La Parure "The Necklace" by Maupassant
French author Guy de Maupassant is considered one of the greatest French short story writers. Maupassant wrote more than 300 short stories, six novels and three travel books until in 1891, when he went mad. Maupassant's tales were dark and ironic, he portrayed the bourgeoisie life of Paris and his characters were unhappy victims of their greed, desire or vanity. What was most remarkable was Maupassant's style, he was a master of his skill, and he had a highly controlled style marked by objectivity and with sheer irony and comedy. His stories were usually about simple episodes of everyday life, which revealed hidden sides of people.
La Parure (The Necklace) is one of the celebrated works of Maupassant, a short story filled with irony and dark humor with implicit philosophical message that 'pride goeth before a fall' and the fact that pride always brings about a fall. The Necklace revolves around the ordinary and ironic life of Matilda Loisel, a charming and pretty girl but a girl born in a poor family, this tragedy is with her all her life. Despite her extraordinary beauty "she had no dowry, no means of getting known, understood, loved and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction." Matilda always aspires to be a part of the bourgeoisie class, to afford luxuries, have expensive clothes and jewelry. All her dreams met with dramatic anti-climax as she was married to a little clerk in the Ministry department.
She always had regrets about her life and the irony of fate and there is deep desire inside to join the upper ranks of society. One day she and her husband are finally invited to a high society affair held by the employer of her husband, but Matlida does not have a decent jewelry and she borrows a beautiful diamond necklace from her friend. It so happens that the necklace is lost during the part because of Matlida's carelessness, in order to save her pride and hide her mistake Matlida scrap every bit of money she can, borrowing from people to give the necklace back to her friend without telling her what happen to the original one. Matlida compromises her whole existence and goes through physical, mental and moral torture to buy the necklace and pay back the money which she had borrowed which takes ten years of her precious life. What's more she finds out that the original necklace had no real diamonds, Maupassant tells a dramatic tale, and Matlida wasted ten precious years of her life and went through torture just to save her pride [Bernardo, 2000].
The story is filled with irony and dark comedy; it begins with the ironic situation, a beautiful and charming girl born in a lower class family. For Matlida her dearest possession is her beauty, but she does not have means to make it known and thus begins her tragedy. She does not accept her position in the society and she knows that she cannot escape her class; this irony remains the main theme of the story. Maupassant says right at the beginning how she was 'one of those pretty girls who, apparently by some error of Fate, get themselves born the daughters of very minor civil servants. The irony is not only in Matlida's daydreaming but also in her fate, as she fells "herself destined for all delicacies and luxuries" (4). Matlida deals with her irony of fate by daydreaming and imagining being a part of rich class.
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