The Necklace

The story The Necklace, by Guy Maupassant, is a story about valuing our possessions. Maupassant's story describes it by a beautiful young lady named Mathilde who desires to be a moneyed person. Although she knows she can not escape middle class, she refuses to accept it. Her daydreams made her more dissatisfied with her real life. As a result, she becomes more focused on what she does not have rather than what she does have. When she was accepted by the rich in one evening, she wanted to be part of it forever. When she lost the valuable necklace that she borrowed, she was afraid that her friend might start rumors about her and ruin her reputation in the rich world. Mathilde and her husband replaced the necklace with a new one without letting the friend know of the loss. Thus they worked endlessly for 10 years trying to pay the debts from buying the necklace. During 10 years of labor, they paid all their debts and Mathilde looses her most prized belonging: her beauty and appeal. Because she didn't appreciate her own possessions earlier, she eventually looses them. Maupassant also shows a second theme in the story. In the story, Mathilde is a very naпve woman. She doesn't believe in choice, instead she believes in destiny (everything in her life is planned by the gods). She "let's herself marry a small clerk"; this proves she gives up on making decisions and she doesn't take action for anything. Once she gives up independence, the downfall of her life starts. She ended in poverty and lost her beauty and charm. If only she hadn't depended too much on destiny earlier, she wouldn't be in such grief.

Maupassant used great literary techniques to build this story successfully. I specially admired his use of symbolism. The necklace represented the rich and fame. Because Mathilde was quite greedy, she borrowed her friend's most beautiful necklace. At the same time, the necklace was used to show the greediness inside humans. This necklace gave Mathilde elegance and recognition in the evening ball. After the party, she had lost it, and had to buy her friend another necklace, and thus she had to earn that amount of money in 10 miserable years of hard work. Maupassant explained that everyone would enjoy being greedy and being rich and famous, but they all have a cost. Another technique Maupassant used is irony. The irony is clearly shown when Mathilde and her husband made an unnecessary sacrifice. Since Mathilde had lost her friend's necklace, she and her husband decided to replace the necklace without telling the friend. They had to pay thirty-six thousand francs in a series of loans and inheritance money. They lived in poverty, and struggled for ten years, and by then, Mathilde becomes old and looses her beauty. Later in the story, the friend told them the necklace she had lent was a fake. It is then when the couple discovered that they worked very hard for replacing a counterfeit jewelry. It is also ironic since the necklace was supposed to make Mathilde rich and be the key to enter world of prosperous people, but instead, the necklace made them fall into poverty.

This story describes the incredible work Mathilde and her husband had sacrificed for their 10 years of work to pay the debts because of a necklace. They never asked themselves if the sacrifice is worth the necklace. For Mathilde it seemed to be, since she would pay any amount of work for fame and pride. But for the reader, it might not be worth the 10 years of harsh labor. Similarly, this happened in the novel The Great Gatsby, by Fitzgerald. In the novel, Jay Gatsby had worked very hard just to win Daisy Caraway's love. Gatsby spent a long period of time trying to shape himself