The Necklace Essay

How does guy de Maupassant present the character Mathilde in ‘The Necklace’?
Guy de Maupassant was a French writer in the 19th century; he is considered as one of the fathers of the short story, The Necklace is a short story about a woman called Madame Matilde loisel and her husband Charles. Mathilde appears to be an unpleasant, middle class woman who believes she was made for a rich life. Madame Matilde Loisel is lucky enough to obtain invitations to the Ministry of the Public Instruction party; because she is middle class and cannot afford jewellery to wear, she borrows a necklace from her good friend Madame Jeanne Forestier. But whilst coming home from the party she loses the necklace. This leads her to start a new life of poverty.
Maupassant shows the reader the innermost thoughts of Mathilde by utilizing free indirect discourse, “she was one of those pretty, delightful girls who, apparently be some error of fate, get themselves born the daughters of very minor civil servants.”Attention is drawn by doing this to show her vanity and her self-centred nature, “if she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said would she have not concluded she was a thief?” The free indirect discourse Maupassant uses is enhanced by his use of hyperbole, “she was unhappy all the time…the rundown apartment they lived in… was torture to her.” The tricolons and other forms of repetition which Maupassant uses are to make her seem spoilt and childish and to exaggerate the feelings and emotions of Mathilde, “she had no fine dresses, no jewellery, nothing.”, he uses redundant vocabulary, almost tautology, To add more to the character assassination and to enhance the effect of repetition “sometimes, for days on end, she would weep tears of sorrow, regret, despair and anguish.”
Maupassant structures the story to draw attention to its protagonist’s aversion of the real world and immersion in her own fantasy world driven by materialistic desires. The sentences at the start of the story, dedicated to her day-dreams are by far the longest, and are also imagery laden, “...she dreamed of elegant dinners, gleaming silverware and tapestries which peopled the walls with mythical characters and strange birds in enchanted forests; she dreamed of exquisite dishes...”in contrast to this, when Mathilde is forced to live a life of poverty and falls on hard times, one sentence is used to show an entire ten year stretch of her life, “They lived like this for ten years.” Maupassant makes the twist in the tale more dramatic by focusing the narrative mostly on pre necklace Mathilde – the materialistic girl who we are familiar with. The characters transformation is subtly dealt with; Maupassant portrays her downfall very economically by using symbolism, “she washed dishes, wearing down her pink nails on the greasy pots and saucepans.”
Mathilde makes it obvious at the beginning of the story that she has little feelings set aside for her devoted husband, and is conveyed through their contrasting idioms: whereas her comments seem to be above her stature, “It vexes me that I haven’t got a single piece of jewellery, not one stone, that I can put on...consequently I shan’t be going to any reception.” Whilst Monsieur Loisel has a more colloquial vernacular than Mathildes relative to his stature, “I had the dickens of a job getting hold of an invite... you’ll be able to see all of the big nobs there... It’s all the rage this year.” Mathilde Also makes it obvious that she cares less for her devoted husband than material objects; when her eyes are first set on Madame Forestier’s Necklace, ultimately this leads to her downfall, “her heart began to beat with immoderate desire. Her hands shook as she picked it up.” she tried it on and she, ”sat looking at herself in rapture.” she appears to feel excitement and is described in an almost sexual way, and when her feelings for her husband are juxtaposed with this, “So she went along with a proposal made by a junior clerk ...” one realises she is totally obsessed with material objects and how her loving husband is not respected and cared for by her. Near the end of the story Mathilde suddenly realises that her husband has some importance in her life and a place at her side. Maupassant, by the mere substitution of one pronoun with another smartly conveys her transformation, “She waited for him all day long in the same distracted condition, thinking of the appalling catastrophe that had befallen them.” It is only a brief amount of time before her subjugation is complete, “she wrote to his dictation.”
This story is very ironic and Maupassant uses irony very well to ridicule Mathilde. When she is feeling particularly sorry for herself longing for material objects, away in her apartment, the image that upsets her the most and makes her think about what could have been if fate had been kinder on her part is “The spectacle of the young Breton peasant girl who did the household chores...” she is very fortunate for the fact that she has a servant but It simply does not occur to Mathilde and Later on, when she is still discontent about her fate, she is mourning her lack of pretty possessions and decrees that,”God had made her for such things.” Later on, in the next paragraph she refers to a wealthy friend of hers, “from her convent days”. Mathilde, a woman who has such a religious education would surely be aware of the sinful nature about being culpably desirous of possessions of another, and would be happy with what she has in her own life? But the ultimate irony appears at the very end of the story, when Mathilde appears to be financially and socially worse off than at the start of the story, but in a state of genuine happiness, “and she smiled a proud innocent smile.”