The Necklace
Author	Guy de Maupassant
Original title	"La Parure"
Country	France
Language	French
Genre(s)	Short Story
Publication date	1884

The Necklace

The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace(French: La Parure) is a short story by Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1884 in the French newspaper Le Gaulois.The story has become one of Maupassant's most popular works and is well known for its twist ending. It is also the inspiration for Henry James' short story, "Paste".

PLOT SUMMARY

"The Necklace" tells the story of a nineteenth-century middle class French couple, Monsieur andMadameMathilde Loisel. Madame Loisel is not content with her middle-class circumstances, and secretly resents not having the material luxuries of life. She spends a lot of time imagining herself in wealthy settings, hosting and attending high society gatherings. Monsieur Loisel is a clerk in the Ministry of Education. He manages to obtain an invitation to an official dance at the Ministry.Madame Loisel is distraught because she has no suitable dress or jewelry for the dance. The clerk sacrifices his savings to buy her a dress, and suggests that she borrow some jewelry from her old friend, Madame Jeanne Forestier. Accordingly, Madame Loisel borrows a beautiful diamond necklace from her. At the dance, the pretty Madame Loisel is the center of attraction, with even senior officials admiring her beauty and grace. She has a wonderful time until the early hours of the morning. When the couple return home, they discover that the necklace is missing. Unable to bear the shame of informing Madame Forestier of the loss, Monsieur and Madame Loisel decide to buy an identical diamond necklace from the 'Palais Royal' as a replacement. The cost is extravagant - thirty-six thousand francs - a fortune at the time. Monsieur Loisel spends his entire inheritance and life savings, and incurs heavy debts to buy the replacement. They do not inform Madame Forestier of the change and spend the next ten years of their lives paying off the debts. Both Monsieur and Madame Loisel are forced to take on extra jobs and live in abject poverty - in time, the Madame comes to empathise with those she once looked down upon with disdain. At the end of the ten years, Madame Loisel, now older, tougher and less graceful from years of hard manual labor—but immensely proud—has an opportunity to tell her old friend of the lost necklace. Madame Forestier is shocked and informs Madame Loisel that her original necklace was, in fact, an imitation, "...worth at the very most five hundred francs! They had wasted their lives."

The Necklace

THEME

1.) The theme of the short story, "The Necklace" is to be happy with who you are and what you have. Madame Loisel lived in the middle class society but longed to be a member of high society. She wanted to live above her means and would do whatever it took to get there. Her husband provided the stepping stone to enter the world of the upper class by getting an invitation to a prominent reception. From there she talked her husband into giving her the money to have a wonderful dress to fit in with them and then the final highlight was to borrow a wonderful diamond necklace from Madame Forestier to wear to the reception. The ironic situation is the source of her joy, the necklace, becomes her downfall when she loses it and has to work the next ten years of her life to replace it. She not only loses her middle income status but falls into poverty and spends the rest of her life suffering for her dreams. The symbolism of the necklace is social acceptance into a world where she longs to be, but doesn't belong.

2.) The main themes of “The Necklace” first and foremost, in my opinion, is Class Conflict as Madame Loisel, a member of lower class strives to appear to be in a higher class than she actually is, which causes conflict, but it also hints at another theme of Appearances and Reality. Madame Loisel is determined to make herself appear to be at a higher level on the social ladder than she actually is; however her desire to attain this goal leads to a display of Generosity on the part of Madame Forestier as she loans a very expensive necklace to the Greedy Madame Loisel who looses it. The necklace actually seems to be a symbol of her life, the insincerity of her character, and how her greed leads to her ultimate misery in life because she is forced to give up her own goals in life to repay Madame Forestier for the necklace she has lost, effectively ending her feeble climb up the social ladder. Irony is best demonstrated in the fact that she wastes her life to pay for a cheap copy of the original necklace, while she herself is nothing more than a cheap copy