“The necklace” by Guy De Maupassant is a short story about being thankful for what you have. In the story a woman named Mme. Loisel feels very disconsolate because she does not have the luxuries or stature of high society. When Mme. Loisel gets the chance to go to a grand ball she buys a nice dress and borrows a diamond necklace. When Mme. Loisel loses the necklace they spend ten years paying it off. By the end of the story, Mme. Loisel learns to be happy for what she has and not dwell on what she does not have. When the story begins Mme. Loisel longs for the riches of high society. We know Mme. Loisel is unhappy with her way of life by the sentences found in the story such as “she grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries. All the things that other women in her class would not even had noticed, gnawed at her and made her furious” (28). You could say Mme. Loisel pitied herself because of the so little she had. By the middle of the story, Mme. Loisel’s husband had gotten her tickets to a grand ball. He knew she longed for more riches then he could give her so he thought this would cheer her up. “He stopped talking, dazed and distracted to see his wife burst out weeping. Two large tears slowly rolled from the corner of her eye to the corner of her mouth” (29). Mme. Loisel did not wish to go to a ball where she would stick out in her plain, pauper looking cloths. So M. Loisel gives Mme. Loisel four hundred francs to go and buy a nice dress. Still with a beautiful dress Mme. Loisel was unhappy. “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or gem – nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper” (30). Mme. Loisel asked her friend Mme. Forestier if she could borrow a piece of jewelry, deciding on a diamond necklace. The day of the ball arrived and Mme. Loisel was overjoyed because she was envied and sought after. “Mme. Loisel was a sensation; she was the prettiest one there, smiling and wild with joy” (31). But then something unexpected happened, Mme. Loisel lost her friends diamond necklace. After retracing their steps and having no luck in finding the necklace, they go to a jewelry shop to buy a replica. Well the replica was going to cost ten thousand francs, so they took out loans and borrowed money to pay for this expensive necklace. The loisels worked hard for ten years to pay off the debt from the diamond necklace. One day Mme. Loisel saw Mme. Forestier sitting with a couple of her friends and she thought, I might as well tell her what happened it’s been ten years. So when Mme. Loisel told Mme. Forestier about how she lost her diamond necklace and bought a new one that looked just like it, Mme. Forestier said, “Why that necklace was just paste.” The theme of “The Necklace” is to be thankful for what you have. Mme. Loisel has defiantly learned this lesson. Mme. Loisel was so swept up in trying to have the riches and luxuries of high society that she did not notice losing her necklace. So she had to work hard to pay off a new necklace and is now worse off than before.
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