itself. The entire story revolves around it. As we move through the story the necklace
takes on different meanings as circumstances change.
This is a story about a beautiful woman and a low-class man that sacrifice ten
long hard years of their lives for a special night for his spoiled wife.
Mr. and Mrs. Loisel were invited to an annual ball held by the Minister of
Education. Mrs. Loisel had nothing to wear to this special occasion so she asked for
money to buy a dress. Of course Mr. Loisel would sacrifice the 400 hundred francs he
was saving for a gun to make his wife happy. Mrs. Loisel however, was still not satisfied
because she needed some kind of jewelry, so she borrowed a "brilliant" diamond
necklace that made her look magnificent. She walked into of the minister's house and
everybody stared in awe. While having the best time of her life at the ball she realizes
that the diamond is missing from her neck. She goes into hysterics and demands her
husband to go and look for it.
Mr. and Mrs. Loisel go out and look for it and have no luck. They decide that they
must gather up money and buy the same looking diamond that they found at an expensive
jewelry store. They got as many loans as they could from anyone who would give them
money and for whatever the interest was, they were desperate. They managed to gather
36,000 francs for the necklace. Her husband brings it to her friend and gives it to her, to
his surprise she does not open the case and look at it and that took a weight off his
shoulders.
For the next ten years Mr. and Mrs. Loisel had very hard lives. Working non-stop
to pay off their loans, they are totally changed people.
Mrs. Loisel was now free from all of her misery. She was walking down the road
one day and met with her old friend. Mrs. Loisel and her started talking and she found out
that the past ten years of her life were a waste. The "brilliant" necklace that she had
borrowed was a cheap imitation!!
And so indeed the necklace is the dominant symbol in this story; everything in it
is connected to it in some way. And as we may have seen, as the story changes so too
does the meaning of the necklace. It is by times a symbol of misery, desperation, and
brilliance.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
In “The Necklace,” a female character, Mathilde, is living in Paris during the 19th century. She is poor, yet undyingly wishes she was wealthy. One day the woman is invited to a prestigious ball within her city. She immediately she contacts a rich friend and borrows a fabulous necklace. Once the night is all said and done and she returns from the ball, she realizes that the borrowed necklace is lost. She reacts by lying about the necklace and buying her friend a new one. With her financial situation the way it is she goes spiraling into debt and never recovers. Later, once Mathilde admits to her friend that she lost and replaced the necklace, it is revealed that the borrowed necklace was a fake worth very little.…
- 342 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In the beginning of the story Madame Loisel was a really prideful person. She felt like…
- 681 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
She sees and has realized that having someone you love, love you back unconditionally is much more rewarding than having a diamond necklace or a big, over the top, fancy dress while Madam Loisel is sitting on her window seat sulking and complaining about all the things she doesn’t have. Nothing is ever good enough for her and she just wants more and more. She doesn’t seem to appreciate any of the many things her husband does for her, and how much he truly loves her. She doesn’t take the time and look at the things she has to be grateful for in her life, making her so much more ungrateful than…
- 560 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Loisel is rendered sightless of what she has by her desire for luxury. One must remember that she is not necessarily poor but is of the middle class and perceives herself as being poor because of what she could have…
- 845 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
After the party, Madame Loisel loses the necklace, resulting in tireless work, loans, and night jobs for her and her husband in order to pay back the equivalent of the price. The couple finally succeeds when all the money is paid ten years later, only for Mathilde to discover that the necklace was ironically a fake, and worth a very small percentage of what the couple paid. The theme of this story is that an overemphasis on material wealth can shrink the spirit and leave one open to the changeability of fortune. The situational irony highlights this moral because the Loisels would never have had to exhaust themselves if Madame Loisel wasn’t so obsessed with riches and wealth. From the very beginning of the story, she wastes her time dreaming of luxuries such as fine silks, beautiful furniture, and gourmet feasts. Even when she is at Madam Forestier’s house to try on necklaces to borrow, she is never satisfied until she has seen the very best. Madame Loisel’s preoccupation with appearance clouds her judgment as well. As soon as she realizes that she has lost the necklace, she should simply come clean to Madam Forestier. Instead, she is too concerned with how her reputation will be affected, so she keeps quiet. She later pays the price for this when she discovers that the necklace is “false [and]…worth five hundred francs at most.” The life that she gets instead as punishment during the ten years in debt is even more difficult and meager than her life to begin with, which stresses how fame and fortune is so fleeting and unimportant in the scheme of…
- 1345 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
In the story “The Necklace” the main character, Mathilda Losisel, is unhappily married to a clerk, and is ungrateful of the life she is living. She thinks that she deserves to be living a better lifestyle, and that materialistic objects and fancy things will make her happy rather than love. Mathilda is invited to the ball in the beginning of the story, and immediately she turns selfish and wants her husband to get the things she desires for her ball. Her husband tries everything he can to please his wife in every way that he could do to try to make her happy. Not once in the story did she say thank you for her husband’s efforts because she wasn’t thankful for what he had done for her. She also borrows an expensive necklace from one of her close friends. As she was partying away at the ball, she did not once think about her husband. She was more focused on the fact that other people were giving her attention. Later on in the story Mathilda loses the necklace, and her husband does everything he can to try to get it back. He ended up getting money to buy a brand new necklace, but had to pay off debts he had from raising that money by working it off and Mathilda has to work it off as well. Because of Mathilda’s greed and ignorance it had lead her to the situation of debt she was in. Throughout the story she only worried about herself rather than thinking about how much effort her husband was doing to making her happy. In the end the necklace turned out to…
- 1076 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
disheartened and determines, once again, to turn back. But now he hears his wife's voice and…
- 404 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
He took up ruinous obligations, dealt with users and all the race lenders. He compromised all of the rest of his life, risked his signature without even knowing if he could meet it…he went to get the new necklace, putting down upon the merchant’s counter thirty-six thousand francs. (72)…
- 1059 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The necklace, beautiful but worthless, represents the power of perception and the split between appearances and reality. Mathilde borrows the necklace because she wants to give the appearance of being wealthy; Madame Forestier does not tell her up front that the necklace is fake, perhaps because she, too, wants to give the illusion of being wealthier than she actually is. Because Mathilde is so envious of Madame Forestier and believes her to be wealthy, she never doubts the necklace’s authenticity—she expects diamonds, so diamonds are what she perceives. She enters willingly and unknowingly into this deception, and her complete belief in her borrowed wealth allows her to convey an appearance of wealth to others. Because she believes herself rich for one night, she becomes rich in others’ eyes. The fact that the necklace is at the…
- 359 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
The Necklace Alternative Ending The next morning, Mathilde awoke to see the Necklace lying on her bedside table. Immediately, all the wonderful memories of the previous evening came flooding back to her. What a marvelous experience it was, she thought, smiling with excitement. “Now the whole city of Paris will know who I am and love me,” she grinned.…
- 2137 Words
- 9 Pages
Good Essays -
Mathilde and Dee both seem never to be satisfied when it comes to having valuables but they also care about the possession of others. Mathilde took advantage of her husband, having him loan her a mass of money to buy a dress. “I don’t know exactly, but I can manage it with four hundred francs.”…
- 622 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
“The Necklace" tells of a sad and lengthy lesson learned by Mathilde Loisel and her husband. Mathilde is a selfish self-pitying woman who thinks she is too good for her station in life. Mathilde has been blessed with great beauty, a husband who loves…
- 1804 Words
- 8 Pages
Better Essays -
He then gives her a beautiful grey diamond necklace that has special properties such as it protecting its wearer from evil, possibly even helping them detect it. Which is good since “true evil often wears the most innocent of guises.”…
- 2018 Words
- 9 Pages
Good Essays -
Guy de Maupassant shows Madame Loisel frustration by saying, “Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table.” She was too worried about what she was going to wear to even appreciate her husband for trying to surprise her by going out for an…
- 1070 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
The meaning of Moupassant’s “The Necklace” is that one should not fall into the trap of wishing for better things and not recognizing what one has to be thankful for. Moupassant uses the main character, Mme. Loisel, to illustrate this point as she struggles with her self-image and her desire to always be better in the eyes of others, especially the upper class and the rich.…
- 497 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays