Greed In The Necklace

In a literary work, the theme is the central idea of the writing. To understand the message that the author is trying to portray, the reader must understand the theme of the work. In the short story The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant the reader can interpret many themes, but one of the main themes is greed. The story is about a middle-class lady who is miserable with life and feels as if she were meant for more luxury things. The husband receives and invitation to a ball and the wife feels as if she is meant to have jewels for the ball to appear wealthy. She has a wealthy friend who allows her to borrow a necklace of hers, but she loses it. Mathilde and her husband spend the next ten years in poverty from replacing the expensive necklace. Come to find out, the necklace she borrowed and lost is fake and if only she was not so greedy, she would not be in this situation. The theme of greed can be seen in many places throughout the story from the use characters, dialogue, and symbolism. The story’s main character is Mathilde Loisel, a middle-class lady who was married by her family to a clerk. Mathilde absolutely hates her life with her middle-class husband, and she is always

In the beginning of the story, the husband brings home an invitation to an event, and he begins explaining how hard it was to get the invitation. Mathilde’s reaction was definitely not what the husband expected. Mathilde said, “What do you want me to do with that? And what do you want me to put on my back? I have no dress and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wide is better equipped than I.” Mathilde’s reaction shows how ungrateful she is. Even after her husband had gone through the trouble to get the invitation, she was still unsatisfied and left wanting more. She insists that what she has to wear to the ball is not beautiful enough and feels the need to go spend money on something