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Vanity and pride essays
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Vanity and pride essay
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Madame Loisel’s Vanity and Pride Takeover
Maupassant’s point is that Madame Loisel is justly punished for her vanity and pride. Due to this, her husband gets impacted trying to please her. Madame Loisel being invited to a party, she needed to get a once in a lifetime dress and wear the most sparkly necklace. She then goes out and enjoys her night of beauty, but loses the jewels she borrowed. Her husband always putting her first, has to come up with a way to get the necklace back and puts himself in debt. Madame Loisel is punished for her vanity by then having to help pay off the debt she put her and her husband through and by doing so she loses her beauty. Madame Loisel is punished for her vanity and pride, by caring more about looks then
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Rushing to leave in her everyday garments “so that she would not be noticed by other women putting on their costly furs” she rapidly went to the staircase. After arriving home, she looked in the mirror “to see herself in all her glory” and realized the necklace was no longer around her …show more content…
The debt for the necklace had to be paid off and she would help pay for it. She began “to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen.” She washed dishes, dirty linen, shirts and dish-cloths, then hung them out to dry. Madame Loisel “like a poor woman, she went to the fruiter, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.” After ten years of doing this, she looked old now. Madame Loisel’s “hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red.” For a one night of beauty, Madame Loisel was punished by paying it off for ten years and losing her
5. (CP) Madame Loisel borrows seemingly expensive necklace to satisfy her arrogance and attend a party that was way above her social class, only to lose it. She has been blessed with physical beauty, but not with the lifestyle she desires. She may not be the ideal protagonist, but she went through a tough time after she lost the necklace and had to make money to replace it.
less for worldly, material things, yet eventually turns into a character to be pitied because of her
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:
Details about the modest apartment of the Loisels on the Street of Martyrs indicate Mathilde’s peevish lack of adjustment to life. Though everything is serviceable, she is unhappy with the “drab” walls, “threadbare” furniture, and “ugly” curtains (5). She has domestic help, but she wants more servants than the simple country girl who does the household chores in the apartment. Her embarrassment and dissatisfaction are shown by details of her irregularly cleaned tablecloth and the plain and inelegant beef stew that her husband adores. Even her best theater dress, which is appropriate for apartment life but which is inappropriate for more wealthy surroundings, makes her unhappy. All these details of the apartment establish that Mathilde’s major trait at the story’s beginning is maladjustment. She therefore seems unpleasant and unsympathetic.
Because Madame Loisel was blessed with beauty, but she “had no fine dresses, no jewels, nothing. Yet luxury was all she cared about; she felt that she had been born for it. She wanted so much to give pleasure, to be envied, to be alluring and admired” and longed for a wealthy life, she wanted to dress like the wealthy when given the chance to mingle among them, but Madame Loisel believes she might be able to find a “suitable dress...for four hundred
Almost all of the characters in the film are a depiction of aristocracy and their struggle to maintain their status and glory and to live their lives as expected by the society they live in. Infidelity is also evident in the film wherein Jourdain and Elmire are included. Disloyalty also comes in on the part of Moliere as a servant to Jourdain, when he had an affair with Elmire and on the part of Dorante as a friend of Jourdain, when he fooled Jourdain. Hidden agendas and plans are also apparent on the part of Jourdain’s older daughter: her secret love with her piano teacher and on Dorante’s part of performing his hidden evil plan to Jourdain.
Immediately, Mathilde realises necklace is not on her neck anymore it is lost. They checked the cab, but could not find it. Monsieur follows there step back, but unfortunately he could not find it. They decide to go to the jewelry store and look for similar diamond necklace Mathilde Loisel was wearing. De Maupassant let 's reader know the price of Necklace, “ The price was forty thousand francs. The store will let them have it for thirty-six thousand” ( Maupassant 177 ). Monsieur made some arrangement for the money. He had Eighteen thousand franc which his father gave to him and the rest he had to borrow from other people and promised to pay them as early as possible and with a healthy interest rate. They successfully replace the new necklace and went to Mathilde friend 's house to return it. give to her friend. And start paying up people they loaned money
It conveys the look and appeal of glam but turns out to be false just like wealth. The necklace is the object of Madame Loisel’s desire, just like wealth. Having wealth is not worth the trouble, just like the fake necklace was not worth the ten years of debt. The couple had went through a long period of hardships to get back on their feet. Even deeper than wealth, the necklace could represent appearance.
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.
It gave the audience kind of a Cinderella approach. The reason I say this is because of everything she has to do before going to make herself fit in. She had to borrow a necklace from a good friend named Jeanne and her husband gave her money for a gown. Madame Loisel then looses the necklace and has a difficult time finding it. Since she was unable to find it and was very poor, it took her ten years to replace it. This caused many hardships and trials. She never told her friend that she bought a new one to replace the one she lost. That is until they met up ten years later. That is when the truth is revealed as to the true value of the
She envied others who have beautiful objects in their house as she feels that she deserves to be someone who is envied by others. Madame Loisel wasn’t contented of what she has and she is not happy. The only thing that can make her happy is to have a dress that she can wear to the party and a necklace to go with it. For Madame Loisel, these things are the ones that can make her look wealthy and have class because that what she believes in. She believes that when she own things that are valuable she will seem valuable to other people as well.
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
The night of the ball came and Mathilde looked great; everyone admired her. The evening ended and everyone went home. Mathilde decided that she would look at herself in the mirror one last time before getting out of the clothes. When she did, she noticed the necklace that she admired so much was gone. Mathilde and her husband had to borrow thirty-six thousand francs from people they knew to buy another just like it so they could return it to the friend. Mathilde and her husband were deeply in debt. For ten years they worked day in and day out until finally the debt was paid off.
It took ten years for Mathilde and her husband to pay off the debt of buying a new necklace. Those ten years were not spent with the luxuries she experienced so many years ago at the party, nor were they filled with the simple things she once owned and despised. She came to know “the horrible existence of the needy. She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism.” When passing her rich friend again in the street, she was barely recognizable. Who she was the day she ran into her friend was not who she was the night she wore that necklace.