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The Necklace: a Critical Analysis

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Table of contents

Introduction, plot summary, character analysis, theme analysis.

• References:
• De Maupassant, G. (1884). The Necklace. Retrieved from https://www.vobal.com/#/documents/history_of_literturereadersgu/the_necklace
• Rose, N. (2020). Materialism is a Destructive force. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-to-want-what-you-have/202010/materialism-is-destructive-force

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The Necklace

Guy de maupassant, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Reality and Illusion

In “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant demonstrates that appearances—especially the appearance of wealth—are often at odds with reality. Attempting to appear richer than she truly is, Mathilde Loisel borrows a diamond necklace from her friend Jeanne Forestier and then loses it at a ball. She and her husband buy an expensive replacement on credit, return the replacement to the friend as though it’s the original, and then live ten years in poverty to repay their…

Women and Beauty

At the beginning of “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant writes that for women, “their beauty, their grace, and their charm serve them in lieu of birth and family background” and that “Their native finesse, their instinct for elegance, their versatile minds are their sole hierarchy, making shopgirls the equals of the grandest ladies.” His implication is that a woman’s beauty and poise can offer her upward social mobility. While Maupassant presents this as being the…

Ambition, Greed, and Material Possessions

“The Necklace” is, at its heart, a story about Mathilde ’s social ambition, which takes the form of a desire to acquire luxurious objects that she cannot afford. Through her ruin, Maupassant warns against the dangers of greed and criticizes those who ascribe too much value to wealth and material possessions.

Mathilde invests objects like the diamond necklace she borrows from Mme. Forestier with enormous significance, and her happiness is heavily dependent on her possession…

Sacrifice, Suffering, and Martyrdom

In the final section of “The Necklace,” Mathilde and her husband suffer for a decade as they struggle to pay back their enormous debt from the loss of the necklace . This suffering, combined with the fact that the Loisels live on “rue des Martyrs,” suggests that Maupassant wants readers to see Mathilde and her husband both as martyrs, albeit martyrs of different sorts.

Mathilde is a martyr for a cause: her desire for symbols…

In “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant demonstrates the importance of knowing how to achieve happiness in a meaningful and lasting way. At the beginning of the story, Mathilde and her husband live a modest life, but with enough money to live comfortably. However, Mathilde is perpetually discontented, unable to be happy without the clothes and jewels of a wealthy woman. Although Mathilde achieves a fleeting moment of happiness during the party, the next ten years…

A Summary and Analysis of Guy de Maupassant’s ‘The Necklace’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Necklace’ is an 1884 short story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant (1850-93), first published in Le Gaulois as ‘La parure’ in February of that year. If you’re unfamiliar with Maupassant’s work, ‘The Necklace’ is his most famous tale, and worth taking the time to read. If you’re a fan of stories with twist endings , you’ll probably love it.

Plot summary

Mathilde Loisel is a pretty woman who is married to a clerk who works in the Ministry of Education. They do not have much money, and Mathilde spends her days fantasising that her life is more glamorous and upmarket than it actually is.

When her husband is invited to a ball hosted by the minister for whom he works, he is keen for them both to attend, but Mathilde tells him she has nothing to wear to such a high-class social occasion. He tells her he will buy her a nice dress, even though it will mean sacrificing his own pleasure.

Then, Mathilde becomes worried that she has no jewels to wear with the dress. Loisel, her husband, suggests she ask her friend, Madame Forestier, if she has something she will lend to Mathilde for the night. Madame Forestier is happy for her friend to borrow whatever she wants, and Mathilde chooses a diamond necklace.

Mathilde enjoys the ball, and especially likes all of the attention she attracts from the men in attendance. When they are due to leave, at four in the morning, they go outside and try to find a cab to take them home. When they arrive home, however, Mathilde is horrified to discover she has lost the necklace!

Loisel retraces their steps but cannot find the lost necklace anywhere. They realise that they will have to replace the necklace, whatever the cost. To buy them some time, they compose a letter to Madame Forestier, claiming that they are having the necklace repaired. They then try to find out where the necklace was made, and have to buy the clasp and the diamonds from separate jewellers.

Loisel racks up thousands of francs in debt, borrowing from friends and from professional moneylenders to raise the cash. They finally have the necklace, which is returned to Madame Forestier, but now they have to pay back the money to all of their creditors.

This takes them ten long years. They dismiss their servant girl and Mathilde has to perform all of the housework, which ages her rapidly. Loisel, meanwhile, takes on a second job, working for a merchant in the evenings. Finally, though, their debts are cleared.

One day, Mathilde bumps into Madame Forestier, who doesn’t recognise her at first because her friend looks so poor and haggard. Now the debt is paid off, Mathilde feels she can tell her friend the truth, and confesses that she lost her friend’s necklace and she and her husband had to buy a replacement.

In a twist, Madame Forestier tells her friend that the necklace she lent Mathilde was made of imitation diamonds, and was virtually worthless. Mathilde and her husband had spent ten years toiling away for no reason.

In ‘The Necklace’, Guy de Maupassant explores the relationship between appearance and reality. The necklace, of course, is the most explicit example of this: it looks like a genuine diamond necklace but is actually an imitation or fake. And this final twist in the tale leads us to think more carefully about the other details of the story.

But ‘The Necklace’ is more specifically about the dangers of not being happy with what one has, and always wanting more. The nineteenth century saw a rise in the prevalance of consumerism, with many middle-class people seeking to improve their lot and keep up with their friends and neighbours in terms of their possessions, clothes, and social status.

Although Maupassant’s story is hardly searing social satire, the fate of the female protagonist does act as a cautionary tale about the dangers of chasing consumerist gratification in order to impress and be admired by others. The Loisels have a perfectly comfortable lower-middle-class life, and Mathilde has one servant to help around the house.

But this isn’t enough. She dreams of having more. Her food is not enough for her and she wants to dine on finer dishes. One would think she was living a life of poverty from how dissatisfied she is.

This constant desire for more is her undoing, of course – and her husband’s. Her insistence that she have some jewels to wear to the ball is what leads her to find out what real poverty is like, when she and her husband have to downsize from a modest flat to a small garret, and Mathilde has to learn how to work as a servant in her own house. She also loses the natural beauty she had as she has to work so hard at scrubbing the floors.

The critic Rachel Mesch, in her book Having It All in the Belle Epoque , has pointed out that ‘The Necklace’, among other stories, is a kind of Cinderella-story gone awry: whereas Cinderella begins by scrubbing floors and ends up going to the ball in all her finery, Mathilde goes to the ball and, as a result of losing her necklace (not her glass slipper), is reduced to a life of scrubbing floors.

Because she longed for more than she had, she ended up with less than she had to begin with. But the delicious ironic twist at the end of the story shows that her reduction to a life of poverty was all for nothing: just like the admiration she was foolishly and vainly chasing, the necklace she was working to replace was, after all, a sham.

Modern consumerism, then, is a con, with anyone able to afford a cheap imitation necklace able to pass themselves off as a member of the upper classes. Maupassant seems to be suggesting that the ‘finer things’ in life which tempt us are often, at their core, hollow and worthless.

At the same time, however, even when she is reduced to a life of grinding poverty, Mathilde still remembers that one night at the ball when she was admired. It is almost as if she thinks it was worth it, despite what happened next. She wonders what would have happened if she’d never lost the necklace.

Of course, at this stage of the narrative she hasn’t learned that the diamonds she was wearing that night were fakes; perhaps that revelation would make her revise her opinion. And yet, knowing they were imitation diamonds raises further ‘what if’ questions.

If they cost five hundred francs at the most, as Madame Forestier reveals at the end, Loisel’s husband could have easily bought her a cheap necklace and nobody – except for the Loisels themselves – would have been any the wiser. After all, Mathilde was admired at the ball even though she was, it turns out, wearing fake diamonds.

‘The Necklace’ is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator. The style is broadly realist, with Maupassant’s narrative voice relating the main details of the story in crisp, concise prose. We don’t get – as we would in the work of later modernist writers – detailed insight into the characters’ thoughts and feelings, although we are given occasional details about Mathilde’s feelings towards her situation.

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Literary Analysis of The Necklace: Essay Example

The necklace: introduction of the essay, the necklace by guy de maupassant: characterization, the necklace essay: conflict and narration, the necklace by guy de maupassant: setting and atmosphere, the necklace essay: tone, language, and major theme, the necklace essay: critical perspective, the necklace: conclusion of the essay.

The Necklace (La Parure) is one of the most famous short stories by Guy De Maupassant. It tells a story about a middle-class French couple in the 19th century. The wife is longing for a luxurious life, unappreciative of her husband, and a relatively happy life the couple is leading. Madame Loisel spends her time dreaming about all the luxuries they cannot afford to purchase while experiencing a feeling of shame for their actual life. The events described in the story reveal the features of the character of the heroine, which eventually leads her to live a life far poorer than she used to lead. An unexpected and ironic outcome provides a complex moral lesson that the readers are supposed to learn along with Madame Loisel. In the end, she learns that her image of high society was not real; the lack of appreciation for her moderate but sufficient fortune led to a disastrous outcome, and her husband’s efforts to provide for her went undeservingly unnoticed. The deceptiveness of appearances is the major theme of the story.

The main heroine, Madame Loisel, comes from a family of clerks. With no dowry and no hopes of being married to a wealthy man, she becomes the wife of a clerk from the Ministry of Education. Mathilde does not enjoy her life, as it is far too modest. She believes she was born to lead a lavish lifestyle and spends her time imagining the rich and luxurious surroundings she deserves (Maupassant 789). The emotions she experiences because of her poor lifestyle are rather strong, as she regards it as a misfortune and even an insult. Mathilde does not appreciate her husband’s efforts to provide for her at all costs. Upon receiving an invitation to a high society soirée, she is miserable due to the lack of clothing and jewelry worthy of a well-off and distinguished person.

Monsieur Loisel is a generous and loving husband. To please his wife, he denies himself the pleasure of buying a gun, giving up the money for Mathilde’s gown for the ball. Monsieur Loisel is attentive to his wife’s changing moods and gives her valuable advice on how to get the jewelry they cannot afford. During the soirée, he does not attempt to tarnish his wife’s delight at being appreciated and admired and sleeps in a waiting room until four o’clock in the morning, even though he must be at work four hours later. Monsieur Loisel displays the qualities of a loving and attentive husband, striving to please his wife. Madame Loisel, however, does not appreciate his attention, as she regards him as an unimportant figure in society, unable to afford to lead a luxurious lifestyle.

There is a third-person narration in the story, with an omniscient point of view, providing us with the innermost thoughts and feelings of the main characters. The conflict described by Maupassant in this short story revolves around Mathilde and the lost necklace. Striving to fit in with the members of high society, Madame Loisel is willing to borrow a diamond necklace from a friend, which she loses after the soirée. Due to her pride, she is unable to tell the truth. She is ashamed that they cannot afford to replace such expensive jewelry. Therefore, the conflict of the story is tied to the lost necklace and the couple’s desperate struggles to repay the debt, which leads them, in the end, to life in poverty, a complete opposite of what Mathilde has always wanted.

The Necklace is set in 19th-century Paris, the Belle Époque. It includes descriptions of middle-class interiors, as well as of high society’s lavish lifestyle. Material things are described through Mathilde’s daydreaming about the luxurious life she was meant to lead. Her actual surroundings are described as ugly and poor, making her suffer greatly. The atmosphere of the story could be seen as dynamic since it changes as the plot evolves. Before losing the necklace, the atmosphere seems rather light and ironic. The reader follows Mathilde’s “sorrows” with a hint of a smile, perceiving her capriciousness and the lack of appreciation for her husband’s affection as typical qualities in a vain young wife. However, after the necklace is lost, there is a substantial shift in the atmosphere. Superficial vanity gives way to the pride that drives the couple to the brink of poverty. The light atmosphere of the first part is followed by the gloomy atmosphere of the last part, with an ironic twist at the end, meant to stress the moral lesson.

The tone is the attitude the author conveys by presenting the events and characters in a certain way. Some aspects of linguistic features indicate the author’s ironic attitude towards the main heroine. For instance, his use of the words “suffer,” “insult,” “torment,” “despair,” and “misery” shows Mathilde’s vainness and her inability to appreciate her life. The husband’s rhetorical question at dinner, “What could be better?” contrasts with her dreams about a luxurious lifestyle. The second part of the story, where the couple is forced to work hard to pay off their debt, indicates the pride of the main heroine: “She played her part heroically” (Maupassant 793).

Aside from irony, Maupassant uses symbolism as a way to convey the central theme of the story. The necklace symbolizes the high society Mathilde is so eager to join. However, as the necklace turns out to be a mere imitation, it symbolizes the superficial nature of the upper class’ appeal. The fake necklace symbolizes the illusion that Madame Loisel is captivated by, eventually leading to a disastrous outcome. Thus, the story’s major theme lies in the idea that notions such as beauty, wealth, poorness, and happiness depend on an individual’s perception. The appearances of upper-class lifestyles were deceptive, just like Mathilde’s appearance at the soirée, where she was such a success. However, neither the necklace nor Mathilde’s seemingly luxurious appearance was genuine. This leads us to believe that Maupassant wanted to stress the importance of the illusory nature of appearances, in which the 19th-century French bourgeoisie was so immersed.

From a sociological/Marxist criticism standpoint, Madame Loisel is a member of the middle class, an aspiring member of the upper class, and, ultimately, a lower-class member. The inability to accept her position in society and a constant yearning for a wealthier life lead the couple to find themselves at the bottom of the social structure. The amount of expensive material possessions indicates the class the people belong to, as well as their social status. Mathilde is deceived by the superficial signs of wealth, leading to her becoming a servant class member.

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant tells the story of a woman preoccupied with her desire to be wealthy and to belong to the upper class. The ironic twist at the end of the story renders her perception inconsistent with reality. As the plot unravels, the deceptiveness of appearances turns out to be the main reason for the disastrous outcome. 

Maupassant, Guy De. “The Necklace.” Short Fiction. Classic and Contemporary. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006. 789-795. Print.

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The Necklace Literary Analysis Essay Essay (Review)

Looking for The Necklace analysis? The critique paper below focuses on the characters and themes in the story by Guy de Maupassant. The Necklace literary analysis on this page will inspire you!

Introduction

• Matilda in The Necklace
• The Story’s Protagonist
• The Story’s Ending
• Words Cited

There are several characters in the story that the author, Maupassant, uses to build up ideas and contribute to the meaningful flow of the story. The life of the protagonist in the story, Mathilde, is used by the author, Maupassant, to contribute significantly to the overall meaning of the story.

Her character, ambitions in life and her general point of view about various issues in life are used to bring out different themes and also help in the development of the story (Maupassant, pg. 16). Mathilde is also used to help build up suspense in the story.

In this literary analysis, this main character Mathilde will be discussed and her contribution to the overall meaning of the short story ‘the necklace’.

The Necklace Character Analysis: Matilda

At the beginning of the story, Maupassant introduces the protagonist Mathilde as a young and beautiful lady who comes from a not so well up family and there seems to be very little change that is going to take place in her life in terms of moving to a higher social class (pg 1).

This is because she is married by a clerk who can not adequately cater for the expensive things she desires to live a satisfying life. Mathilde is introduced as a character that has a great desire for a life that she and her husband Loisel can not afford. This contributes significantly to the development of the plot because it is her behavior that eventually leads to their downfall.

She is not content with the current state of things in her life. The author tells us that the state of their house torments her. The walls, the old chairs and the curtains which are not so beautiful all cause her to be mentally troubled. She strongly believes that she ought to be living a better and more expensive life. She yearns for things that would make her to be admired by many people.

She is so obsessed with the thoughts of a better and more expensive lifestyle that she wastes a lot of time and energy thinking about this. She thinks of how her house would be with expensive furniture and of herself with many clothes and jewelry. We learn that she is very uncomfortable visiting her rich friend, Madame Forestier, because every time she does that, her life is filled with moments of suffering and intense pain (Bloom pg59).

This is because she compares her poor life with that of her rich friend and she is filled with envy and jealousy because she can not afford to live like her friend and yet that is the kind of life she dreams of. Mathilde is completely out of touch with reality and lives a life full of fantasy. This kind of thoughts as expressed by this young lady help in the building up of the plot of the story because eventually, she learns how futile it is to covet what one can not afford.

It is very ironical that Mathilde loves what she does not have (Maupassant, pg. 23). She says that she loves jewels and clothes but she does not actually have any of them. The motive for her yearning to have these things so badly is an evil one. She says that she would love to have these things so that she can be envied by many people. The fact that Mathilde and her husband belong to the middle class shows that they are not very poor and that they are able to get the very basic necessities in life.

Her desire and obsession with more wealth just shows how materialistic she is and her insatiable desire for more wealth which she can not get. The author shows us that they are even to be envied by other people like her servant who is belongs to a lower social class than her but Mathilde is only interested in attaining her selfish ambition in life. Her desire to have more and especially what she can not afford brings problems even to her innocent husband.

Matilda as the Protagonist in The Necklace

Trouble starts the evening when her husband comes home with news that she has been invited to accompany him to a rare occasion organized by the ministry of education. Her reaction to the news is one that her husband did not expect. She is very sad because she does not have a new and expensive dress to wear to the occasion.

Efforts by the husband to persuade her to wear an old but nice dress that she has bear no fruit. He ends up sacrificing the money he had saved to buy a gun to meet his wife’s demand for a new dress. The husband is portrayed as a person who blindly follows the wife’s demands without looking at the long term implications of such decisions.

He fails to act as a guide to the wife who is already too blinded by her strong desire to acquire more than she can afford. The emotional response of the wife when she is told to wear the dress she normally wears to the theatre shows how obsessed she is with living a high class life. The husband is persuaded to give up something very important to please his wife who seems impossible to satisfy because thereafter she still asks for a necklace.

Mathilde cares very little about her husband. She is very selfish and is concerned about her own interests being fulfilled even at the expense of her husband’s little savings. She is not very careful not hurt others as she pursues her desire for more wealth. Instead of being grateful to her husband about what he has already provided to her, she complains about what the husband is unable to do to make her happy.

She therefore lives a very unhappy life full of struggles which can be avoided if only she is content with her current status and works towards improving her life. Moreover, she only says that she deserves to have all the things she spends a lot of time dreaming of but ironically, she does nothing to get them.

After the husband offers to buy her the dress she demands for in order to attend the ball, she again complains that she does not have a necklace and threatens not to accompany her husband if she does not get one. Because the husband cannot afford to buy her a necklace at that moment, he suggests that she borrows it from her rich friend which she agrees. Given a variety to choose from, she settles for one that looks like diamond which she is later to discover that it was not genuine diamond.

She is very happy that she is going to impress people during the ball because she has both the dress and the necklace which are the most important things in her life. Although she ends up achieving what she has always longed for that night, what she loses is of greater magnitude than that short lived achievement.

The necklace ends up getting lost on their way back home despite efforts by the husband to try and recover it. When they realize that the necklace is lost forever, they settle for another option which is replacing the necklace with another that looks exactly like the one they lost.

They incur a lot of debts as they try to raise the amount required to purchase a genuine diamond necklace. The husband sacrifices so much for the sake of his selfish wife who seems to care very little about his interests. Mathilde’s weak point of coveting more wealth is the greatest mistake she makes. The outcome of her actions and desires are disastrous not only to her but to the husband too. She ends up losing everything because of just a night of pleasure.

She wastes most of her youthful life and beauty toiling and laboring to repay the debts they incur when they decide to buy a new expensive necklace for Madame Forestier instead of just telling her that she lost the original necklace. Fusco (pg 28), notes that this incident helps to expose her proud nature. She finds it very hard to just confess and maybe apologize to the rich friend who would have probably heard her and would not have subjected her to the kind of hard labor she and her husband had to go through.

The wasted years that the couple has to go through are because of Mathilde’s assumption that her rich friend could not have possibly bought a cheap necklace and so they have to replace the fake diamond necklace with an original one. She has all along erroneously believed that for anything to be valuable, it has to be expensive.

When Mathilde and Madame Forestier eventually meet after a long period of time, precisely ten years, Madame Forestier fails to recognize her old friend Mathilde. She has grown old and her initial beauty is no longer there. She has lost almost everything that made her beautiful due to ten years of labor. Madame Forestier is still elegant and youthful and pities her old friend Mathilde.

Maupassant uses the necklace that Mathilde is so much impressed by symbolically to show her totally wrong belief. She has all along thought that for anything to be of value, it has to be expensive. She sadly discovers that the necklace that she thought was very expensive and of great value is not worthy. In fact, if she had confronted her friend and explained her case, the couple could have reimbursed her for the necklace without mush strain because they had enough money to pay Madame Forestier.

The Necklace: Analysis of the Story’s Ending

By using Mathilde as the protagonist in the story, Maupassant is able to create an ironic ending that the readers do not expect. Several moral lessons can also be learnt when one reads of the calamity that befalls Mathilde and the husband. The character of Mathilde has changed drastically at the end of the story compared with the first time the reader encounters her in the beginning of the story. She no longer complains about life and wanting more wealth as she did in the beginning.

She has learnt to live within her means despite the fact that she is even poorer than in the beginning when she was whining about everything in her life and yet she had enough to sustain her. The troubles she has gone through seem to have taught her a very valuable lesson in life and she even appears to be stronger than she was before. She learns how easy it is to loose what one has because of greed and not being content.

At the end of the story, the question that arises is, ‘who is to blame for the misery that this couple finds itself in?’ the blame seems to be solely on Mathilde because of her irrationality in thought and action. If only she is keener about what she desires and takes time before acting on her wishes, maybe her life and that of the husband would have turned out to be better. She ruins her entire life and that of her husband because of just a single night of pleasure.

She feels good when everybody in the ball envies her and does not even care about her husband when they are at the occasion. The author tells us that the husband had been sitting with three other men for several hours since midnight because their wives had abandoned them and went away to enjoy themselves alone. In the long run, Mathilde’s life becomes worse off than initially when they could afford to live a decent life.

After they borrow money to replace the necklace, they are no longer able to hire a house help, hence she has to do all the work alone. This hard labor is what robs her of her strength and beauty. Mathilde and her husband Loisel may not deserve the kind of life that they find themselves in were it not for her greed and envy.

The husband is also unable to foresee the danger that lies ahead before they resolve to take any action. We are told in the story that when he is borrowing money for the necklace he puts his signature without even caring what he is signing. Although Mathilde is seen as the cause of all their misfortunes, the husband also contributes to it. This family is entirely to blame for the misery that befalls it.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Guy de Maupassant: Bloom’s major short story writers . New York: Infobase Publishing, 2004.

Fusco, Richard. Maupassant and the American Short Story: the Influence of Form at the Turn of the Century . Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 1994.

Maupassant, Guy de. The Necklace . Washington: Dramatic Publishing, 1969.

Further Study: FAQ

📌 who is the protagonist in the necklace, 📌 who wrote the necklace, 📌 what is the theme of the story the necklace, 📌 who are the characters in the necklace.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). The Necklace Literary Analysis Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/literary-analysis-of-the-necklace-by-guy-de-maupassant/

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“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Essay Example

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Oppression plays a large role in the brilliant short story by Guy de Maupassant entitled “The Necklace”.  In it, a middle-class woman, Matilda Loisel, who dreams of a luxurious life, is able to have one, glorious night at a ball, wearing a borrowed necklace of diamonds from her childhood friend.  Sometime during the night of the ball, the necklace is lost.  She and her husband go into great debt to buy a replacement, living a life of great poverty for a decade to pay off the debt they incurred to do this.  Years later, the woman meets her old friend by chance in the park and brags of how much she and her husband went through to replace the necklace, only to be told that the necklace was made only costume jewelry and “were not worth five hundred francs”.

The oppression that de Maupassant writes about in this story is two-fold.  The first kind of oppression, in the first section of the short story, comes from within Matilda herself because of her unrealistic dreams and expectations for her life.  The second kind of oppression, more concrete, comes in the second part of the story, where Matilda and her husband both have to give up what comforts they had to begin with in order to pay off the debt that they owe for the necklace.  Both kinds of oppression take their toll are Matilda (though in different ways) and both will be analyzed at length in this paper.

Inner Oppression: The Burden of Fantasy

Guy de Maupassant begins to discuss the theme of Matilda’s inner oppression (or self-oppression) in the first paragraph of the story, introducing her as “one of those pretty, charming young ladies, born….into a family of clerks” (de Maupassant 31), showing the reader from the start that there is a huge divide between Matilda’s life as it is and Matilda’s life the way she wants it to be.  It is obvious that Matilda’s middle class life, married to a clerk from the Board of Education (a worthy but not perhaps very romantic job) is very distressing for her, and she is forever fantasizing unrealistically about what her life might have been like if she had married someone “either rich or distinguished” (31).  While she sits in her apartment of “the shabby walls, the worn chairs, the faded stuffs” (31), she dreams only of “large drawing-rooms, hung in old silks, of graceful pieces of furniture carrying bric-a-brac of inestimable value” (32).

These beginning paragraphs are important to the story because they show from the very first that Matilda is a woman whose oppression comes from within herself: she oppresses herself by longing for a life that she cannot have; she oppresses herself by being unhappy and discontented with the life that she does have.  The frustration that she feels with her life is palpable in the beginning of the story and it is important because it sets the stage for, and gives impetus to, what is going to happen: i.e. the fateful night of the ball, a night which is to forever change the course of Matilda’s life.

When Matilda’s husband comes home with an invitation for the ball at the home of the Minister of Public Instruction, it seems that Matilda’s fantasies might become reality for her, but instead of jumping at the chance to live the kind of life (if only for one evening) that she always dreamed of, she shrinks away at first, asking her husband irritably, “What do you suppose I have to wear to such a thing as that?” (33) and promptly bursts into tears; she is not so distraught, though, that she cannot make a quick and shrewd estimate of how much money she can get out of her husband for a new outfit: “She reflected for some seconds, making estimates and thinking of a sum that she could ask for without bringing with it an immediate refusal…from the economical clerk” (33).  And to make her fantasy life complete, she borrows what she thinks is a fabulous necklace from her childhood friend Mrs. Forestier.

Matilda is freed from her self-oppression for one night, the night of the ball, where she gets to live her fantasy in a way that she always wanted to, and de Maupassant notes that she “was a great success.  She was the prettiest of all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and full of joy” (34).  But at the end of the evening, reality comes back in full force, and Matilda feels oppressed once again when she and her husband wrap up in “modest garments of everyday wear, whose poverty clashed with the elegance of the ball costume” (34) and Matilda wishes to get away quickly, as she feels oppressed again by “the other women wrapping themselves in rich furs” (34). In her haste, she and her husband wind up on a bit of misadventure going home and when they arrive back at their apartment, they find that Matilda has lost the necklace.  De Maupassant is well aware of what is in store for Matilda when he writes that “she removed the wraps from her shoulders before the glass, for a final view of herself in her glory” This will, indeed, be the “final view” for Matilda, for a second later, she realizes that the necklace in missing, and with that missing necklace comes the second, outer form of oppression in this story: the oppression of poverty.

Outer Oppression: The Burden of Poverty

In the fall-out from the loss of the necklace, Mr. and Mrs. Loisel replace the piece of jewelry at a tremendous cost to their middle-class household: thirty-six thousand francs, which they beg and borrow and use up their inheritance to purchase.  Whether she realized it and appreciated it or not, Matilda’s life was one of middle-class comfort before, but all that is to change with the loss of the necklace.  And now the real, outer oppression, the oppression of poverty, takes hold of Matilda’s life. De Maupassant tells the reader that Matilda “now knew the horrible life of necessity” (36), and a lot of their modest middle-class trappings have to go: “they sent away the maid; they changed their lodgings; they rented some rooms under a mansard roof” (36).  So now, the poor life that Matilda has always imagined that she led has become a poor life indeed.  Without a maid to take care of these things for her, she is forced to shoulder, “the heavy cares of a household, the odious work of a kitchen” (36) but with great sacrifice, she and her husband pay off the debt that they incurred to replace the necklace, a debt which takes them a decade to pay off.

The oppression of poverty has a terrible affect upon Matilda.  De Maupassant describes her, after this decade of economic oppression, as “a strong, hard woman, the crude woman of a poor household. Her hair was badly dressed, her skirts awry, her hands red” (37).  This is no longer the bored middle class woman with a maid who fantasized about a life of wealth, although, even in the difficulty of her poverty, she “would seat herself before the window and think of that evening party of former times, of that ball when she had been so beautiful and so flattered” (37).  The fantasy seems different now: in the first part of the story, the fantasy is the vehicle of for Matilda’s self-oppression, the way in which she tortures herself for not having the kind of life she dreams of; by the end of the story, the fantasy has becomes a means of escape from the real, outer oppression of her poverty.  The image of Matilda, resting for a while from her work and thinking for a few minutes about the one night of her life when she was free from the oppressions of her discontent – the night of her life which was also her downfall and led to the oppression of her new life of poverty – is one of the most poignant scenes in the story.

If the story ended there, it would still be tragic, but De Maupassant is not yet done twisting his knife.  In the final scene of the story, the old, hard Matilda, walking in the Champs Elysee  “to rid herself of the cares of the week” (38), runs into her old friend Madame Forestier, “still young, still pretty, still attractive” (38), in contrast to Matilda herself.  Matilda cannot help but brag to Mrs. Forestier of the diamond necklace she replaced at such a tremendous cost, only to have Forestier exclaim that the necklace was cheap costume jewelry and that Matilda has ruined her life for nothing.

To conclude, this is a poignant story about the life of a woman who is at first oppressed by the unattainable fantasies that she has for herself, and then is oppressed by the poverty which results when she tries to make her fantasies into reality.  Both the oppression of her fantasies (the oppression that comes from within herself) and the oppression of poverty (the oppression that comes from the circumstance of her life) exact a toll on her.  De Maupassant, in this story, seems to be exploring the ways in which someone’s character flaws (in this case, Matilda’s unrealistic expectations for her life) can bring about a tragic end for them.  It is Matilda’s ravenous need to act out her fantasies that leads her to borrow the necklace to begin with, then hurry away from the party because she is ashamed of her wrap and lose the necklace in the process, and thus condemn herself to ten years of pointless poverty.  She is, truly, both a victim of her own oppression and of the oppression which life lays down upon her, and the second form of oppression is a direct result of the first. One reason why this story is such a classic, why it can be read even so long after it was written by people in a very different society, is because of De Maupassant’s understanding of the ways in which people do indeed oppress themselves and of the ways in which the circumstances of their life can oppress them as well.  Both are equally tragic and seem equally difficult to combat.

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A thesis statement for the necklace?

"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant explores the themes of appearance versus reality, the danger of materialism, and the consequences of pride. Through the story of Madame Loisel's desire for wealth and social status, the author conveys the message that true happiness cannot be found in material possessions.

The thesis statement is to just tell the truth and not lie because you could be stuck working to pay of the lie for the rest of your life.

"The Necklace" being a short story about the woman who works for years to pay off her friend's lost necklace that turned out to be fake.

not really a good thesis statemnet

"No.....There's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among alot of rich women ."

Add your answer:

What is the thesis statement for The Necklace?

Her character is brought out by her first apartment, her daydreams about elegant rooms in a mansion, and her attic flat.

The is where the writer explains to the reader what the essay will be about?

the introduction paragraph and mainly the thesis statement.

How is a persuasive thesis statement different from a descriptive thesis statement?

A persuasive thesis statement argues the author's opinion on a topic; a descriptive thesis statement does not.

How is persuasive thesis statement different from a descriptive thesis statement?

How is a persuasive thesis statement different from an explanatory thesis statement.

A persuasive thesis statement contains the author's opinion on a topic, whereas an explanatory thesis statement does not.

Is there a hook in a thesis statement?

no there is not a hook in a thesis statement.

What does the thesis statement do?

The thesis statement tells what the essay will be about.

How is a persuasive thesis statement different from an explanatory thesis?

Can a question statement be a thesis statement.

No you may not ask any questions in your thesis statement, because the thesis statement basically states your answer to whatever you are doing.

Can you write a question in the thesis statement?

If you did it wouldn't be a thesis "STATEMENT" would it, it would be a thesis "QUESTION".

What part of speech is thesis statement?

Thesis statement is a noun phrase, consisting of the main noun statement and the noun adjunct thesis.

How do you write a thesis statement about radiology?

What is a great thesis statement about Radiology?

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