نقد و بررسی داستان THE NECKLACE اثر Guy de Maupassant

[*زهره*]

Context


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Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5, 1850, to an affluent family at the Chateau de Miromesnil, in France. As a child, Guy adored his mother and loathed his absent father. His mother was very literary and passed on her love of books to her son, Guy, and his brother, Herve. Much of Guy’s childhood was spent in the countryside playing sports or simply spending time outdoors.The Franco-Prussian War erupted shortly after Maupassant finished college. Maupassant enlisted as a volunteer and then, in 1871, left the army to work as a clerk in the navy for the next ten years. During this time he became close with Gustave Flaubert, a friend of his mother’s and the author of Madame Bovary(1857). Flaubert introduced him to several other prominent writers and spurred Maupassant to focus on his writing. As a result, Maupassant began producing a fair amount of short fiction on his own and eventually found work as a contributing editor for several prominent French newspapers in 1878. Despite this early focus on writing, however, Maupassant didn’t publish any of his work until he turned thirty.“The Necklace,” or “La Parure” in French, first appeared in the Parisian Newspaper Le Gaulois in 1884. The story was an immediate success, and Maupassant later included it in his short-story collection Tales of Day and Night(1885). Flaubert’s influence on Maupassant is evident in “The Necklace,” and the story is in many ways similar to Madame Bovary. Both works, for example, revolve around attractive yet dissatisfied young women who seek to escape their destinies. More important, both works are also among the finest examples of realist fiction, a style of writing first appearing in the mid nineteenth century that sought to expose the grittier realities of ordinary people’s lives. Above all else, Maupassant sought to explore the deeper meanings of everyday events, and his writing style has influenced other literary greats such as Anton Chekhov and O. Henry.Maupassant’s literary career peaked in the 1880s, around the time when he published “The Necklace.” In the years just before and after he published Tales of Day and Night, Maupassant wrote more than 300 short stories and several successful novels, including Un Vie (1883), Bel Ami (1885), and Pierre et Jean(1888). He traveled extensively during this time and often produced his best writing on the road, writing newspaper articles, essays, and travelogues in addition to fiction. A powerful literary figure in his day, Maupassant formed and maintained friendships with other literary giants such as Ivan Turgenev and Émile Zola.Despite his wealth and popularity, Maupassant never married, partly out of fear of being abandoned by a loved one as he was abandoned by his father. As he grew older, Maupassant became more withdrawn and obsessed with death. His infection with syphilis contributed to his growing dementia, and he was institutionalized after he tried to kill himself in 1891. He died two years later, on July 6, 1893.
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Plot Overview


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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.
One night, her husband returns home proudly bearing an invitation to a formal party hosted by the Ministry of Education. He hopes that Mathilde will be thrilled with the chance to attend an event of this sort, but she is instantly angry and begins to cry. Through her tears, she tells him that she has nothing to wear and he ought to give the invitation to one of his friends whose wife can afford better clothing. Her husband is upset by her reaction and asks how much a suitable dress would cost. She thinks about it carefully and tells him that 400 francs would be enough. Her husband quietly balks at the sum but agrees that she may have the money.As the day of the party approaches, Mathilde starts to behave oddly. She confesses that the reason for her behavior is her lack of jewels. Monsieur Loisel suggests that she wear flowers, but she refuses. He implores her to visit Madame Forestier and borrow something from her. Madame Forestier agrees to lend Mathilde her jewels, and Mathilde selects a diamond necklace. She is overcome with gratitude at Madame Forestier’s generosity.At the party, Mathilde is the most beautiful woman in attendance, and everyone notices her. She is intoxicated by the attention and has an overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction. At 4 A.M., she finally looks for Monsieur Loisel, who has been dozing for hours in a deserted room. He cloaks her bare shoulders in a wrap and cautions her to wait inside, away from the cold night air, while he fetches a cab. But she is ashamed at the shabbiness of her wrap and follows Monsieur Loisel outside. They walk for a while before hailing a cab.When they finally return home, Mathilde is saddened that the night has ended. As she removes her wrap, she discovers that her necklace is no longer around her neck. In a panic, Monsieur Loisel goes outside and retraces their steps. Terrified, she sits and waits for him. He returns home much later in an even greater panic—he has not found the necklace. He instructs her to write to Madame Forestier and say that she has broken the clasp of the necklace and is getting it mended.They continue to look for the necklace. After a week, Monsieur Loisel says they have to see about replacing it. They visit many jewelers, searching for a similar necklace, and finally find one. It costs 40,000 francs, although the jeweler says he will give it to them for 36,000. The Loisels spend a week scraping up money from all kinds of sources, mortgaging the rest of their existence. After three days, Monsieur Loisel purchases the necklace. When Mathilde returns the necklace, in its case, to Madame Forestier, Madame Forestier is annoyed at how long it has taken to get it back but does not open the case to inspect it. Mathilde is relieved.The Loisels began to live a life of crippling poverty. They dismiss their servant and move into an even smaller apartment. Monsieur Loisel works three jobs, and Mathilde spends all her time doing the heavy housework. This misery lasts ten years, but at the end they have repaid their financial debts. Mathilde’s extraordinary beauty is now gone: she looks just likes the other women of poor households. They are both tired and irrevocably damaged from these years of hardship.One Sunday, while she is out for a walk, Mathilde spots Madame Forestier. Feeling emotional, she approaches her and offers greetings. Madame Forestier does not recognize her, and when Mathilde identifies herself, Madame Forestier cannot help but exclaim that she looks different. Mathilde says that the change was on her account and explains to her the long saga of losing the necklace, replacing it, and working for ten years to repay the debts. At the end of her story, Madame Forestier clasps her hands and tells Mathilde the original necklace was just costume jewelry and not worth anything.​

 

[*زهره*]

Character List


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Mathilde Loisel - The protagonist of the story. Mathilde has been blessed with physical beauty but not with the affluent lifestyle she yearns for, and she feels deeply discontented with her lot in life. When she prepares to attend a fancy party, she borrows a diamond necklace from her friend Madame Forestier, then loses the necklace and must work for ten years to pay off a replacement. Her one night of radiance cost her and Monsieur Loisel any chance for future happiness.



Monsieur Loisel - Mathilde’s husband. Monsieur Loisel is content with the small pleasures of his life but does his best to appease Mathilde’s demands and assuage her complaints. He loves Mathilde immensely but does not truly understand her, and he seems to underestimate the depth of her unhappiness. When Mathilde loses the necklace, Monsieur Loisel sacrifices his own future to help her repay the debt. He pays dearly for something he had never wanted in the first place.



Madame Forestier - Mathilde’s wealthy friend. Madame Forestier treats Mathilde kindly, but Mathilde is bitterly jealous of Madame Forestier’s wealth, and the kindness pains her. Madame Forestier lends Mathilde the necklace for the party and does not inspect it when Mathilde returns it. She is horrified to realize that Mathilde has wasted her life trying to pay for a replacement necklace, when the original necklace had actually been worth nothing.
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Analysis of Major Characters


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[h=4]Mathilde Loisel[/h]

Beautiful Mathilde Loisel was born into a family of clerks, and her utter conviction that her station in life is a mistake of destiny leads her to live her life in a constant rebellion against her circumstances. Although she has a comfortable home and loving husband, she is so unsatisfied that she is virtually oblivious of everything but the wealth she does not have. Her desire for wealth is a constant pain and turmoil. She cannot visit her wealthy friend Madame Forestier without being overcome with jealousy, and the idea of going to a party without expensive clothes drives her to tears. Mathilde is a raging, jealous woman who will do anything in her power to reverse the “mistake of destiny” that has plunged her into what she perceives as a wholly inappropriate and inadequate life.Mathilde is happy at only one point in “The Necklace”: on the night of the party, when her new dress and borrowed jewels give her the appearance of belonging to the wealthy world she aspires to. Fully at ease among the wealthy people at the party, Mathilde feels that this is exactly where she was meant to be—if it hadn’t been for the mistake of destiny. She forgets her old life completely (her husband dozes in an empty room for most of the night) and immerses herself in the illusion of a new one. Her moment of happiness, of course, is fleeting, and she must spend the next ten years paying for the pleasure of this night. However, her joy was so acute—and her satisfaction, for once, so complete—that even the ten arduous years and her compromised beauty do not dull the party’s memory. Just as Mathilde was oblivious to the small pleasures that her life once afforded her, she is oblivious to the fact that her greed and deception are what finally sealed her fate.
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[h=4]Monsieur Loisel[/h]

Monsieur Loisel’s acceptance and contentment differ considerably from Mathilde’s emotional outbursts and constant dissatisfaction, and although he never fully understands his wife, he does his best to please her. When he comes home bearing the invitation to the party, he expects Mathilde to be excited and is shocked when she is devastated. He cannot understand why Mathilde will not wear flowers to the party in lieu of expensive jewelry—in his view, that they cannot afford expensive jewelry is simply a fact of their life, not something to be railed against. When Monsieur Loisel tries to appease Mathilde, he does so blindly, wanting only to make her happy. When she declares that she cannot attend the party because she has nothing to wear, he gives her money to purchase a dress. While she complains she has no proper jewelry, he urges her to visit Madame Forestier to borrow some. When she dances all night at the party, he dozes in a coat room and allows her to enjoy herself.
Monsieur Loisel’s eagerness and willingness to please Mathilde becomes his downfall when she loses the necklace. He is the one to venture back into the cold night to search for the necklace in the streets, even though he is already undressed and has to be at work in a few short hours. He is the one who devises a plan for purchasing a replacement necklace and orchestrates the loans and mortgages that help them pay for it. Although this decision costs him ten years of hard work, he does not complain or imagine an alternate fate. It is as though his desires do not even exist—or, at the very least, his desires are meaningless if they stand in the way of Mathilde’s. The money he gives her for a dress had been earmarked for a gun, but he sacrifices this desire without a word—just as he mutely sacrifices any hope of happiness after he buys the necklace. Rather than force Mathilde to be accountable for her actions, he protects her, ultimately giving up his life so that she can relish her one moment of well-dressed happiness.​

 

[*زهره*]

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols


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Themes


The Deceptiveness of Appearances


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The reality of Mathilde’s situation is that she is neither wealthy nor part of the social class of which she feels she is a deserving member, but Mathilde does everything in her power to make her life appear different from how it is. She lives in an illusory world where her actual life does not match the ideal life she has in her head—she believes that her beauty and charm make her worthy of greater things. The party is a triumph because for the first time, her appearance matches the reality of her life. She is prettier than the other women, sought after by the men, and generally admired and flattered by all. Her life, in the few short hours of the party, is as she feels it should be. However, beneath this rightness and seeming match of appearances and reality is the truth that her appearance took a great deal of scheming and work. The bliss of her evening was not achieved without angst, and the reality of her appearance is much different than it seems. Her wealth and class are simply illusions, and other people are easily deceived.The deceptiveness of appearances is highlighted by Madame Forestier’s necklace, which appears to be made of diamonds but is actually nothing more than costume jewelry. The fact that it comes from Madame Forestier’s jewelry box gives it the illusion of richness and value; had Monsieur Loisel suggested that Mathilde wear fake jewels, she surely would have scoffed at the idea, just as she scoffed at his suggestion to wear flowers. Furthermore, the fact that Madame Forestier—in Mathilde’s view, the epitome of class and wealth—has a necklace made of fake jewels suggests that even the wealthiest members of society pretend to have more wealth than they actually have. Both women are ultimately deceived by appearances: Madame Forestier does not tell Mathilde that the diamonds are fake, and Mathilde does not tell Madame Forestier that she has replaced the necklace. The fact that the necklace changes—unnoticed—from worthless to precious suggests that true value is ultimately dependent on perception and that appearances can easily deceive.

The Danger of Martyrdom

Mathilde’s perception of herself as a martyr leads her to take unwise, self-serving actions. The Loisels live, appropriately, on the Rue des Martyrs, and Mathilde feels she must suffer through a life that is well beneath what she deserves. Unable to appreciate any aspect of her life, including her devoted husband, she is pained by her feeling that her beauty and charm are being wasted. When Mathilde loses the necklace and sacrifices the next ten years of her life to pay back the debts she incurred from buying a replacement, her feeling of being a martyr intensifies. She undertakes the hard work with grim determination, behaving more like a martyr than ever before. Her beauty is once again being wasted; this work eventually erases it completely. Her lot in life has gotten worse, and Mathilde continues to believe she has gotten less than she deserves, never acknowledging the fact that she is responsible for her own fate. Her belief in her martyrdom is, in a way, the only thing she has left. When Madame Forestier reveals that the necklace was worthless, Mathilde’s sacrifices also become worthless, and her status as a martyr—however dubious—is taken away entirely. At the end of the story, Mathilde is left with nothing.Whereas Mathilde sees herself as a martyr but is actually very far from it, Monsieur Loisel himself is truly a martyr, constantly sacrificing his desires and, ultimately, his well-being for Mathilde’s sake. He gives up his desire for a gun so that Mathilde can buy a dress, and he uncomplainingly mortgages his future to replace the necklace Mathilde loses. Forced to sacrifice his happiness and years of his life to accommodate Mathilde’s selfish desires, he is the one who truly becomes a martyr.

The Perceived Power of Objects

Mathilde believes that objects have the power to change her life, but when she finally gets two of the objects she desires most, the dress and necklace, her happiness is fleeting at best. At the beginning of “The Necklace,” we get a laundry list of all the objects she does not have but that she feels she deserves. The beautiful objects in other women’s homes and absence of such objects in her own home make her feel like an outsider, fated to envy other women. The things she does have—a comfortable home, hot soup, a loving husband—she disdains. Mathilde effectively relinquishes control of her happiness to objects that she does not even possess, and her obsession with the trappings of the wealthy leads to her perpetual discontent. When she finally acquires the dress and necklace, those objects seem to have a transformative power. She is finally the woman she believes she was meant to be—happy, admired, and envied. She has gotten what she wanted, and her life has changed accordingly. However, when she loses the necklace, the dream dissolves instantly, and her life becomes even worse than before. In reality, the power does not lie with the objects but within herself.In contrast to Mathilde, Madame Forestier infuses objects with little power. Her wealth enables her to purchase what she likes, but more important, it also affords her the vantage point to realize that these objects are not the most important things in the world. She seems casual about, and even careless with her possessions: when Mathilde brazenly requests to borrow her striking diamond necklace, she agrees. And later, when Mathilde informs her that the necklace in her possession is actually extremely valuable, she seems more rattled by the idea that Mathilde has sacrificed her life unnecessarily. The fact that Madame Forestier owned fake jewels in the first place suggests that she understands that objects are only as powerful as people perceive them to be. For her, fake jewels can be just as beautiful and striking as real diamonds if one sees them as such.
Motifs


Coveting

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.
Symbols


The Necklace

The necklace, beautiful but worthless, represents the power of perception and the split between appearances and reality. Mathilde borrows the necklace because she wants to give the appearance of being wealthy; Madame Forestier does not tell her up front that the necklace is fake, perhaps because she, too, wants to give the illusion of being wealthier than she actually is. Because Mathilde is so envious of Madame Forestier and believes her to be wealthy, she never doubts the necklace’s authenticity—she expects diamonds, so diamonds are what she perceives. She enters willingly and unknowingly into this deception, and her complete belief in her borrowed wealth allows her to convey an appearance of wealth to others. Because she believes herself rich for one night, she becomes rich in others’ eyes. The fact that the necklace is at the center of the deception that leads to Mathilde’s downfall suggests that only trouble can come from denying the reality of one’s situation.​

 

[*زهره*]

Realism


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Maupaussant, like his mentor, Flaubert, believed that fiction should convey reality with as much accuracy as possible. He strived for objectivity rather than psychological exploration or romantic descriptions, preferring to structure his stories and novels around clearly defined plot lines and specific, observable details. However, he argued that calling fiction “realistic” was not correct—every work of fiction, he believed, was an illusion, a world created by a writer to convey a particular effect to readers. He was faithful above all to the facts and believed that close, focused observation could reveal new depths and perspectives to even the most common, unremarkable aspects of life. “The Necklace” clearly demonstrates Maupassant’s fixation with facts and observations. Rather than explore Mathilde’s yearning for wealth or unhappiness with her life, Maupaussant simply tells us about her unhappiness and all the things she desires. At the end of the story, he provides no moral commentary or explanation about Mathilde’s reaction to Madame Forestier’s shocking revelation; he simply reports events as they happen.There is no pretense, idealizing, or artifice to Maupaussant’s prose or treatment of his characters.
Realism began in France in the mid nineteenth century and rejected the tenets from the romantic movement that came before it, a literary movement that emphasized the idealization of characters rather than realistic portrayal of them. Realist literature often focused on middle-class life—such as the tragic lives of Mathilde and her husband—and was most concerned with portraying actions and their consequences with little or no subjectivity. Social factors and cultural environment are often powerful forces in realist literature, as are elements of rationalism and scientific reasoning. Flaubert was one of the earliest practitioners of realism, as typified by his novels Madame Bovary (1857) andSentimental Education (1869). Realism was also an influential artistic school that included French painters such as Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, and Éduard Manet.​

 

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The Surprise Ending and Irony


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“The Necklace” is most famous for its “whip-crack” or “O. Henry” ending. O. Henry, who wrote during the late 1800s, was famous for his twist endings that turned stories on their heads. In “The Necklace,” the surprise ending unhinges the previously implied premise of the story. Until this point, the reader has been able to interpret Mathilde’s ten years of poverty as penance for her stolen night of pleasure at the party and for carelessly losing the borrowed necklace. The ending shatters that illusion, revealing that the ten years of misery were unnecessary and could have been avoided if only Mathilde had been honest with Madame Forestier. Losing the necklace had seemed to be Mathilde’s fatal mistake, but it was actually Mathilde’s failure to be truthful with Madame Forestier that sealed her fate. This shocking realization sheds new light on the previous events and suggests that Mathilde’s future—even though her debts are now repaid—will be none too rosy.
The horrible irony of the fact that the Loisels spent years paying off a replacement for what was actually a worthless necklace is just one instance of irony evident in “The Necklace.” Also ironic is the fact that Mathilde’s beauty, which had been her only valued asset, disappears as a result of her labor for the necklace. She had borrowed the necklace to be seen as more beautiful and winds up losing her looks completely. Perhaps the most bitter irony of “The Necklace” is that the arduous life that Mathilde must assume after losing the necklace makes her old life—the one she resented so fully—seem luxurious. She borrows Madame Forestier’s necklace to give the appearance of having more money than she really does, only to then lose what she does have. She pays doubly, with her money and looks, for something that had no value to begin with.​

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Important Quotations Explained


She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.
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This quotation appears near the middle of the story, during the party, when Mathilde is happier than she had ever been or ever would be again. Mathilde has schemed and strived to get to this moment: she wheedled money from Monsieur Loisel so that she could buy a new dress and borrowed jewels from Madame Forestier so that she would not look poor among the other women. And her angling has been successful—she is greatly admired at the party, and all the men want to dance with her. This is the moment for which she has been born. In this passage, her happiness is absolute. There is no thought of the past, nor any thought of the party’s end, when she will return to her ordinary life. In the days that follow, she and Monsieur Loisel will be plunged into deeper poverty than they have ever known; but for now, she has immersed herself completely in the illusion of wealth. In her expensive dress for which her husband had to sacrifice, and in the necklace that does not even belong to her, she is filling the role she believes she deserves. In this moment, nothing else matters.

Frightened by the pains yet to come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privation and of all the moral tortures which he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, putting down upon the merchant’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.
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This quotation, which appears close to the end of the story, marks the beginning of the Loisels plunge into poverty. Doomed to work for years to pay off his many loans, Monsieur Loisel nonetheless buys the replacement necklace so that Mathilde does not have to admit to her wealthy friend that she lost the original. Without complaining and with only this sick feeling in his gut, Monsieur Loisel faces the bleak future and moves forward. Unlike Mathilde, who cannot see the consequences of her actions and is oblivious to the sacrifices that her husband has made on her behalf, Monsieur Loisel can see clearly what is in store. This passage reveals the extent of his love for Mathilde—he knows he is giving up everything for her, and it has all been for a goal he never understood. Where Mathilde is selfish, Monsieur Loisel is selfless, and this purchase is his ultimate sacrifice.



What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels? Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!

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This quotation appears near the end of the story, when Mathilde daydreams during her housecleaning. When Mathilde imagines the night of the party, she idealizes it, even though this event led to her downfall. She seems to regret nothing about the night except losing the necklace, and she fails to realize that it was her desire to appear to be someone other than herself that ultimately ruined her. Despite her hardships, Mathilde has failed to learn from her mistakes. Instead of asking herself what would have happened if she hadn’t lost the jewels, she should be asking herself what would have happened if she hadn’t borrowed them in the first place. Mathilde believes that life is fickle, but it is she herself who has acted capriciously and brought about her own dire fate. Shortly after her reverie, she meets Madame Forestier again and learns that the necklace had been worthless. Had she simply told Madame Forestier she lost the necklace, she would have learned right away that it was costume jewelry and would not have sacrificed everything to buy a replacement. Truly, little would have been needed to save Mathilde.
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