the necklace Essay example

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The story of “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant tells a story of a woman, Madame Loisel, who got overly obsessive with material possessions, which ultimately lead to her downfall. Instead of being content and thankful for the position she was in, she thirsts for better and prettier things in an unhealthy manner. Madame Loisel wants to be in a higher socioeconomic class, and complains about the current status of her life. Through a series of events, she gets to live her fantasies for one night, but that night would eventually end up costing her ten years of her life. Her blind greed and clumsiness destroys everything she owned and leaves her with nothing. Madame Loisel is not a poor woman. She is married to a clerk in the Ministry of Education. They are not rich and live an ordinary life, but they do well for themselves. Maids tend to their chores and there is always food on the table. However, this is not enough for Madame Loisel. She is envious of all the women of higher class who own beautiful jewelry and colorful curtains in their homes. She craves elegance. Madame Loisel is constantly in a state of self pity and desires to be like the rich women. This desire gives her a nasty attitude. She is always complaining to her husband and can never seem to be satisfied. In a way she is also very selfish because of the way she only thinks about owning valuable things to herself. An opportunity comes for her to be elegant and she does everything possible to become beautiful. Loisel uses her husband’s saved up money to buy a dress. Then she borrows a beautiful necklace from her friend. Because of this, she lives out her dream of feeling wealthy and beautiful, and lives a night she won’t forget. Madame Loisel is successful in becoming elegant for the party and she feels truly satisfied for the first time. However, that feeling does not last when her and her husband discover that the necklace she had borrowed was gone. Out of fear, she lies to her friend to buy time to replace the missing necklace. The replacement costs way more than they imagined and end up spending ten years trying to pay off the debt. The story teaches about being greedy and how it can lead to a downfall. Because of one necklace, Loisel spends ten years working and living in poverty when she could have been living her life in satisfaction with what she had. Her desire to be wealthy without striving to work for it is the cause to her demise. Complaints after complaints without any effort to move her out of that position, only gave Loisel a negative outlook towards life. She also portrays herself to be quite whinny and annoying. Desire to be wealthy and elegant is not wrong. What Loisel did wrong is that she did not attempt to better her situation. She only complained and acted as
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