The Necklace Essay, Research Paper
“The Necklace”
The theme of Guy de Maupassant story “The Necklace” seems to be suggested
by the line, “What would have happened if Mathilde had not lost the necklace?”.
Mathilde Loisel grew up in poverty and had no expectations in life. When she got
married, her and her husband would sit around the dinner table and imagine they were
eating a luxurious meal. They would imagine using shiny silverware and eating their
meal on marvelous plates. Together, they had nothing. Mathilde had no clothes, no
jewels, and only one friend. One day her husband came home from work and handed her
an invitation they had received to attend a ball. Her husband thought that she would be
enthusiastic about it, however she busted out in tears. She wanted to attend, yet she had
no dress to wear. After digging in to money they had been trying to saved, Mathilde
purchased a dress for the ball. As the ball drew near, Mathilde decided she still needed
something more to finish off the dress they had just spent so much money on. The next
day, Mathilde visited her only friend to see if she could barrow some of her jewelry for
the evening of the ball. After about an hour of deliberating with her friend about what to
jewelry to wear, Mathilde found it. Under all the other pieces of jewelry lied a diamond
necklace. Mathilde was ecstatic. Never before had she seen such a beautiful piece of
jewelry. She decided this was what she was going to wear. The entire way home she
dazzled the necklace. She knew that she would stand out in the crowd at the ball. The
night of the ball came and Mithilde looked great. Her and her husband showed up at the
ball and everyone was amazed at how good Mithilde appeared. Mithilde was not used to
all the attention she received that evening, after all she just a poor young lady. The
evening ended and everyone went home. Mithilde decided that one last time she would
look at herself in the mirror before getting out of the clothes. When she did, she noticed
the necklace in which she admired so much was gone. Weeks went by and no trace of
the necklace showed up. Mithilde and her husband had to borrow thirty-six thousand
francs from people they knew to buy another just like it. Mithilde put the new necklace
in a box and gave it to her friend. Her friend never looked in the box, so she did not
know the necklace was not the same she let Mithilde borrow. Mithilde and her husband
were deeply in debt. For ten years they worked day in and day out until finally the debt
was paid off. Mithilde looked as if she was a very old lady, however she was not.
One day Mithilde was walking in a park and stumbled across a lady walking with
a child. When she took a second glance at the lady, she noticed it was her friend,
in which so long ago let her borrow the diamond necklace. When she approached
the long time friend, the lady did not even recognize who it was. After moments
of conversing, Mithilde decided to tell her friend of the incident that happened so
long ago concerning the necklace. Her friend was appalled to hear of it and told
Mithilde that the necklace that she let her borrow was only paste. It was only
worth at most five hundred francs.
No one really knows what would have happened if Mithilde would have been
honest with her friend to begin with and told her about the problem. All the ten
years that Mithilde and her husband spent working to pay back for the necklace,
they could have been using that money to better themselves. The point the author
was trying to get to the reader was that you should be honest. If you are not, then
you may have a harder problem on your hands in the end. In Mithildes case, she
did not want to tell her friend of losing the necklace in fear that her friend would
betray her. Her consequence for not telling her friend was working everyday for
ten years. Honesty in the present will get you further in the future.