The Necklace Essay

The Story of an Hour and The Necklace share many similarities and also many differences; both explore the feeling that both wives harbor towards their husbands and the lack of communication that both wives share. In this essay I will discuss the similarities and differences that the two short stories share with regards to communication.

The necklace serves as a symbol for greed. When Mathilda Loisel loses the necklace that she believed was worth forty thousand francs, she desperately retraces her steps and gets her husband to help her find it as well. It ends up taking ten years to pay off the debt. The ten years were hard on Mathilda Loisel and her husband, and Maupassant told the reader that she “looked old now… with hair half combed, with skirts award, and reddened hands” (6). However, even after the long ten years of manual labor all because she lost the necklace, she “sat down near the window and though of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she has been so beautiful and so admired” (6). The necklace symbolizes that when greed controls emotions and decisions, it never leads to good results.

Socrates once wrote, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” The quote above shows how envy is able to take a toll on a person’s soul and is relevant to the story “The Necklace.” When Madame Loisel is invited to a prestigious party, she borrows a seemingly priceless necklace. Mathilde misplaces the incomparable necklace; thus Madame’s envy for the fame of the party and the accessory she desires causes her to plummet into deep poverty. She works and sacrifices for 10 years, suffering to pay off the immense the debt she dug for herself. Within the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel presents many negative characteristics including greed, the importance of status, and insecurity through her desire to look wealthy and prestigious. She offers all she has to please those traits within her, to mute and cover the echoing voices that come from within.

Around the world, values are expressed differently. Some people think that life is about the little things that make them happy. Others feel the opposite way and that expenses are the way to live. In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, he develops a character, Madame Loisel, who illustrates her different style of assessments. Madame Loisel, a beautiful woman, lives in a wonderful home with all the necessary supplies needed to live. However, she is very unhappy with her life. She feels she deserves a much more expensive and materialistic life than what she has. After pitying herself for not being the richest of her friends, she goes out and borrows a beautiful necklace from an ally. But as she

‘The Necklace’ is a morality tale written by Guy de Maupassant where he portrays the life of a beautiful but dissatisfied girl named Mathilde who desires to live a luxurious life despite being born into a clerk’s family and marrying a clerk too. Mathilde’s discontentment in life instigates her to pretend someone rich that she is not. Moreover, it leads her to severe trouble that caused ten years of hardship to Mathilde and her husband. So, this suffering is a punishment for Mathilde which taught her a lesson and changed her dramatically over the course of the story by making her a person of completely different personality for whom appearances

In "The Necklace" the authors choice of words, or diction, is very well articulated. I enjoyed this story because the narrator, Guy de Maupassant sets us so much suspense with the tone of the story. Madame Louisel essentailly loses a valuable item, or so she thought, and goes to major extents and even life-deminishing problems to just make it seem like she was not responsible enough to take care of a necklace for a night.

Life for them was terrible. "Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty." She worked day in and day out, along with her husband, and it took a toll on her. "Madame Loisel looked old now." She had scrubbed away her soft hands when she had to begin washing dishes on her own. Her hair grayed and she could no longer associate with the friends that she used to know. "...She played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it." She did not complain much, probably to the delight of her husband, and she was brave enough to own what had happened. Complaining would have meant that she blamed someone else for her mistake, but she had acknowledged that what happened laid on her shoulders. But she still secretly longed for the glorious night she had spent at the ball, where she had been admired by

Some things are not what they seem. In The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel is not content with her social status or husband. She loses a necklace she borrowed to look rich and must work hard to pay for a replacement. She later finds out it was not authentic and she had wasted her life replacing a cheap object. By using characters and events throughout the passage, Maupassant develops the theme that what appears to be is not necessarily true.

“The Necklace” Guy de Maupassant, the author of “The Necklace”, describes how Mme. Mathilde Loisel’s attitude, appearance, and perspective on life changes. Her life is drastically changed when she borrows a necklace from a friend and loses it. In the beginning of the story, Mme. Loisel is somewhat snobby.

Unfortunately, she felt as though her life was going to waste because she couldn’t afford all the finer things in life, unlike her friend Madame Forestier. M. Loisel was lucky enough to have gotten two invitations to a party where only a selected few were given, but Mme. Loisel gives out materialistic reasons as to why she can’t go, such as not having the right dress. M. Loisel, being the loving husband he is, decides to give her the 400 francs that he has been saving to buy a gun to go shooting with his friends, so that she can buy an appropriate dress.

At first glance, Chopin’s Story of an Hour (1894) and de Maupassant’s The Necklace (1884), appear to have very little in common. Chopin’s story, as displayed in its title is quite short; while in comparison, de Maupassant tells a much more detailed account of the beleaguered Loisel’s, who must learn from the self-centred Madam Loisel. With de Maupassant’s depiction of his female protagonist as selfish and ungrateful; it is difficult to fathom Chopin, known for her active role in describing woman's oppression in the nineteenth century. Interestingly, Chopin, a realist, did consider de Maupassant to

when she hears of her husband’s death. Although she is not stuck as many women would have

Mr. Loisel was an average guy with an average job at the Ministry of Education as a copyist. He doesn't seem to be bothered by their basic yet comfortable lifestyle; however, Mathilde is obviously anguished over the lack of his riches.

In today's world what we wear and how we present ourselves can say a lot about who we are and the stories we can tell. Without speaking a word to another person someone could decipher many things about me based on a necklace that I wear. My necklace could reveal many different aspects of who I am. it could reveal that I am close with my family. It could also be determined that I value the sentimental value over the monetary value. As a gift from my grandmother I have many personal attachments to this necklace, it will allow people to think certain things about me, and it can reveal a lot about who I am; but there are also things that it doesn't show.

“She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as if by an accident into a family of clerks” this is what Guy de Maupassant started “The Necklace” off by saying (Maupassant 221). Also, this helps describe the main character and to give the readers a visual of Mathilde Loisel. “The Necklace” is a short story that Mathilde Loisel, the main female character, wants to be a higher class than she really is. Mathilde’s life drastically changes one night after she loses the necklace. Guy de Maupassant incorporates his use of the social class into the short story.