The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant-Characters and Characterization Analysis

Hello guys! this is my promise to you anyway hahaha. In introduction to Prose, my lecturer asked us to read a short story entitled The Necklace that was written by Guy de Maupassant.This short story actually tells about a woman named Mathilde who is beautiful, but she marries with a poor man who works as a clerk in the Ministry of Education. She can't accept her fate that she's not the rich, yet she wants to be looked so, so when there is a party which is from Ministry of Education where her husband works, she asks her husband to buy her an expensive dress.Well, her husband finally gives her money, much money even though he can't afford it.But to make his wife go to the party, he gives her money to buy a beautiful and expensive dress. However, she thinks that only dress is not good. She wants to wear jewels, and she asks her husband, yet her husband asks her to use flower. She doesn't want to do it, so her husband commands her to borrow any jewels to their rich neighbor named Madame Forestier. She finally borrows a superb diamond necklace and wears it in the party. In the party, she's very happy because she becomes the center of the attention. She looks so beautiful as if she was as rich as other people in the party with her expansive dress and her diamond necklace. When the party is over, she goes home with her husband. Then after arriving at home, she realizes something! The necklace is not her neck, it's gone! she really worries about it. She tells it to her husband and they looks for it all day long, all weeks long but finally they can't find it. At last, they have to borrow some money to buy the new one which is exactly the same with the one which is lost. After that, they give it to Madame Forestier and she doen't know that the necklace isn't hers. For tem years, they live poorer because they have to pay for the debt. And at last, Mathilde meets Madame Forestier and tells her the fact about the necklace. Can you imagine what she says? She says at last that actually the necklace Mathilde has lost is only an imitation!

For me, this short story is so great! here the analysis that focuses on the characters and the characterization that I made for my Introduction to Prose lesson :)

What You See may be A Fake

The theme of this short story is very common nowadays. It is about pride, social class and prestige. What will be needed by people, of course, will influence their actions and it’s proven in this story. First, we go to the characters this story has, they are Mathilde (Madamme Loisel), Mathilde’s husband, and Madamme Forestier. The writer describes those characters directly through the dialogue they have and also through the direct description the writer gives such as the appearance of Mathilde. She is a very beautiful and physically perfect woman, but unfortunately she marries with a man who isn’t rich, poor I guess.

If we focus on the characterization, it is clearly seen that the personality of the characters influences the story a lot. Mathilde, who is very sad being married to a poor man and not with the wealthy one, wishes that she could have better life, better dinner and better clothes. She also imagines about having glamorous jewels. It seems to me that she can’t accept her condition, her husband condition and their economical life condition. However, after reading this story, for me her husband is also very pleased to ‘help’ Mathilde to become more ‘ambitious’ with her wish. He gives her much money only to buy a beautiful dress, yet he consciously knows that he can’t afford it. He also gives the idea of borrowing jewel from Madamme Forestier. In my opinion, he also ‘opens the gate’ of their suffering at the end.

In this story, Mathilde is very ambitious to be looked as the most beautiful and the richest woman by other people in the party. She also wants to be looked like others who have high pride and social class in the society, so she buys an expensive dress and borrows Madamme Forestier’s superb diamond necklace. I can understand how social class becomes so important in human and society’s eyes. It’s clearly seen that she wants to cover up her real identity as a poor in front of many people in the party. It is done for the sake of her pride I guess. By wearing beautiful and expensive dress, also very splendid diamond necklace, she has successfully hidden her identity though only for few hours. Her actions and those things she buys and borrows make her prestige, pride and independence increased. In addition about social class, pride and prestige also lies on Madamme Forestier. Why doesn’t she tell Mathilde that the necklace is only an imitation? Why doesn’t she tell her before giving it to Mathilde so that Mathilde and her husband do not have to be suffering for 10 years only for paying the debt they borrow to buy the real one? It is crystal clear that Madamme Forestier also wants to be looked rich in Mathilde’s eyes especially. I can see that she also puts very high concern in her pride as a rich woman who has pride, high social class and prestige in society.

It seems to me that Madamme Forestier’s act makes Mathilde suffering, and Mathilde act also makes her husband and her life also turn into worse and worse. Imagine if Mathilde can accept her economical condition, imagine if Madamme Forestier tell her before that the necklace is only an imitation, I think the story will not be the same. The last point is that the openness of each character does not exist. Let’s take an example of what isn’t said by Madamme Forestier about the imitation necklace to Mathilde and about the losing of that imitation necklace that isn’t told by Mathilde to Madamme Forestier. In brief, their characterization of each character plays important role in forming and changing the plot of the story.