Superficiality Vs. Reality: An Analysis of Guy De Maupassant~{!/~}s ~{!0~}the Necklace~{!1~}

Professor Williams

English 102-003

September 10, 2005

Superficiality vs. Reality: an Analysis of Guy de Maupassant~{!/~}s ~{!0~}The Necklace~{!1~}

Thesis: I will prove that Madame Loisel is a victim of pretension, pride and irony.

In Guy de Maupassant~{!/~}s ~{!0~}The necklace,~{!1~} an attractive and charming but poor young woman believes she deserves a better life because of her social assets. She believes she deserves the finer things in life. De Maupassant writes, ~{!0~}She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury (De Maupassant PG. 1),~{!1~} to show that she urns to be of high class. She is unhappy with her lifestyle so much so that she rarely leaves her house. One day her husband brings home an invitation for the both of them to attend a very prestigious party. First she declines because of her lack of formal and elegant clothing and jewelry, but her husband provides her with all of his savings so she can by a decent dress and advices her to borrow some jewelry from a rich friend she has. At the party she was admired and envied but the night ended with her losing

the expensive piece of jewelry. She and her husband look vigorously but eventually had to take outstanding loans to replace her friend~{!/~}s necklace. It takes ten years of hard labor to honor all of the loans with interest. By the end of the ten years she has lost her beauty and charm. She one day runs into her friend in which she borrowed the necklace, and reveals to her that she lost her necklace and what she has been through because of replacing it. After her tragic story her friend reveals to her that the necklace was fake and worth less than a quarter of the one she replaced it with. I will prove that Madame Loisel is a victim of pretension, pride and irony. Her superficiality ends up becoming her downfall.

Madame Liosel is a victim of her own pretentiousness. She believes that she is better than everything she owned. But more importantly she believes she deserves better than everything she owns. Therefore instead of being appreciative of what she has, her living situation insults her. ~{!0~}All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her (de Maupassant 1).~{!1~} She believes that because of her beauty and charm that she deserves the finest and most prestigious possessions. She also believes that she should be envied, admired and highly acclaimed. ~{!0~}She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after (de Maupassant 1).~{!1~} Her own superficiality created her misery. She had a house, but she wanted the best house. She had furniture, but she wanted the best furniture. She married a decent hardworking man who loved and cared for her, but she felt that she married beneath her. She borrows and loses the necklace because she doesn~{!/~}t appreciate who she really is. By losing the necklace she loses the little she has. This is do to the fact that she wanted to be extravagant; to be noticed for her appearance and flamboyance. Nobody antagonizes her, she is her own antagonist.

Madame Loisel is also a victim of her pride. She almost doesn~{!/~}t attend the party because she won~{!/~}t allow herself to be humiliated by the other women. She has too much pride to been seen at the party with a cheap dress and flowers instead of jewelry. "No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women~{!1~} (De Maupassant 1). She is very prideful. She succumbs to her pride when she is faced with the decision to be honest with her friend about the necklace. When she lost the necklace she isn~{!/~}t honest and doesn~{!/~}t tell her that she lost it. She doesn~{!/~}t