The Necklace

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

2007

The story The Necklace , by Guy Maupassant , is a story about valuing our possessions . Maupassant 's story describes it by a story of beautiful young lady Mathilde who desires to be a moneyed person and although she knows she cannot escape middle class , she refuses to accept it . Her daydreams made her more dissatisfied with her real life . Consequintly she becomes more focused on what she does not possess rather than what she does have . When she was accepted by the rich in one evening

, she wanted to be part of it forever . When she lost the valuable necklace that she borrowed , she was afraid that her friend might start rumors about her and ruin her reputation in the rich world . Mathilde and her husband replaced the necklace with a new one without letting the friend know of the loss . Thus they worked endlessly for 10 years trying to pay the debts from buying the necklace . During 10 years of labor , they paid all their debts and Mathilde looses her most prized belonging : her beauty and appeal . Because she didn 't appreciate her own possessions earlier , she eventually looses them . Maupassant also shows a second theme in the story . In the story , Mathilde is a very napve woman . She doesn 't believe in choice , instead she believes in destiny (everything in her life is planned by the gods . She let 's herself marry a small clerk this proves she gives up on making decisions and she doesn 't take action for anything . Once she gives up independence , the downfall of her life starts . She ended in poverty and lost her beauty and charm If only she hadn 't depended too much on destiny earlier , she wouldn 't be in such grief

Maupassant used great literary techniques to build this story successfully . I specially admired his use of symbolism . The necklace represented the rich and fame . Because Mathilde was quite greedy , she borrowed her friend 's most beautiful necklace . At the same time , the necklace was used to show the greediness inside humans . This necklace gave Mathilde elegance and recognition in the evening ball . After the party , she had lost it , and had to buy her friend another necklace , and thus she had to earn that amount of money in 10 miserable years of hard work . Maupassant explained that everyone would enjoy being greedy and being rich and famous , but they all have a cost . Another technique Maupassant used is irony . The irony is clearly shown when Mathilde and her husband made an unnecessary sacrifice . Since Mathilde had lost her friend 's necklace , she and her husband decided to replace the necklace without telling the friend . They had to pay thirty-six thousand francs in a series of loans and inheritance money . They lived in poverty , and struggled for ten years , and by then , Mathilde becomes old and looses her beauty . Later in the story , the friend told them the necklace she had lent was...