across by using a variety of symbols and language techniques.

In the story "The Necklace," the author's aim appears to be showing us that greed and jealousy will eventually lead to destruction. In this story, the protagonist is Mathilde Loisel, who is a woman who always daydreams of a life she knows she would never have. Because of this, she is never satisfied with what she already has, forever reminding herself that she was born into the wrong life and that fate had made a mistake. Even though her life is miserable, the narrator's unsympathetic feelings towards Mathilde are made evident when he states:

"…Who have had the ill-fortune to be born into a wage earning family…she led herself drift into marriage with a junior clerk."

It shows how she consider herself ranking even higher that the common people. Mathilde also has a servant to do her chores, which would, at that time, to be considered by many women to have a spoiled life.

The main theme within the tale is the necklace. By using it as a symbol, Maupassant is able to show us the vanity of Mathilde in a more visible way. She was too obsessed in her non-existent glamorous life, so when her husband announced the opportunity for her to live her dream, she made sure that it was successful. She achieved this by borrowing an extremely expensive unaffordable necklace from Madame Forrestier.

The party was indeed enormously successful, until she arrives home to find that her borrowed necklace was gone. This event made her lose more than just the necklace. It caused her to lose almost everything she already had and made her suffer a more miserable life. It is evident when it states:

"Madame Loisel now looked like an old woman. She had the typical appearance of the working-class housewife, strong, hard, and coarse…"

Mathilde could be considered as someone already in possession of a great jewel before she even borrowed Mme. Forester's necklace. Her husband, Loisel, is the one Mathilde relies on and is the only one she didn't lose, but she never shows any affection towards him in the story. He loves his wife very much and her contentment was his main concern. This was why he sacrificed his own happiness by giving her the money to buy a gown. It is apparent that he works hard for money to keep her happy.

"It was all over now; she was thinking, and he, that he must be at the Ministry by ten."

This is also supported when he said to his wife that he had the "greatest difficulty" in getting an invitation, because of the fact that she never goes out, making him a very loyal husband. It is also apparent that he did not blame her for losing the necklace.

"You must write to your friend...saying that you broken the catch of her necklace, and that you are having it mended, That will give us time to have a look around."

Irony is used throughout the whole story. One example is when she meets Madame Forestier towards the end of the story.

"Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her friend's hand in hers. "Oh you poor, poor thing! Mine was imitation and worth, at most, five hundred francs!..."

The author surprises the reader very much by having a twist at the end of the story. The reader would have expected that Madame Forestier would be angry with Mathilde, for blaming her that it was her fault and for not telling the truth earlier. It is surprising to hear that Mathilde and her husband, Loisel, has spent almost ten years repaying their debt for buying a real unaffordable thirty-six thousand franc necklace, only to know that they were replacing a fake.

Another evidence of irony was when Madame Loisel returned the new necklace back t Madame Forestier.

"She did not open the case, which was what her friend had feared she might do. What would she have thought if she had noticed the substitution?"

Madame Forestier did not even hesitate to look at the beautiful necklace to make sure nothing was wrong with it. If it was a prize possession, she would have opened it. This states that Madame Forestier was not concerned about the "plaster necklace." Another irony used was when Madame Loisel was looking through Madame Forestier's jewels before the party.

" First of all she saw several bracelets, then a string of pearls…she tried them on before the glass, unable to make up her mind, reluctant to take them off, to give them back. And all the time she kept on asking: ‘have you nothing else."

Madame Forestier gave her a variety of bracelets and necklaces. Even though they were of fine quality, those pieces of jewelry were not good enough for Madame Loisel. She settles on the diamond necklace at the end. Guy de Maupassant does this on purpose to say that because she was too fussy and demanding to have borrowed this necklace, it was this necklace that changes her life at the end.

After reading the story, we can see a change in her attitude towards life. She and her husband are forced to live a life of hard work because of her own selfishness. Mathilde change from a woman who spends her time daydreaming to realize that she overlooked the higher class people. It explains how by having too much vanity and change and destroy the lives on people who focus too much on their looks and surface appearances.