The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Keywords: the necklace analysis, the necklace maupassant, the necklace character

But shes cooped up in the house all day with nothing to do, and her days are marked with boredom beyond belief. Her only way out of dealing with it is to live in a fantasy world of glamour, wealth, and beautiful people.. And cant we all relate in some way to Mathildes desire to live a more exciting, glamorous life, even if we can only do it in daydreams?

You also wont find a more perfect encapsulation in story form of an experience we can certainly all relate to: the “if I hadn’t lost that one thing!…” experience. That’s right, if you think losing something once ruined your day, just wait until you see what happens to Mathilde. It’s painful to read about, yes, but sometimes it’s good to have a reminder of just how badly chance can ruin your life.

Finally, if you like interesting plots and crafty endings with a twist, they don’t get much more classic than this one.

At the beginning of the story, we meet Mathilde Loisel, a middle-class girl who desperately wishes she were wealthy. She’s got looks and charm, but had the bad luck to be born into a family of clerks, who marry her to another clerk (M. Loisel) in the Department of Education. Mathilde is so convinced she’s meant to be rich that she detests her real life and spends all day dreaming and despairing about the fabulous life she’s not having. She envisions footmen, feasts, fancy furniture, and strings of rich young men to seduce.

One day M. Loisel comes home with an invitation to a fancy ball thrown by his boss, the Minister of Education.. She doesn’t have anything nice to wear, and can’t possibly go! M. Loisel doesn’t know what to do, and offers to buy his wife a dress suggests she go see her friend Mme. Forestier, a rich woman who can probably lend her something. Mathilde is able to borrow a gorgeous diamond necklace.

The night of the ball arrives, and Mathilde has the time of her life. Everyone loves her (i.e., lusts after her) and she is absolutely thrilled. Mathilde suddenly dashes outside to avoid being seen in her shabby coat. But once back at home, Mathilde makes a horrifying discovery: the diamond necklace is gone.

So he and Mathilde decide they have no choice but to buy Mme. Forestier a new necklace Buying the necklace catapults the Loisels into poverty for the next ten years. They lose their house, their maid, their comfortable lifestyle, and on top of it all Mathilde loses her good looks.

After ten years, all the debts are finally paid, and Mathilde she wants to finally tell Mme. Forestier the sad story of the necklace and her ten years of poverty, and she does. At that point, Mme. Forestier, aghast, reveals to Mathilde that the necklace she lost was just a fake. It was worth only five hundred francs

She’s charming, attractive, and, believes that she should have been born into a rich family.

Instead she wound up in a family of “employees” and ended up marrying a “little clerk” in Department of Education (1).

Our ordinary girl is convinced that she’s meant for the extraordinary life of a fabulously rich girl.

She hates her own humble surroundings and spends her time dreaming about fancy tapestries and tall footmen. While her husband slurps his stew she imagines grand banquets.

A life of luxury is all the girl wants – it’s what she’s made for. But sadly, she doesn’t lead the luxurious life of which she dreams.

Consequently, she spends all her days weeping and feeling sorry for herself.

She tears it open to find that she and her husband – M. and Mme. (“Monsieur and Madame) Loisel – have been invited to a fancy party at the Minister of Education’s palace. Her husband can’t wait to see her reaction.

Mme. Loisel is not happy about this. She’s got nothing to wear. This is enough to send her into tears.

M. Loisel feels awful

Mathilde stops four hundred francs would probably do it.

The date of the party approaches, and Mathilde is in a bad mood again.

she doesn’t have any to wear over her dress.

M. Loisel suggests that Mathilde borrow some jewels from her rich friend Mme. Forestier.

Mathilde isn’t satisfied with anything she sees, but then Mme. Forestier brings her another box containing a spectacular diamond necklace.

Mathilde is beside herself. It’s the only thing she wants! Mme

The evening of the party arrives, and Mathilde is a smash hit. All the men – including the Minister – notice her. She’s in heaven. Her husband, meanwhile, has also been having a great time: he’s been off dozing in a corner since midnight.

M. Loisel brings the coats. But Mathilde is self-conscious: her coat is so shabby compared to the rest of her appearance. So she dashes off into the street to avoid being seen.

. Mathilde doesn’t want to go back to her ordinary life

But the diamond necklace is missing. She screams.

Mathilde, meanwhile, spends the day stuck in a chair, too traumatized to do anything.

When he returns, M. Loisel has Mathilde write to Mme. Forestier to say that they broke the clasp of the necklace and are having it fixed. They need to buy more time.

A week passes, and still no sign of the necklace. M. Loisel, who already looks five years older, decides they have no choice but to replace it.

So he takes out enough loans to pay for the necklace – and to ensure that his life will be ruined forever – and then goes back to the jeweler’s to buy it.

Mathilde takes the replacement necklace to Mme. Forestier, who’s miffed that she didn’t return her necklace sooner. Mathilde’s worried she’ll notice the substitution.

Now Mathilde and M. Loisel are poor. They have to dismiss the maid and move into an attic. Mathilde starts to do the housework, and run the errands, haggling at stores over every cent.

This goes on for ten years, until all the interest on the Loisels’ loans is paid. Mathilde is now a rough, hard woman, and her looks are ruined. She occasionally thinks of how her life might have been different if she hadn’t lost the necklaceâ€¦

One Sunday, Mathilde goes for a stroll on the Champs Elysées (main street of Paris that you see in all the movies), and notices a beautiful young-looking woman walking with her child.

It’s Mme. Forestier, who hasn’t aged one day. Mathilde decides it’s time to tell her everything that happened.

When Mathilde greets Mme. Forestier by her first name, Mme. Forestier does not recognize her former friend, because she looks so different

Mathilde explains that she’d lost the diamond necklace, but replaced it, and has spent the last ten years paying for the replacement. (Mme. Forestier apparently hadn’t noticed the difference)

Her diamond necklace, she tells Mathilde, was a fake. It was worth at most five hundred francs.

The Necklace Theme of Wealth

“The Necklace” gets its title from the gorgeous piece of diamond jewelry that drives the story’s plot. The expensive nature of the necklace is not the only way in which wealth is central to this story. The main character of “The Necklace” is obsessed with wealth. She wants nothing else than to escape from her shabby middle-class life with a shabby middle-class husband and live the glamorous life for which she was born. She’s so jealous of her one wealthy friend it hurts. When Mathilde’s given the chance to get decked out in diamonds and go to a ritzy party to mingle with all the beautiful people, it seems like her dreams have finally become a reality. Then she loses the borrowed diamond necklace, gets cast into poverty, and learns what it means to truly live without money.

Questions About Wealth

Is Mathilde a greedy character? What signs can you find that she is or is not?

Why does Mathilde want to live the life of the rich so much? Are her dreams understandable, or do they seem silly and exaggerated?

What difference does money make in the lives of the story’s characters?

Does the story itself have a message about whether wealth is a “good thing”? Is it shown to be worth pursuing, or not worth pursuing? Chew on This

Mathilde’s greed is revealed in her inability to be satisfied by anything.

The Necklace Theme of Women and Femininity

Mathilde Loisel, the main character of “The Necklace,” is a 19th century French version of a desperate housewife. Because she’s a woman in a man’s world, she has almost no control over her life. She finds herself married to a husband she doesn’t care for, and cooped up in a house she despises. What she wants more than anything else is to be desirable to other men. And what’s particularly irritating is that she has all the “womanly virtues” she needs in order to be desirable: she’s charming, graceful, beautiful. She’s just doesn’t have the necessary wealth. Is she a victim of the patriarchal society in which she lives? Or is she just a shallow and materialistic character?

Questions About Women and Femininity

In what ways is Mathilde a typical woman according to the story? How are Mathilde’s desires feminine desires?

How might Mathilde’s being a woman be a cause of her unhappiness? Do you think it is the primary cause of her unhappiness? Why or why not?

How are wealth and femininity connected in “The Necklace”? Where in the story do you see a connection?

Chew on This

Mathilde’s desires are “feminine,” because what most interests her is attracting male attention.

Wealth and femininity are intimately bound together in “The Necklace.”

The Necklace Theme of Pride

You can read “The Necklace” as a story about greed, but you can also read it as a story about pride. Mathilde Loisel is a proud woman. She feels far above the humble circumstances (and the husband) she’s forced to live with by her common birth. In fact, her current situation disgusts her. She’s a vain one too, completely caught up in her own beauty. It could be that it is also pride that prevents Mathilde and her husband from admitting they’ve lost an expensive necklace. After the loss of the necklace makes Mathilde poor, and her beauty fades, she may learn a pride of a different sort: pride in her own work and endurance.

Questions About Pride

What signs are there at the beginning of the story that Mathilde is a proud woman? In what way is she proud? Of what is she proud?

Is it pride which prevents the Loisels from telling Mme. Forestier they’ve lost her necklace? If so, whose pride is it? Or is it something else?

Does Mathilde’s experience of poverty humble her? Does it make her proud in a different way?

Chew on This

It’s M. Loisel’s pride that is responsible for the tragedy at the end of the story.

It is not pride, but the Loisels’ sense of honor, which is responsible for the tragedy at the end of the story.

The Necklace Theme of Suffering

“The Necklace” is a difficult story to read. If you think about it, it’s about nonstop suffering, caused by the cruelty of life and chance. At the opening, we meet Mathilde, the classic dissatisfied housewife, who spends her days weeping about how boring and shabby her life is. Mathilde finds one moment of real joy when she goes to a ball, but chance is cruel. Her happiest night becomes her worst nightmare when she loses the diamond necklace she borrowed. Then she and her husband experience a very different sort of suffering: the suffering of real poverty. And all of this is just the buildup to one devastating endingâ€¦

Questions About Suffering

What is responsible for Mathilde’s unhappiness? Is it her own fault, or is it the fault of her circumstances?

Is Mathilde’s suffering worse when she’s a poor woman? In what ways might it be, and in what ways might it not be?

Chew on This

Mathilde is responsible for her own suffering; she just refuses to be happy.

Mathilde suffers less when she’s poor than when she was comfortable but dissatisfied.

Quote #1

She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished. (1)

The first thing we know about Mathilde is that she seems meant for a life of wealth and luxury, but instead is born into a lowly middle-class family. The conflict between what she wants (which is quite a lot) and what she has is established immediately.

Quote #2

She let her mind dwell on the quiet vestibules, hung with Oriental tapestries, lighted by tall lamps of bronze, and on the two tall footmen in knee breeches who dozed in the large armchairs, made drowsy by the heat of the furnace. She let her mind dwell on the large parlors, decked with old silk, with their delicate furniture, supporting precious bric-a-brac, and on the coquettish little rooms, perfumed, prepared for the five o’clock chat with the most intimate friends, men well known and sought after, whose attentions all women envied and desired. (3)

Mathilde spends her time living in a dream world, in which she imagines all the fabulous things she’d have if she were rich. The most detail we get in the otherwise sparse story comes in Maupassant’s descriptions of the fancy stuff Mathilde wants. But being rich also means more than just nice stuff to her: it means having the glamour to attract men.

Quote #3

She had a rich friend, a comrade of her convent days, whom she did not want to go and see any more, so much did she suffer as she came away. (6)

Mathilde wants to be wealthy so badly that she’s driven mad with jealousy by the one rich friend she has, Mme. Forestier. She can’t bear to see Mme. Forestier, because it brings her within arm’s reach of the world of wealth she wants so badly, but can’t have.

Quote #4

She reflected a few seconds, going over her calculations, and thinking also of the sum which she might ask without meeting an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the frugal clerk. (24)

It looks like Mathilde is milking her husband for all he’s worth here. Was her the crying fit put on so she could seize the opportunity to get a fancy dress from him?

Quote #5

“It annoys me not to have a jewel, not a single stone, to put on. I shall look wretched. I would almost rather not go to this party.” (33)

OK, so after she’s gotten an expensive dress out of her husband, Mathilde refuses to go to the party again. She’s still not satisfied. She needs jewels. Does this mean Mathilde actually expects her husband to get her a piece of jewelry?

Quote #6

All at once she discovered, in a box of black satin, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with boundless desire. Her hands trembled in taking it up. She fastened it round her throat, on her high dress, and remained in ecstasy before herself. (48)

Maybe diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Just seeing and touching something expensive and beautiful drives Mathilde crazy. She’s in “ecstasy” over a necklace. The necklace may be a symbol for wealth, or glamour in the story.

Quote #8

Mme. Loisel learned the horrible life of the needy. She made the best of it, moreover, frankly, heroically. The frightful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed the servant; they changed their rooms; they took an attic under the roof. (98)

After losing the necklace, Mathilde now finds herself actually poor. Though she felt herself “poor” before, she was fairly comfortable, and middle class. Now her life is much harder.

Quote #9

The other did not recognize her, astonished to be hailed thus familiarly by this woman of the people (111-112)

Mme. Forestier and Mathilde are now greatly separated by their wealth, which translates into social class. The class difference is so big that it seems improper for Mathilde to even address Mme. Forestier by her first name. Their classes are also immediately apparent from the way they look.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At most they were worth five hundred francs!” (128)

Mme. Forestier reveals that the diamond necklace Mathilde lost was actually a fake. Does the falsehood of the jewels symbolize the falsehood of wealth? Does it change the way we think of Mathilde’s former dreams? Or, on another note, does it perhaps mean something about Mme. Forestier? If her best piece of jewelry is a fake, maybe she’s not quite as wealthy as she initially seems.

She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education. (1)

Mathilde’s future prospects are not in her own hands. She’s a woman, which means the quality of her life will basically depend upon her family and her husband. And in both respects, she’s out of luck, as far as she’s concerned. With so much powerlessness, it’s no wonder she’s frustrated and dissatisfied.

She was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class; for women have no caste and no descent, their beauty, their grace, and their charm serving them instead of birth and fortune. Their native keenness, their instinctive elegance, their flexibility of mind, are their only hierarchy; and these make the daughters of the people the equals of the most lofty dames. (2)

The narrator is suggesting that looks and charm make the woman, not wealth or good birth. According to this train of thought, a pretty, charming poor woman can be the equal of “the most lofty dame.” This is certainly the way Mathilde feels about herself – she has the looks and the charm to be better at being a “woman” than most rich women. It’s telling that the two “virtues” of a woman are the qualities that make them attractive to men. We don’t hear anything about intelligence, or kindness, or creativityâ€¦

She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that only. She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after. (5)

Mathilde wants to be desired by men. To some extent, even her desire for wealth is just derivative of that. Her highest wish is to be approved of and wanted by someone else.

But by a violent effort she had conquered her trouble, and she replied in a calm voice as she wiped her damp cheeks… (20)

Mathilde comes across as overly sensitive and emotional. She has to work very hard to control her emotions. There’s a feminine stereotype for you on which Maupassant is playing.

“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among a lot of rich women.” (37)

Wealth and womanhood are intimately bound up in Mathilde’s mind. She wants to look wealthy so she can compete with the rich women.

The day of the party arrived. Mme. Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest of them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy. All the men were looking at her, inquiring her name, asking to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to dance with her. The Minister took notice of her. (53)

Mathilde’s a huge hit. She gets all the men to pay attention her, including the most important one of all (the minister). This is the best moment of her life.

She danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness made up of all these tributes, of all the admirations, of all these awakened desires, of this victory so complete and so sweet to a woman’s heart. (54)

The narrator seems to be suggesting here that Mathilde’s desires – to look glamorous and beautiful and be desired by men – are more generally “woman’s” desires. That’s what makes women happy and pleases their “womanly hearts.”

She went away about four in the morning. Since midnight – her husband had been dozing in a little anteroom with three other men whose wives were having a good time. (55)

M. Loisel could care less about the party – he’s just happy to have an opportunity to sleep. And he’s not the only man in that situation, either. What does that mean? Maybe being a “man” he has different desires than his wife’s womanly ones. Or maybe he’s not interested in scouting out other men’s wives because he’s already got an attractive and charming wife of his own. Mathilde, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to feel the same way about her husband.

Mme. Loisel seemed aged now. She had become the robust woman, hard and rough, of a poor household. Badly combed, with her skirts awry and her hands red, her voice was loud, and she washed the floor with splashing water. (104)

Once more, we see a connection between wealth and womanhood. According to Maupassant, Mathilde’s poverty makes her less feminine. She’s less attractive, and less graceful. Instead, she’s “hard and rough,” and older looking. And apparently has a perpetual bad hair day.

Then, one Sunday, as she was taking a turn in the Champs Elysées, as a recreation after the labors of the week, she perceived suddenly a woman walking with a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still seductive. (107)

Unlike Mathilde, who’s lost her looks and “womanly charms” to poverty, Mme. Forestier still looks good. All of that even after becoming a mother (another sign of womanhood). This makes us wonder why Mathilde doesn’t have a child?

She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the worn walls, the abraded chairs, the ugliness of the stuffs. All these things, which another woman of her caste would not even have noticed, tortured her and made her indignant. (3)

Mathilde feels herself to be better than her circumstances. She deserves more than she has, and is angry at the universe because she isn’t getting it. Her dissatisfaction seems intimately connected to pride.

When she sat down to dine, before a tablecloth three days old, in front of her husband, who lifted the cover of the tureen, declaring with an air of satisfaction, “Ah, the good pot-au-feu. I don’t know anything better than that,” she was thinking of delicate repasts, with glittering silver, with tapestries peopling the walls with ancient figures and with strange birds in a fairy-like forest. (4)

Mathilde’s husband is the opposite of Mathilde: he’s happy with what he has. So far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing better than the good old stew his wife puts on the table every evening. All Mathilde can think of at the same moment is how much better things could be, and how she’d rather be elsewhere. It all seems too low to her.

“Nothing. Only I have no clothes, and in consequence I cannot go to this party. Give your card to some colleague whose wife has a better outfit than I.” (21)

Instead of being happy with the invitation her husband has worked so hard to get, Mathilde’s first reaction is to be angry about it. If she’s going to go, she just has to look the best, and she doesn’t have any clothes that are nice enough Is she ever happy? Then again, would you want to go to the one nice party you’ve been invited to looking shabby? It’s hard to tell whether Mathilde’s vanity, or greed, is making her overreact, or whether she does have nothing nice to wear.

She saw at first bracelets, then a necklace of pearls, then a Venetian cross of gold set with precious stones of an admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, and could not decide to take them off and to give them up. She kept on asking: –

“You haven’t anything else?” (45-46)

OK, so the jewel situation looks better: Mathilde’s found a treasure trove of the things. But she’s still not satisfied. None of them makes her look as good as she wants to look. Her vanity once again seems to be making her greedy.

Mathilde’s the happiest she’s ever been when everyone is admiring her. For once in her life, she can live up to the expectations her vanity has set for itself.

Quote #6

He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought to go home in, modest garments of every-day life, the poverty of which was out of keeping with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this, and wanted to fly so as not to be noticed by the other women, who were wrapping themselves up in rich furs. (56)

After a successful evening at the ball, Mathilde’s too proud to let herself be seen wearing her shabby wrap. She needs to keep up the illusion. It could be that her rushing off like this is what causes her to lose the necklace.

At the end of a week they had lost all hope. And Loisel, aged by five years, declared: –

“We must see how we can replace those jewels.” (86-87)

Why does it never occur to Mathilde or M. Loisel to tell Mme. Forestier they’ve lost the necklace? Instead, once they lose hope of finding it, M. Loisel decides the only solution is to buy a new one. Is he too proud to admit that it’s been lost? Or is it something else? (See M. Loisel’s “Character Analysis” for more of our thoughts on this.)

Mme. Loisel learned the horrible life of the needy. She made the best of it, moreover, frankly, heroically. The frightful debt must be paid. She would pay it. (98)

When Mathilde becomes poor, she is forced to work. Getting down to work and paying off the debts seems to make her proud in a new way. She can be proud of her hard work, and of her endurance. Meanwhile, her looks – which used to be her pride and joy – start to disappear.

“I brought you back another just like it. And now for ten years we have been paying for it. You will understand that it was not easy for us, who had nothing. At last, it is done, and I am mighty glad.” (122)

Mathilde is proud of all the work and suffering she and her husband have put into repaying for the necklace. It was an honorable and difficult thing to do. But they’ve succeeded.

“Yes. You did not notice it, even, did you? They were exactly alike?”

And she smiled with proud and naÃ¯ve joy. (126-127)

Mathilde is even more proud to learn that Mme. Forestier didn’t notice the difference between her original necklace and the substitute. It adds extra validation to her work: she did fully make up for losing the necklace.

Mathilde Loisel

Character Analysis

Mathilde Loisel wants to be a glamour girl. She’s obsessed with glamour – with fancy, beautiful, expensive things, and the life that accompanies them. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t born into a family with the money to make her dream possible. Instead, she gets married to a “little clerk” husband and lives with him in an apartment so shabby it brings tears to her eyes (1). Cooped up all day in the house with nothing to do but cry over the chintzy furniture and the fabulous life she’s not having, Mathilde hates her life, and probably her husband too. She weeps “all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress” (6). She dreams day after day about escaping it all.

Mathilde the Material Girl

When it all comes down to it, Mathilde’s kind of a material girl. The most obvious thing she wants out of life is: expensive stuff.

She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxuryâ€¦ She let her mind dwell on the quiet vestibules, hung with Oriental tapestries, lighted by tall lamps of bronze, and on the two tall footmen in knee breeches who dozed in the large armchairs, made drowsy by the heat of the furnace. She let her mind dwell on the large parlors, decked with old silk, with their delicate furniture, supporting precious bric-a-brac, and on the coquettish little rooms, perfumed, prepared for the five o’clock chat with the most intimate friendsâ€¦ (3)

Now why does Mathilde want all of these expensive, material possessions? It doesn’t sound like she just wants it because she’s money-obsessed. No, for Mathilde, the rich life is attractive because it’s glamorous, beautiful, exciting, fine, and unlike the dingy apartment in which she lives. The glamorous life has a certain kind of magical allure to it. A lot of the objects Mathilde wants are magical, like the “tapestries peopling the walls with ancient figures and with strange birds in a fairy-like forest” (4). For Mathilde, being wealthy amounts to living in a fairy tale. Being middle class amounts to boredom. She wants the fairy tale.

Does her wish to live the fairy tale life make her “greedy”? Well, you ever notice how throughout the first part of the story, Mathilde’s never satisfied with anything? When her husband brings her the invitation all she can think about is the dress she wants. When she gets the dress, all she can think about is the jewels she doesn’t have. And when she visits Mme. Forestier, she’s not really satisfied with any of her jewel collection – she keeps on asking, “You haven’t anything else?” (46). At least until she sees the most fabulous, expensive looking piece of jewelry, that is: the diamond necklace.

So yes, by many standards, Mathilde is probably greedy. But her greed’s not the end of the story. Material things aren’t the only things she wants. And there’s also a deeper reason for her greed: dissatisfaction. We can’t help but thinking that if she truly were satisfied with her life as it is (i.e., marriage, home, etc.) that she wouldn’t be day-dreaming of a life she could never have.

Mathilde and Men

The other thing Mathilde wants? Men. Rich, attractive, charming, powerful men. That passage we quote above finishes with: “the most intimate friends, men well known and sought after, whose attentions all women envied and desired” (3). Just a little afterwards, we’re told:

She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after. (5)

What’s interesting about Mathilde’s man-craze is that she seems to be more interested in seducing men than in the men themselves. That’s because what Mathilde really wants is to be wanted. More than being just desired, Mathilde wants to be glamorous – gorgeous, charming, graceful, and thoroughly decked out in diamonds. The ultimate measure of being glamorous just happens to be being attractive to glamorous men. It all forms part of one big glamorous, fairy-tale world, the world about which Mathilde fantasizes.

What’s particularly frustrating to Mathilde is that she knows she’s got the natural looks and charms to be a splash with the rich playboy types she wants to impress. She just needs the outward signs of being wealthy, but can’t afford the necessary clothing and jewelry. Mathilde’s quite vain about her “feminine charms.” Her vanity may be why she’s unwilling to go to the ball unless she looks better than everyone else there. And when she does go to the ball, that’s exactly what she is:

Her triumph:

So Mathilde may be vain, but she’s at least not deluding herself about her attractiveness. Mathilde’s vanity about the ball might seem a little extreme, but think of it this way: so far as she knows, that ball might be the one chance she has to experience the life she dreams about

Mathilde the Desperate Housewife

We know Mathilde can be a hard character to like. She can seem vain, greedy, and shallow, especially compared to her husband, who goes to great lengths to please her. He’s happy with what he has, while she always wants more. He seems to care a great deal for her, while she almost never shows any sign of caring for him. Does Mathilde have any redeeming qualities?

We don’t know, but we do think Mathilde deserves a little sympathy. Think about what it means to be a middle-class woman in 19th century France. Because she’s a woman, Mathilde has almost no control over her life: her family marries her off to her husband, and once she’s married, he’s her master. He goes out and works, and gets to go out on hunting expeditions with his buddies, while she has to stay in the house all day. She doesn’t seem to have a terribly close bond to her husband, or find him attractive. She doesn’t seem to have many friends – how would she meet them? She doesn’t have any kids to occupy her time. She doesn’t even have anything to do, since the maid takes care of the housework. Her life seems to be miserably boring. In fact, she doesn’t have anything to do except to daydream about a different life. That makes Mathilde a classic case of the desperate housewife..

In those circumstances, can you blame Mathilde for creating a fantasy world that’s more glamorous, more exciting, more beautiful than her own? Can you blame her for wanting to be wanted by somebody rich and important? Back then, if you were a woman, being wanted by a man was practically the only way to be anybody at all. And Mathilde feels like a nobody, wanting to be a somebody.

Still, we can’t sympathize completely with Mathilde. It does seem like at some level her complete and total unhappiness has got to be self-induced. Her situation makes her unhappy, but she also refuses to try to make herself happy. She refuses to try to be content with what she does have. Which is too bad, because, as she finds out when she loses the necklace, things can get a lot worse.

Mathilde’s poverty later in the story raises another question though. When Mathilde’s poor, she certainly seems to be worse off. Her impoverished life suddenly becomes difficult and uncomfortable in a way her middle-class life never was. She’s constantly busy doing physically demanding chores. She gets exhausted. She has to be rude to people, and pick fights over pennies. Her good looks disappear. But then again, once she’s poor, at least Mathilde is doing something. She can no longer be bored and useless. And all her hardship and work has a purpose: she and her husband have to repay the debts. So maybe, in a certain way, Mathilde’s better off when she’s poor

M. Loisel

Character Analysis

. Mathilde herself, as we’re quick to find out, isn’t terribly happy about her middle-class husband. She hates the shabby “averageness” of their life, and is miserable being cooped up in their apartment all day, dreaming of the luxurious life she wants to be leading. M. Loisel, on the other hand, seems quite happy with their situation. Unlike Mathilde, he enjoys his life as it is, especially that good old homemade pot-au-feu (stew):

Yes, M. Loisel appreciates the little things. He also seems devoted to his wife. He sacrifices the hunting rifle he’s spent months saving up for so Mathilde can buy a dress for the ball. And when she loses the necklace, he’s the one who goes all over the city searching for it. Most importantly, M. Loisel spends his life’s savings replacing it.

So M. Loisel seems like the simple, happy, good guy in the story, a foil for his perpetually dissatisfied wife. They make the classic unhappy bourgeois couple, in other words.

Is M. Loisel an insensitive husband?

M. Loisel enjoys his domestic life quite a lot, unlike Mathilde, but think about the difference in their situations. He’s got a life outside his home, a group of buddies to go on hunting trips with, and a gorgeous wife who serves his favorite stews for him when he comes home from work. He doesn’t have to stay cooped up in the house all day with nothing to do. Doesn’t something seem a little unfair about that situation, then, as if his enjoyment might come at her expense?

Clearly, M. Loisel cares for his wife for all the reasons we said. And he at least knows her well enough to know that the invitation to his boss’s fancy party will be important to her. But he doesn’t know her well enough to understand that the invitation won’t be enough, and he’s stunned by her reaction to it. That suggests he himself might not understand just how different things are for women and men. He doesn’t have to worry about what he looks like; she does.

It could be that Mathilde is the real problem, because she’s so hard to please, and refuses to be content with what she has. But it could also be that because of her situation as a woman, her life is just a lot worse than her husband’s, and he doesn’t understand that. Then again, even if he did, what could he do? It’s not clear what he could do to make Mathilde happier, short of divorcing her (which would probably make her worse off), or somehow miraculously getting rich.

But perhaps he should try and appreciate a little more how different his life is from his wife’s.

Is M. Loisel too proud?

Some readers place the blame for the story’s unhappy ending on Mathilde. She’s too proud to tell Mme. Forestier that she’s lost the necklace after her husband’s efforts to find it have failed. Intuitively, that might make sense, since she is the vain one in this story. But if you look at the events of “The Necklace,” it seems like M. Loisel is the one who doesn’t want to tell Mme. Forestier what has happened. Before they’ve given up hope of finding the necklace, he tells Mathilde to lie to Mme. Forestier and say that the necklace is having its clasp replaced, so that they can have more time to search for it. Then, when it still hasn’t come up, he seems to just jump to the conclusion that they have to replace it without informing Mme. Forestier:

But why should we be laying blame at all? Pride certainly isn’t the only thing that could motivate M. Loisel to jump to the conclusion he has to replace the necklace without telling Mme. Forestier. He doesn’t seem like a proud man, quite the contrary. Given his humble circumstances, it could just as easily be fear that motivates him: he’s afraid of what the wealthy Mme. Forestier will do if she finds out they’ve lost her necklace

On the other hand, M. Loisel could think that buying Mme. Forestier a new necklace secretly is the honorable thing to do. After all, if he and his wife told Mme. Forestier that they had lost the necklace, the ball would be in her court, and there’d be a certain pressure on her to let them off the hook. She’s got to know that they’re not rich, and couldn’t possibly afford a replacement. That wouldn’t feel right to M. Loisel. He’s an honorable fellow, and feels obliged to make up the loss.

So it could be pride, fear, or honor that motivates M. Loisel to do what he does. Most likely, we think, it’s some mix of all three

Mme. Jeanne Forestier

Mme. Jeanne Forestier is wealthy. She’s the rich friend: the person you turn to when you need something absolutely fabulous to wear to that ball next weekend but don’t have the money to buy anything appropriate. That’s Mme. Forestier’s role in this story: she’s that friend for Mathilde. It’s also Mme. Forestier who reveals at the end that her necklace was false and thereby single-handedly triggers the twist ending.

Apparently Mathilde and Mme. Forestier have known each other for a while, since their convent days. Around the time of the ball, though, it doesn’t sound as if Mathilde’s seen much of her lately, because it makes Mathilde too unhappy to visit her rich friend and see the life of luxury that she’s not living. It doesn’t sound like they see much of each other after Mathilde returns the substitute diamond necklace, either. The two women most likely don’t meet again until they run into each other on the Champs Elysées ten years later. Mathilde’s too ashamed to let her friend see the poverty she’s living in, and is afraid to explain why she became poor

The First Jeweler

This jeweler apparently didn’t sell the necklace to Mme. Forestier, though, just the box. This is a little weird, isn’t it? Why would you just buy a box from someone? Perhaps this is the only hint in the story that there’s something a little funny about those jewelsâ€¦

he Necklace Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

Sometimes, there’s more to Lit than meets the eye.

The Necklace

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

The necklace could very well be just a necklace, but it could also be something more. It’s so flashy and beautiful, and so seemingly valuable. Despite its convincing outside, it turns out to be “false.” It’s all show, in other words, with no substance. Doesn’t that description sound like it could fit any number of other things?

For one, you could easily read the necklace as a symbol of “wealth” itself – flashy, but false, in the end. Like “wealth,” the necklace is the object of Mathilde’s mad desire. Perhaps the revelation of the necklace’s falseness at the end is meant to mirror the falseness of Mathilde’s dream of wealth. Having wealth is not worth the trouble, any more than the false necklace was worth ten years of poverty. Then again, wealth has its advantages: it certainly seems to do wonders for Mme. Forestier’s looks, for instance, while poverty ruins Mathilde’s.

Maybe that connection between wealth and looks is a telling one. Even deeper than wealth, the necklace might represent appearance, the world in which it’s the outside that matters. Wealth belongs to the world of appearance, because money buys glamour. Mathilde’s unhappy because of the way her own shabby house looks, and the way her lack of money prevents her from wowing the people she wants to wow with her natural charm and good looks. The necklace is glamorous, and it also gives her the opportunity to be the woman she wants to be, for one evening. Beneath the fancy exterior, though, the necklace is not worth anything – it’s a fake. In that respect, it fits Mathilde’s own situation at the party: though she fools everyone there, she’s not really wealthy. At the end of the day she is still a clerk’s wife in a fancy party dress with some borrowed jewels.

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. Against the backdrop of wealth and appearance, we have the contrast of Mathilde’s poverty. Being poverty stricken may ruin her appearance, but it forces her to become responsible and hard working, and perhaps makes her appreciate what she had before. You could take away a moral such as, wealth just keeps you wanting more until you ruin yourself, while poverty teaches appreciation.

. And it’s up to the reader to decide if giving up good looks, comfort, and your own personal maid for a work ethic and a little more appreciation is a good deal. After all, the world of wealth and appearances may be false, but it’s still kind of fabulous. Just like the necklace.

Hopefully her eppearence returns basck and gher monry from her friends.

We can respect her vfor her strong charactwer

The Necklace Questions

Is Mathilde a sympathetic character? Can you identify with her? Do you care about her at the beginning, or at the end? Why or why not?

What do you think Maupassant/the narrator feels about his characters? Is he sympathetic? Distant? Judgmental?

How does Mathilde strike you as a woman? Does she capture some important part of what it means to be a woman now? Or is she just an old, bad stereotype?

Is there anything Mathilde could have done to make herself happy in her initial situation? Could her husband have done anything more?

Is “The Necklace” a cynical story – does it reflect a really bleak and jaded view of life? Does it have some other attitude towards life?

Does “The Necklace” have a moral? What is it, if it does?

What’s your verdict on the story’s ending? Does it affect you emotionally?

If the story hadn’t ended with a twist, how do you think it would have ended? Could it have ended in any other way and been as effective (and short) a story?

The Necklace Resources

Websites

Maupassant Biography off-site01

Read a biography of Guy de Maupassant.

Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant off-site01

Download a collection of Maupassant short stories for free.

Historical Documents

Original “Necklace” off-site01

Check the French newspaper Le Gaulois, in which “The Necklace” first appeared in print (as “La Parure”).

“The Necklace” off-site01

A link to the Brander Matthews translation of the story used in this Shmoop guide, with brief translator’s commentary.

Video

“The Necklace”: A Modern Take off-site01

See a modern rendition of the story that’s short, funny, silent, and strangeâ€¦the kind of thing you’d only find on YouTube.

NPR: Guy de Maupassant, a Jeweler of Language off-site01

Here a short NPR story on Guy de Maupassant by Cuban author and journalist Mirta Ojito, who was inspired by him as a child.

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