The Necklace Greed

The story, “The Necklace” is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant, one of the greatest French short story writers in history. His work was first published on February 17th in 1884. “The Necklace” is a story of a young woman by the name of Madame Mathilde Loisel and her husband who both get invited to an exquisite party. Not owning much wealth and riches, Mathilde is distressed by the invitation, knowing that she will be surrounded by wealthy and affluent people, unlike herself. In an effort to make herself also look wealthy and disguise her true character, Mathilde borrows an expensive necklace from a friend. When she loses it, her and her husband frantically go looking for it, but search to no avail. They eventually get the necklace replaced while also going into deep debt, which they labor for ten years to pay it off. In the end, however, Mathilde
Mathilde’s greed cost her to separate herself from her friends due to her jealousy of them. Mathilde was too wanting to become rich that she was ignorant of what really mattered in her life. Her own greed cost her great heartache and pain. The author writes, “She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days,with grief, regret, despair, and misery” (Maupassant 2). Seeing her friends live in luxury and prosperity only made her more depressed than before each time she saw them because they reminded her of what she lacked. Mathilde had allowed selfishness to take completely a hold of her to the point where she prefered to be alone than being around her friends. She greatly envied them and being around them only increased her misery when she returned home to her simple, and so it seemed, destitute, life. Greed had not only cost her misfortune, but her social life as well. (9