The Restless Woman
The famous D.H. Lawrence once quoted “A woman unsatisfied must have luxuries. But a woman who loves a man will sleep on a board.” The first part of this quote fits the description perfectly for Guy de Maupassant’s restless woman in “The Necklace”. Guy de Maupassant was a famous French author known for his popular short stories. His stories gave readers an image of how the French culture was in the 19th century. He was abundant in his literature, producing and publishing over 300 short stories and six novels, but he died at a young age due to continuing battles with physical and mental health. What continues to shake global literature to this day is one of his famous short stories “The Necklace”. The short, but humorous,
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His descriptive to detail gives you an image of the emotional conflict that Mister and Madame Loisel experiences. The reader gets an emotional attachment to what Mathilde suffers dramatically after losing the invaluable diamond necklace. We see her transition from a woman of craving the finest sterling, but living the “bourgeois” lifestyle as the French would say. Then she spends the next decade going through intense labor, during this time she often thinks back of her mistakes of borrowing the necklace. “She sat down near the window and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so admired. What would have happened if she had not lost the necklace? Who knows? Who knows...?” (184). Ten years of what seemed like a lifetime, and now she realizes how much this fascination life she dreamed of had cost her. It was a little too late to think back on a decision she could have avoided by simply be grateful for what she had. She spent years cleaning, washing, ironing, and spending time with other middle class women over a necklace. Maupassant does not reveal her exact emotions during this time, but there were probably many days where she cried. We can assume there were many days when she was experiencing excruciating pain from the labor, but throughout the years it made her strong, hard and rough. At the end the author discloses a scene where Mathilde Loisel has an encounter with Madame Forestier after a decade. She lets Mathilde know that this jewelry she was head over heels for was costume jewelry. We can only imagine the thousands of feelings that is emerging from her brutal heart. She spent ten years of her life working crucially hard for a faux ornament. Maupassant is brilliant for creating a moral lesson that people may pay a terrible price for
She thought that she had a horrible life when really she was a strong woman with a lucky life and a loving husband. Towards the end of the story it says, “Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the sort of strong woman, hard, and coarse, that one finds in poor families”(Maupassant 300). Loisel was, again very poor from the ten years of trying to pay off her necklace debts, but not only is ten years older, she looks much older than that from the constant working. At the end of the story, she runs into the woman whom she borrowed the necklace from, and the woman says this, “Oh, my poor, poor Mathilde! Mine was false, it was only worth five hundred Francs at the most”(Maupassant 301)! Loisel, after all the hard working her and her husband did finds out the the necklace was false and worth thousands less than what she had payed off. At the end of “The Necklace” Madame Loisel is much older from the ten years of aging work, and realized that the hard life she thought she had before. She did not actually have until now, but all the hardships made her a stronger and tougher woman than
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 “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant uses setting to reflect the character and development of the main character, Mathilde Loisel. As a result, his setting is not particularly vivid or detailed. He does not even describe the ill-fated necklace—the central object in the story—but states only that it is “superb” (7 ). In fact, he includes descriptions of setting only if they illuminate qualities about Mathilde. Her changing character can be connected to the first apartment, the dream-life mansion rooms, the attic flat, and a fashionable public street. [This is a well-defined thesis statement.]
Guy de Maupassant was another author in the late nineteenth century who addressed the lack of roles for women in society. Maupassant’s “The Necklace” is a story about Mathilde Loisel’s desire to change her economic status, ultimately causing her and her husband to spend over ten years in crippling poverty. Both of the authors of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Necklace” addressed what life for women was like in the mid-to-late nineteenth century and how these women lived in a time where there most important job was caring for their children and maintaining their households; they exemplified the time period were women lived subordinately to men and desired to do
Some people in life are never satisfied with the experience given throughout their lifetime. In Guy De Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace,” Madame Mathilde Loisel is burdened by the middle-class life she is living and yearns for a life of luxury and delicacy. Mathilde is ungrateful of her life and her loving husband who helps her replace a lost necklace she selfishly borrowed from a friend in a vain attempt to be the prettiest woman at the ball.
Values are spread all around the world, and many people’s values differ. These can lead to people being judged, or indirectly characterized by other people. In “The Necklace” Mme. Loisel is a beautiful woman with a decent life, and a husband that loves her, and only wants to make her happy. She is not rich but she makes it along, she insists of a better, wealthier life. When her husband gets her invited to a ball, she feels the need for a brand new fancy dress and tons of jewelry. When the couple realizes they cannot afford jewelry as well, they search out to borrow her friend, Mme. Forestiers’ necklace. She comes to notice she no longer has the necklace on when she leaves the ball. This later troubles her, as she has to work for a long time to collect enough money to buy a new necklace. This story describes the relationship between a couple, who have different dreams, and how desires can revamp your life. Guy de Maupassant, the author of “The Necklace” uses literary devices to prove people come before materialistic items.
Mathilde Loisel lived the life of a painfully distressed woman, who always believed herself worthy of living in the upper class. Although Mathilde was born into the average middle class family, she spent her time daydreaming of her destiny for more in life... especially when it came to her financial status. Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “The Necklace”, tells a tale of a vain, narcissistic housewife who longed for the aristocratic lifestyle that she believed she was creditable for. In describing Mathilde’s self-serving, unappreciative, broken and fake human behaviors, de Maupassant incorporates the tragic irony that ultimately concludes in ruining her.
It shows how Madame Loisel is jealous of the rich women and endures hardship because of it. For instance, “Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.” The text displays the necklace lifting Madame Loisel’s mood after she puts it on.
which he served as a member of the French army. After the war was finished, he
Guy de Maupassant, formally Henry-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant, was a French writer best known for his ability to create short stories (Encyclopedia Britannica). Maupassant had a writing style that was best described as “classically simplistic, clarity and objective calm” (Encyclopedia.com). Maupassant wrote stories that were bold and held subject matter such as that of infidelity and murder, to support themes of lust, greed and adultery. These themes were used to give his works shock value and draw many readers in.
Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” are famous short stories known for there unique setting’s and conflicts. “The Necklace” takes place in Paris, where Matilda Loisel lives with her husband, Mr. Loisel, in a shabby apartment. Mr. Loisel works as a clerk in the office of the Board of Education while Matilda stays home day dreaming about the life she always had pictured herself living. Madame Loisel was not content with her life which eventually led to an even more unfortunate outcome. “The Story of an Hour” has more of a victorian setting where the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is well off financially. She receives saddening news that her husband, Brently Mallard, has been killed in a railroad disaster. She takes the news and reflects on her life now feeling a weight lifted off her shoulders. Unexpectedly her husband arrives home and the newfound freedom she felt vanishes. Although both stories differ in setting and conflict, the centering theme of love and marriage in each short story share common characteristics. In both stories the women play a protagonist and struggle with conflicts internally as well as externally.
Guy de Maupassant is a realist whose claim to fame is the style in which he conveys political and socioeconomic themes in his literary publications. He achieves his writing style by putting small unfortunate life events under a spotlight. His literary performance is described in his biography from Cambridge, the writer says “He exposes with piercing clarity the small tragedies and pathetic incidents of everyday life, taking a clear-sighted though pessimistic view of humanity” (Halsey, par. 1). Guy de Maupassant’s story The Necklace is a great representation of the style he uses. In The Necklace the main character Mathilde Loisel a beautiful but impoverished woman married to a clerk is in conflict with her lack of wealth and desire to acquire
Loisel repaid the necklace together with their sweat and tears. Mathilde didn’t have a choice; she had to change from a vain, ungrateful, material, bored wife, into a hardworking proud and loving wife. She even says, right before she runs into Mme. Forestier, “What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!”(39) In that quote I saw 2 things, when she asked herself what would have happened if she didn’t lose the necklace, she doesn’t go into some fairytale about what life she could be living, she just accepts what she is now, even if it’s not the easiest life in the world. At the very end of that quote “How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!”(39) The fact that she added “or to be saved!” to her thought, tells me that she realizes that she was vain and unappreciated and that she lacked character, but now she is grateful, even though it was such a terrible thing, she was grateful that she was able to say that she was a better person now, even after everything that happened to her than she ever “dreamed” of being before. Guy de Maupassant certainly described a very difficult hardship for Mathilde in “The Necklace” but in the end, everything that happened to her, made her a much better and stronger woman inside and out. This story teaches a very important lesson, you have no idea what you can do and who you can become, until your chips are down and you’re put between a rock and a hard
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.
“Ouch my head, what happened” i said awakening under smoking rubble on what seemed like an island