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Analysis of the story the diamond necklace
How the necklace by guy de maupassant relates to his life
How the necklace by guy de maupassant relates to his life
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Recommended: Analysis of the story the diamond necklace
Sly and Greedy In Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Diamond Necklace”, Madame Loisel acts in a sly way to get what she wants. Sly means that she is being very smart in a mischievous way, and she is doing that to get money. In the story Madame Loisel needs to go and buy a dress for a fancy outing, she says, ““I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs.” He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun…” (Maupassant). This quote shows that she is sly because she knows that it is the exact amount that he was saving up. She is asking no less and no more, and she knows that he has that money to give to her. Madame Loisel gets her dress, but she doesn’t have enough money for jewelry. She complains to Mr. Loisel, ““I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear,” she replied. “I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to …show more content…
Madame Loisel thinks only of herself, “She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home.” (Maupassant). This sentence displays her greediness because she refuses to see her friend because her friend is more wealthy than her. She cannot be around her friend, whom makes Madame Loisel seem small, and makes her wanting more. Madame Loisel searches for jewelry at her friend’s house, “She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking, “Haven't you anything else?”” (Maupassant). The quote supports the idea that Madame Loisel is greedy because she is searching for a jewel that is above all, and is very expensive. She keeps asking if she has more, because she is eager for something that will make her look rich and famous. In summary, Madame Loisel’s character in the short story is sly and
In “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant the character Madame Loisel was always longing for expensive possessions, larger
Greed is a present theme throughout Maupassant’s short story ‘The Necklace’. Greed is a predominate trait in one character in particular, Mathilde Loisel. Mathilde wants to be wealthy and lives in a fantasy world built around this utopian world she builds in her head. Her husband does everything in his own power to accommodate to his wife’s delusions of being rich.
Guy de Maupassant expresses his theme through the use of situational irony. Guy de Maupassant says, “She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.”(De Maupassant). She is poor and thinks of herself too much and then he says "but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class.”(De Maupassant). She wants more than she can get which will ruin her later in the story. When she lost the necklace by the end of the week they had lost all hope to find it. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:
In Act I, it seems evident that Nora does not understand the actual value of money but she has an infatuation with luxuries such as expensive Christmas gifts and she justifies this by buying less expensive clothes, which she has confided in Mrs. Linde, her friend. Helmer, immediately labels his wife as a “little spendthrift” (Ibsen, 660). She seems to think that money can be easily borrowed and paid back.
Loisel sadly possesses is being spoiled. In the story one of the ways her spoiledness is conveyed is when she refuses to go to the reception without a jewel to wear. In the text it states, “‘It is embarrassing not to have a jewel or a gem to wear on my dress… I’d almost rather not go to that party.” This reveals her spoiledness because after her husband went through all that trouble to get her a dress, invitation and shoes she almost won't go just because she doesn't have a necklace ethir. Another way her spoiledness is revealed in the story is when she receives an invitation, that her husband got her, to the reception. In the text it states, “Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she scornfully tossed the invitation on the table, murmuring ‘What good is that to me?’ This quote shows she is spoiled, because her husband probably worked really hard to get her that invitation and she just tossed it on the table like junk mail. These are all ways her spoiledness is portrayed in the story and how it has gotten her nowhere and only hurt others.
Maupassant also shows that wishes come with consequences and can lead to drastic effects. The main character, Mathilde Loisel, has an ordinary life, yet she yearns for beauty, wealth, and greatness. “She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.” (p1). Madame Loisel was never satisfied with anything, even when her husband had gotten her an invitation to an exclusive ball she tossed it aside, as she had nothing to wear. Throughout the story, Mathilde borrows a diamond necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier, and loses it at the ball. She and her husband spend all of their life savings to buy her friend a new diamond necklace so that she would not tell the difference between the two necklaces. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!...” (p7). This shows that because of her selfish desires, Mathilde had wound up much worse than the was in the beginning of the story. Unlike “The Monkey’s Paw”, Mathilde did not have a magical object to grant her wishes, but when she pursued what she wanted without thinking how it would affect others, she suffered the
Mathilde Loisel uses verbal irony to benefit herself, when speaking to Monsieur Loisel, showing her manipulativeness and selfishness. First, after she does not have a dress for an invitational reception, she tells Monsieur Loisel to “give the card to some friend at the office whose wife can dress
He borrowed “asking a thousand franc from one , five hundred from another” (Maupassant 3) to spend the next ten years of his and Mathilde Loisel life to repay the thirty thousand to everyone they have had borrowed from. After completing the long and dreadful ten years of hard labor Mathilde Loisel quiensidently ran into Mme.Forester to only find out that the necklace she had worn that night was fake and worthless. Being a female that has absolutely no authority over her assets and has no say what so ever in where the are placed thus meaning that she is practically worthless. Realizing all of this it is no longer astonishing that Mr.Loisel went out of his way to borrow 36 thousand francs in loans without the permission from his wife Mrs.Losiel. She understand the fact that they would have to repay these outstanding loans and had spent the next ten years of her youthfull life paying back all the money that was owed. In efforts to pay of this debt Mrs. Losiel works around the house and does her daily duties with no intensions of having control over her finances and accepts that the debt of her husbands is a debt of
Until the time of her mishap, Mme. Loisel expresses ardent dissatisfaction with many (if not most) areas of her life; discontent defines her character. Her lofty expectations cause her to believe that, because she is beautiful, she deserves the "best" that life has to offer, but the reality of her situation greatly troubles her. She should have a prestigious husband, yet "she let herself be married to a little clerk" (de Maupassant 46). Mme. Loisel thinks that she deserves to reside in an elegant home, but instead she "suffer[s] from the poverty of her dwelling"(46). She longs for "delicate furniture" and experiences "torture" from the look of her "worn-out chairs" (46, 47). Mme. Loisel is even dissatisfied with her cuisine; while her husband dutifully compliments her cooking, she dreams of "dainty dinners" and "delicious dishes served on marvelous plates" (47). Truly, this woman finds little in her life which brings joy or even contentment.
Throughout “The Necklace” it is clearly obvious that Madame Loisel is not satisfied with the
The Necklace also displays distinctive realism in the use of socioeconomic influences which are essential to the plot. The major conflict in the story would be absent and the theme would not be obtainable without Mathilde Loisel’s insecurity about her own socioeconomic reputation. An example of Loisel’s self-deprivation nature is presented when she realizes she does not have a necklace, she says “I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party” (Maupassant, sec. 3). Another example of the self-conflict caused by social pressure is Loisel’s immediate attempt to replace the necklace and her reluctance to speak to her friend Madame Forestier about the necklace for ten whole years. If she were not conflicted by societal pressures she might have avoided the whole situation altogether. The Necklace establishes a realistic difference in value between the necklaces and proposed clothing. Her husband proposes flowers which were valued 10 franks so in any case if she had chosen the flowers there would have been an insignificant economic loss. Her decision not to tell her friend about the necklace ends up costing her seven times the worth of the original. The roses symbolize the simpler things in life to the theme of the story. Mathilde Loisel’s withered appearance at the end
In the short story “The Necklace”, the main character, Loisel, is a woman who dreams of greater things in her life. She is married to a poor clerk who tries his best to make her happy no matter what. In an attempt to try to bring happiness to his wife, he manages to get two invitations to a very classy ball, but even in light of this Loisel is still unhappy. Even when she gets a new dress she is still unhappy. This lasts until her husband suggests she borrows some jewelry from a friend, and upon doing so she is finally happy. Once the ball is over, and they reach home, Loisel has the horrible realization that she has lost the necklace, and after ten years of hard labor and suffering, they pay off debts incurred to get a replacement. The central idea of this story is how something small can have a life changing effect on our and others life’s. This idea is presented through internal and external conflicts, third person omniscient point of view, and the round-dynamic character of Loisel. The third person limited omniscient point-of-view is prevalent throughout this short story in the way that the author lets the reader only see into the main character’s thoughts. Loisel is revealed to the reader as being unhappy with her life and wishing for fancier things. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.” (de Maupassant 887) When her husband tries to fancy things up, “she thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls…” (de Maupassant 887) As the story goes on her point of view changes, as she “now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover all of a sudden, with heroism.” (de Maupassant 891) Having the accountability to know that the “dreadful debt must be paid.” (de Maupassant 891 ) This point-of-view is used to help the reader gain more insight to how Loisel’s whole mindset is changed throughout her struggle to pay off their debts. Maupassant only reveals the thoughts and feelings of these this main character leaving all the others as flat characters. Loisel is a round-dynamic character in that Maupassant shows how she thought she was born in the wrong “station”. “She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station.
Madame Loisel’s obsession with needing to fit in with the rich people made her life much worse than it was before, she is filled with regrets now because of this. If she wasn’t unusually greedy, she would’ve been extremely better off. Alike Madame Loisel, the girl in Avarice is an indigent and greedy person. She enjoys taking things which are of value to others. At first, as
At many places in the story he shows the irony of Madame Loisel’s situation. From the time of her marriage, through her growing years, Madame Loisel desires what she does not have and dreams that her life should be other than it is. It is only after ten years of hard labor and abject poverty that she realizes the mistake pride led her to make. At that point, the years cannot be recovered. In my opinion, the moral lesson of the necklace story is that we should not judge people on appearances because they may appear to be rich and successful and they may not be. It also explains us we should not pine after material possessions, but realize we are happy with what we have and we must be satisfied with what we have and what we are. We must be honest enough to confess his mistake instead of running from situations and turning back. There’s nothing wrong in have wishing though and dreams, but you must know your limits and your condition as
Nora calls Torvald into the room to “come and see what [she has] bought,” (12). Though Nora is obviously proud of herself for buying her family gifts, her husband’s sardonic tone shows his opinion that she has been excessive in her spending: “Did you say you bought? All that - what about that? Has Madame Extravagant been throwing money away again?” (12).