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Unit 2: The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

thinks only of the grandness of other homes and lavish table settings that she does not own. Notes
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, and also jewellery 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 jewellery for the party; there,
her coveting is briefly stated 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
centre of the deception that leads to Mathilde’s downfall suggests that only trouble can come
from denying the reality of one’s situation.
Realism
Maupassant, 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, Maupassant 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 Maupassant’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) and Sentimental 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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