Guy De Maupassant's The Necklace

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Reading Questions

1. Guy De Maupassant’s tone in The Necklace, while objective, is a criticizing tone towards the character Mathidle. Maupassant describes Mathidle’s feelings and gives the reader the impression that he is annoyed with Mathidle’s attitude. “She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of living. She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn-out appearance of the chairs, the ugliness of the draperies. All these things, which another woman of her class would not even noticed, gnawed at her and made her furious.” “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a gem- anything to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper…” Maupassant’s tone reflects the French realism movement by focusing on the middle class life of Mathidle and her husband. It also reflects realism as its written objectively. He writes almost as if he is reporting the story and the feelings of his characters.

2. Mathidle’s attitude towards her life and how she longs for something more ectravagant gives the reader the emotion of sadness. “She had no evening clothes, no jewels, nothing. But those were the things that she wanted; she felt that was the kind of life for her, she so much longed to please, be envied, be fascinating and sought after.” For a brief moment, the mood changes to excitement and happiness for Mathidle. She finally gets to experience the upper-class life. “She danced madly, wildly, drunk with pleasure, giving no thought to anything in the triumph of her beauty, the pride of her success…” The story ends with pity, tragedy, and loss for Mathidle. She wasted 10 years of her life paying back something that in the end was really worth nothing.

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...assant introduces some literary elements, such as foreshadowing, “I didn’t sell that necklace, Madame,” he said “I only supplied the case.” and flashback, “But, sometimes, while her husband was at work, she would sit near the window and think of that long-ago evening when, at the dance, she had been so beautiful and admired. Maupassant hold the reader in suspense up until the end when the short story takes an unexpected twist when Mathidle finds out the borrowed necklace was fake. The story brought in horrible irony; The Loisel’s spent 10 years paying off a replacement for something that had no value to begin with. This ironic ending makes the quality of this short story so great.

Works Cited

Maupassant, Guy de. "The Necklace." Trans. Marjorie Laurie. An Introduction

to Fiction. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 160-66.

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