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Character Development In The Necklace And Lamb to the Slaughter

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Character Development In The Necklace And Lamb to the Slaughter
Character Development of Female Protagonists In both stories they featured a female protagonist undergoing major character developments and mentality change from first sentence to last. They experienced complex, life-altering events and made crucial decisions resolving said events. I believe, although both stories showed the characters undertaking change, they didn’t portray the outcome as positive change. The conflict of Lamb to the Slaughter is when Mary’s husband revealed he wanted a divorce. “Her first instinct was to reject it all, not believe anything.”(Dahl, 153) She had a drastic mentality change: she murdered him and created an alibi of coming home finding her husband dead. This was due to her feeling betrayed by her husband leaving her when she was pregnant. The conflict of The Necklace is when Mathilde gets invited to a high-class party however she had no dress to wear. “No…there’s nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.” (Maupassant )This drove her to borrow a valuable necklace but ends up losing it and having to pay for a replacement. Mathilde and her husband fell into debt and became more penniless than before simply because she desired her fantasy of opulence. It’s evident in both stories, the development in the main protagonist. Mary started as a loving, faithful housewife and became a deceitful, strong killer. Mathilde started as a well-off but unsatisfied woman and became impoverished but content. It’s shown at the end that the women aren’t in greater situations than before the conflicts occurred.

(Word Count:247)
Works Cited Bibliography: (Dahl, R. Lamb to the Slaughter, New York: Harper’s Magazine, 1953)
(Maupassant, G. The Necklace, Paris: Le Gaulois, 1887)


Bibliography: (Dahl, R. Lamb to the Slaughter, New York: Harper’s Magazine, 1953) (Maupassant, G. The Necklace, Paris: Le Gaulois, 1887)
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