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Discuss what happens to Mathilde in “The Diamond Necklace”. Why did it happen? How could it have been different? What would you have done in this situation?…
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In “The Necklace,” a female character, Mathilde, is living in Paris during the 19th century. She is poor, yet undyingly wishes she was wealthy. One day the woman is invited to a prestigious ball within her city. She immediately she contacts a rich friend and borrows a fabulous necklace. Once the night is all said and done and she returns from the ball, she realizes that the borrowed necklace is lost. She reacts by lying about the necklace and buying her friend a new one. With her financial situation the way it is she goes spiraling into debt and never recovers. Later, once Mathilde admits to her friend that she lost and replaced the necklace, it is revealed that the borrowed necklace was a fake worth very little.…
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In “The Necklace”, Mathilde is seen as a poor woman who had low self-esteem and was married to a clerk. In this story, she was invited to a ball and borrowed a friend’s necklace. After the ball, Mathilde discovers that the necklace was lost. As a result, she had to search for a similar necklace and had to take out loans to make a purchase. She was forced to work for ten years to pay off the debt until one day when she saw her friend. Little did Mathilde know that the necklace she lost was worth much less than the new necklace she paid for.…
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You can read “The Necklace” as a story about greed, but this is also about pride. Mathilde Loisel is a very proud woman. She feels far above the humble circumstances and she is forced to live with her husband by her common birth. Her current situation disgusts her. She is also vain too, completely caught up in her own beauty. It is pride that prevents Mathilde 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…
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Mathilde hosts a great time at the gathering, yet a while later finds the precious stone jewelry is lost. The couple spend their legacy and take out advances to replace it.…
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In the story The Necklace, Mathilde is a middle-class woman who only cares for luxury, materials things and an unhappy woman…
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The irony that is implied in the story is that in the fact borrowing the necklace was what the main character, Mathilde hoped would help her into the life she coveted, yet it was also what put her into a life of poverty. In the story, it stated that “ She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.” This shows how Mathilde has a poor family background while compared to the rich classes for the women in that time period.…
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Mathilde Loisel refuses to be happy with her life as it is. She is a middle class woman who felt that she should have been born to a more wealthy, distinctive family but instead was “born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees”. Mathilde “suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury.” When she watches the little maid doing their housework, all she can do is “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…” She doesn’t realize that the life she has come to think of as ‘not good enough’ is the best she will ever have. She should have been married to a handsome, well-known man so that she would come to have a place in society but knew it would never happen, so she “let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education”. Mr. Loisel is a good man, always gracious, giving and kind but she is never able to appreciate any of what he does for her. He tries his best to make her as comfortable as possible, making sacrifices for her and giving her whatever she asks for that is within their means.…
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Imagine how she felt when she received the information that it was not even worth half as much as the necklace she replaced. Through all that time laboring to pay off the borrowed necklace, Mathilde has lost her natural beauty. As said on page 168, “She became heavy, rough, harsh, like one of the poor. her hair untended, her skirts askew, her hands red, her voice shrill, she even slopped water on her floors and scrubbed them herself.” Her friend Mme.…
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In “The Necklace” Mathilde Loisel digs herself into a hole of poverty and grief. This is all because of her comparing spirit, and discontent. It is because of her actions that poverty fell upon her, not because of fate.…
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Throughout “The Necklace,” Mathilde covets everything that other people have and she does not. Whereas Monsieur Loisel happily looks forward to having hot soup for dinner, Mathilde thinks only of the grandness of other homes and lavish table settings that she does not own. When Monsieur Loisel obtains an invitation for a party, she covets a new dress so that she can look as beautiful as the other wives as well as jewelry so that she does not look poor in comparison to them. She is so covetous of Madame Forestier’s wealth that she cannot bear to visit her, but she overcomes her angst when she needs to borrow jewelry for the party; there, her coveting is briefly sated because she gets to take one of the ornaments home with her. After the party, she covets the fur coats the other women are wearing, which highlight the shabbiness of her own wraps. This endless coveting ultimately leads to Mathilde’s downfall and, along the way, yields only fleeting happiness. It is so persistent, however, that it takes on a life of its own—Mathilde’s coveting is as much a part of her life as breathing.…
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“The Necklace" tells of a sad and lengthy lesson learned by Mathilde Loisel and her husband. Mathilde is a selfish self-pitying woman who thinks she is too good for her station in life. Mathilde has been blessed with great beauty, a husband who loves…
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Mathilde Loisel is “pretty and charming” but feels she has been born into a family of unfavorable economic status. She was married off to a lowly clerk in the Ministry of Education, who can afford to provide her only with a modest though not uncomfortable lifestyle. Mathilde feels the burden of her poverty intensely. She regrets her lot in life and spends endless hours imagining a more extravagant existence. While her husband expresses his pleasure at the small, modest supper she has prepared for him, she dreams of an elaborate feast served on fancy china and eaten in the company of wealthy friends. She possesses no fancy jewels or clothing, yet these are the only things she lives for. Without them, she feels she is not desirable. She has one wealthy friend, Madame Forestier, but refuses to visit her because of the heartbreak it brings her.…
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After the party, Madame Loisel loses the necklace, resulting in tireless work, loans, and night jobs for her and her husband in order to pay back the equivalent of the price. The couple finally succeeds when all the money is paid ten years later, only for Mathilde to discover that the necklace was ironically a fake, and worth a very small percentage of what the couple paid. The theme of this story is that an overemphasis on material wealth can shrink the spirit and leave one open to the changeability of fortune. The situational irony highlights this moral because the Loisels would never have had to exhaust themselves if Madame Loisel wasn’t so obsessed with riches and wealth. From the very beginning of the story, she wastes her time dreaming of luxuries such as fine silks, beautiful furniture, and gourmet feasts. Even when she is at Madam Forestier’s house to try on necklaces to borrow, she is never satisfied until she has seen the very best. Madame Loisel’s preoccupation with appearance clouds her judgment as well. As soon as she realizes that she has lost the necklace, she should simply come clean to Madam Forestier. Instead, she is too concerned with how her reputation will be affected, so she keeps quiet. She later pays the price for this when she discovers that the necklace is “false [and]…worth five hundred francs at most.” The life that she gets instead as punishment during the ten years in debt is even more difficult and meager than her life to begin with, which stresses how fame and fortune is so fleeting and unimportant in the scheme of…
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And she smiled with proud and simple joy. Madame Forestier, quite overcome, clasped her by the hand. “Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine was only paste. Why, at most it was worth only five hundred francs!” “Only five hundred francs!” Madame Loisel gasped. Lost in thought, she began to feel sick. Thinking that she has just wasted ten years; doing heavy housework, hateful duties of cooking, bargaining with the butcher and many others, along with living the life of a pauper. “Oh darling, are you all right?” Madame Forestier questioned. “You look terribly ill” “I….I’ve got to do!” Madame Loisel mumbled as she ran towards the court yard. By the time she got home, she was out of breath. Madame Loisel yelled for her husband, but he didn’t respond, guessing that he still hasn’t gotten home yet. Thinking whiled she waited for her husband to return from work, about how he is going to react. When Monsieur Loisel came home, Madame Loisel greeted him pleasantly and began to tell him what has just happened. As she explained the situation, she could see her husband slowly become furious. Madame Loisel finished what she needed to say. Monsieur Loisel calmly stood up and told Madame Loisel to get back the necklace. Madame Loisel was confused with her husband’s reaction but went to go see Madame Forestier. Madame Loisel got to Madame Forestier house and asked “May I please have the necklace back. I will buy you the exact one that I’ve misplaced.” “Of course not, you’ve given it to me so now it’s mine!” Madame Forestier fought back. They continued to fight until Madame Forestier became violent. She revealed a dagger that was hidden under a cloth and persisted on stabbing Madame Loisel. Madame Loisel was stocked and blankly stared at the dagger coming towards her. As she stared, every second became slower and quieter. When the dragger touches her flesh, she awakes and notices it was all a dream……
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