THE NECKLACE

In the Necklace, Guy de Maupassant sketches the live of Mathilde Loisel first as a young woman who daydreams about luxuries and delicacies well beyond her means. Then, just as a spoiled child learns that there is a world outside which is cruel and harsh and real--she learns, in a way, that one should appreciate what one has: that things could get worse. Mathilde is moved from an unappreciative mademoiselle, to a well-dressed lady living in her dreams, then, after all the suffering and self denials, as an appreciative old-woman who enjoys the rthym of life as it should be: living within her means. The situations in the story reveal the character of Mathilde Loisel: the suffering but unappreciative young lady, the woman on her 9th cloud and, finally as the woman who enjoys her live. In the early part of the story, Mathilde is unhappy. Maupassant writes: She was a simple person, without the money to dress well; but she was as unhappy as she had gone through bankruptcy, for women have neither rank nor race. (Paragraph 1) She is detached from her immediate surrounding. Longing for luxuries and delicacies, she tortures herself by daydreaming about palacial living and frivolities. Her detachment from her realities leads her to overlook everything she has. She considers her apartment grim with drab walls, threadbare furniture and dirty curtains. Her dreams and thoughts torments and troubles her so much; she dabbles over things women in her situation would not have noticed. She becomes increasing delusional. He condition retrogresses leading her to despise everything from her clothes to the food she prepares for her husband to the taste he admires of this food. Being that she does not go out, her husband struggles to win an invitation to the dinner party organized by the chancellor of education. Thinking that this would make her happy, she throws the invitation on the table. Remarking to him, What do you expect me to do with this? (Paragraph 11) He is baffled. However, he tries to persuade her to attend. Later she settles to go because he agrees to give up buying his shot gun to buy her a dress for the invitation. Still, this does not satisfy her. She has no jewelries to wear on the nice party dress. Pointedly, she tells her husband that she would look like a beggar if she were to wear anything cheap on this nice, expensive dress. Her husband convinces her to go to her rich childhood friend Mrs. Forrestier to borrow some jewelries. She yells and runs off to her friend. Her friend agrees to let her borrow some jewelries, asking to pick for herself. She sees a diamond necklace that she admires so much and asks her friend if she could have that one. At her friend's approval, she takes off with the diamond necklace encased in a black satin box. The invitation to the dinner party presents Mathilde with an occasion to live in her dreams and her wishful thinking. She daydreams of richly furnished mansions, palatial live and royalities. She wishes to be known, appreciated and admired by rich and famous women and men. At the party she accomplishes all of this. Relying on her beauty, her grace and her charm, she manages to draws everyone's attention including the chancellor himself. She even succeeds in her efforts as she seems to eclipse the important and famous women at the party. Maupassant relates, Mrs. Loisel was a success. She was prettier than anyone else, stylish, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men saw her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. (Paragraph 52) Mathilde is very happy at the party; infact, she is on cloud 9 with happiness (symbolizing the degree of her happiness as similar to the one in the 9th heavens). She revels in her state at the party, the condition she loves to live in throughout. She dances all night, continuosly living in her fanciful world, until her husband throws the shawl, over her shoulders. She awakes abruptly to the grim realities of her real life. She again becomes ashamed of her poverty and runs off from the premises of the party to avoid being seing. She and her husband returns home in an old night-going buggy. At their apartment, she goes before the mirror to see herself, if for one last time, in her glory, in her regal state. She notices that the diamond necklace is missing. Suddenly, she cries out and tells her husband, I...I...I no longer have Mrs. Forrestier's necklace. (Paragraph 65) The finale of the story highlights the travail and the privation, the hardship and the harsh-labor Mathilde and her husband had to endure to pay for Mrs. Foresties's necklace. After going around to find a replacement for the necklace without telling her friend, they found one that would cost them twice the value of her husband's inheritance of 18,000 francs. The Loisels struggled for 10 years to pay off the debt and the interest accrued on the money they borrowed to pay for the replacement. During this time, Mathilde evolves from a damsel who lived in her wish thinking on the day of the party to become a disciplined, contented old woman. After a decade of toiling and languishing in servile labor, she seems to have learned the value of living in her means. The decade long toil and privation almost becomes a crucible she needed to become attuned to her true, real situations. Now, her hair unkempt, with shabby skirts and calloused hands, she pays no attention to the things she despised so much. She dreams of them only in the past: the party, the dress and her look. Even on seeing her friend Mrs. Forestier, she does not care anymore for her appearance. Mrs. Forestier fails to recognise her in her crude appearance; but she feels no shame as she once did to reveal her true self. In fact, she is proud, satisfied and content that she and her husband had paid off their debt. Maupassant first revealed the character of Mathilde as a young woman many will despise for not living attuned to her real world. But through the lessons she learns, even he calls her efforts as, She did her share, however, completely, heroically. (Paragraph 98) Mathilde seems almost transmogrified. Her shabby appearance now seems irrelevant, her simple food, the attic flat she now lives in with her husband: everything she once despised, she now ignores. She is content merely with the fact that she and her husband lived horably. They no longer owed anyone for the anything. She is now, though simple, but free and does not care. She is living within her meansjustifying the use of every franc even if she has to haggle to do so. Maupassant shows in the story that the lessons of life are learned by different people through myriad means. One of such means is through suffering and privation, as in the case of Mathilde and her husband.