Dishonesty In The Necklace By Maupassant

The Importance Of Honesty

Mathilde Loisel is a woman who wants more than what she has, and is often dishonest. The short story The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassant, is about honesty and reveals that if you are honest, things turn out to be a lot better for you. Mathilde Loisel is unhappy with her current life, and her husband gets them an invitation to a party. She buys dresses with his money, and borrows a necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier. However, she loses the necklace and is dishonest, returning a substitute necklace to her friend and working for ten years with her husband to pay off the loans used to pay for it. She later learns if she had been honest, she would have not gone through that trouble. Madame Forestier, her friend of whom she had borrowed the necklace from, had owned an imitation of a necklace, not a real necklace.

Mathilde Loisel, or Madame Loisel, is dishonest about who she is at the party, pretending to be rich.

“The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all the other women, elegant, gracious, smiling, and full of joy. All the men stared at her, asked her name, tried to be introduced. All the cabinet officials wanted to waltz with her. The minister noticed her.” At the party, Madame Loisel pretends to be someone she isn’t. Everyone there wants to see her, and she seems to be the most popular person there. This dishonesty likely did not directly lead to her losing the necklace later. However, she could have been ignorant, not remembering where she lost it. It is possible that someone from the party took the necklace, considering its value, her popularity, and the number of people at the

party.
Madame Loisel is dishonest with Madame Forestier when she returns the necklace. Then she must pay off debts for the substitute necklace. To Madame Loisel’s relief, Madame Forestier did not open the necklace case. Madame Loisel had feared what would happen if Madame Forestier detected the substitution. What would Madame Forestier have said or thought? Would she think Madame Loisel, her friend, was a thief? Madame Loisel was clearly nervous about returning the necklace. She wasn’t certain her friend would think the substitution was legitimate. She should have been honest with her friend. Her fear could have been easily avoided by simply telling the truth.
Madame Loisel is finally honest with Madame Forestier after ten years, who says the necklace was worth a lot less than Madame Loisel payed to buy another. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five hundred francs at most!...” This shows that if Madame Loisel was honest originally, she would not have to devote ten years of her life and ten years of her husband’s life to paying for the necklace. These years were spent suffering the life of the very poor, after they had already spent eighteen thousand francs, which her husband’s father had left him, to partially cover the cost of the necklace.
From The Necklace, we can learn that honesty is very important. The story shows the negative consequences of being dishonest, and that the truth is revealed when you are honest. This theme, honesty can be applied to other people, as well. Madame Loisel’s dishonesty is a quality of these people, who can learn from this short story the consequences of their decisions to not be honest. Madame Loisel’s dishonesty at the party and when returning the necklace demonstrate that this story’s theme is honesty. The theme is also demonstrated when she is honest after those ten years. This story shows that honesty is a very important character trait.