Literary theme in “The Necklace”
The short story, “The Necklace,” written by Guy de Maupassant, has an allusive theme that’s revealed. Theme is a main idea of literary work that can be stated as direct or indirect. “The Necklace” allows the lesson to have an effect towards the readers after finishing the whole story. Indirect themes present a theme that’s constant which is referred to throughout the story, but it’s not referred to in the title. In the case of “The Necklace,” Maupassant focuses on the deception of appearances throughout the passage. The author never directly associates the necklace as the theme, but instead, the subject and topic of the story which ends up revealing the theme. Therefore, multiple hints are put throughout the events of the story which the readers can understand that they exist after finishing the reading and analyzing the sequence of events in the story.
It is known, appearances can be very deceiving. In “The Necklace,” Mathilde’s persistence to her husband seemed entirely superficial, as the reader should interpret it. She craves the luxurious lifestyle, wishing she never have to lift a finger, no work, no chores, and not a single responsibility. Mathilde wishes to live in high class, but unfortunately she has to live in the poor lifestyle of a middle class citizen. Nevertheless, Mathilde gets presented with the opportunity to become something more than a middle class women once she is given an invitation to a local prestige ball that her poor, loving husband acquired for her. By receiving this invitation, Mathilde saw the opportunity to rise from the grounds she was currently living on.
Mathilde found a way to be looked upon as proper, sophisticated, and wealthy among the guests at the fluorescent ball of the town. She bought a chivalrous dress with her husband’s savings and borrowed a diamond necklace from a close friend. While being a success at the ball, having everybody’s attention, she ended up losing the borrowed diamond necklace. She ends up spending the next decade slaving to recover the loss of the diamond necklace by paying debts and finances as replacement. The symbolism of the costume jewelry in the satin box that appears to be real, and the deception of the characters towards Mathilde shows how Maupassant’s had an intention to illustrate that not everything is truly what it seems to be in life. Understanding this through a personal perspective, the readers can appreciate the theme of this story because of the dreadful reality of Mathilde’s circumstance after losing the diamond necklace that ended up being a fake piece of jewelry.
Maupassant presents Mathilde’s perception of her simple middle class life as a woman who is not wealthy, but feels the need to be apart of the higher class life because of her charm and good looks. She considers herself poor even though her and her husband have a housekeeper who is well-paid to washes their dishes, does their laundry, takes out the trash, does the grocery shopping, and helps maintain Mathildes household without her lifting any fingers to do the responsibility. Having her own employee in her household obviously justifies a title for higher class, but Mathilde fails to realize this. Instead, Mathilde continues to hold onto her appearance of beauty instead of the reality that beauty carries itself. Maupassant uses the term “suffer endlessly” to describe Mathildes current living condition as a “poor” life throughout the character’s own eyes, but actually this main character is a citizen of the middle class in society. This can be portrayed in the quotation that’s from the beginning of the passage: “Mathilde suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury… All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her…” (Maupassant, Guy De. The Diamond Necklace. Pg 8). In fact, Maupassant doesn’t utilize the experience of the reality of poverty to Mathilde until she and her husband end up getting themselves into debt to pay off the expensive diamond necklace, that later turned out to be fake. “This is an example of internal conflict because it involves with feelings” (Scott, Literary Analysis of The Necklace). Mathilde believes she deserves more in life, more in which would cause her to be ever more selfish and materialistic, and therefore showing the true ugliness in this character. It shows the vainness in gathering materialistic things or living throughout a materialistic environment. She spends all her days dreaming of an extravagant lifestyle instead of having appreciation for everything she already has. According to the story, “Madame Loisel was a great success… She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and wild with joy … in a sort of cloud of happiness comprised of all this homage, admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of triumph which is so sweet to woman’s heart” (Maupassant, Guy De. pg 9). Everything maintains to be right in the world when Mathilde attends the ball, and gets admired by the people who attended the ball. They don’t see the truth behind the exterior of Mathilde nor the effort of scheming she had went through to appear the way she did. This moment in the story shows that her wealth and class are only an illusion, and other people can be easily deceived.
Madame Forestier’s necklace is a symbolism of the main idea behind the theme. It shows the deception of appearance throughout the story. Mathilde judges herself by her belongings, and assumes that others will too. She always complained she had no jewelry and no clothes. Her husband could buy her a new and expensive dress at one moment, but during that moment they weren’t able to afford jewelry. When Mathilde spots the black satin case, she automatically assumes the diamond necklace is real, but it actually gives an illusion of wealth and value, just like her personality portrays.
Madame Forestier has a necklace made of costume jewels conveys the idea that the wealthiest people will also pretend to have more wealth than they really do. “The fact that the necklace is a fake may or may not have some kind of moral meaning. You could take it to mean that wealth, or appearances more broadly, are false” (The Necklace Symbolism, p 4).Maupassant shows how the necklace goes from precious to worthless throughout the short story. This depicts that the view of value can easily be misinterpreted by an individual.
The necklace is the deception that leads Mathilde to her downfall. In the short story, it’s suggested that trouble can come from denying the reality of a situation. The necklace having diamonds is a symbol for insincerity of Mathilde’s character because she is showing her greed and dishonesty. The individuals at the ball who greatly admired the necklace because of its worth had been fooled. The helped to show that not everything that looks valuable is actually real.
Throughout the story, all of the characters, including the readers, are made to believe that this diamond necklace is genuine in its value. Mathilde ends up finding out it was nothing more than fake jewelry. The diamond necklace is used to symbolize an idea of deceptiveness you can receive from appearances. Maupassant intentionally reveals the truth towards the end of his story to show that appearances don’t always display a reality of things. The necklace is very fancy to help Mathilde feel beautiful during the ball, the necklace has no value to show worth. Therefore, it’s not the reality of wealth that’s important for Mathilde, but instead the appearance of it.