Necklace Oh! -- My Poor

¶ … Necklace

Oh! -- My poor Mathilde, how you are changed." The owner of the titular necklace in Guy do Maupassant's short story barely recognizes her former friend ten years after she lent her the fake jewels. Aged, "robust," "hard and rough," the once lovely Mme. Loisel now appears a visibly poor "woman of the people." Loisel changed both physically and emotionally since she first borrowed, then lost the necklace from Mme. Forester. The transformation of the protagonist of "The Necklace" illustrates both the emptiness and the irony of the pursuit of material pleasure. At the onset of the story, Mathilde Loisel was "one of those pretty and charmed girls," but one with "no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known." Poor but pretty, she covets material goods and dreams of a better life. When the night of the company party arrives, Loisel, who was formerly simple since she could not be adorned," adorns herself fully. Yet once she loses the necklace, Loisel and her husband both must immerse themselves in a hard life of endless labor. In spite of the frustratingly ironic twist of events at the end of the story, losing the necklace turns out to be a boon for Mme. Loisel's character: before she lost the necklace she was weak, insecure, and out of touch with reality; after ten years of toiling away to pay for it, Loisel has developed a remarkable physical and emotional hardiness, evident in her physical stature and in her learning "the horrible life of the needy."

Because of her low social status, Mme. Loisel married a simple man, a clerk in the Department of Education. Although Mme Loisel proves to be honest and forthright based on her willingness to work off the replacement necklace, she was demonstrably dishonest with herself before the night of the party. "Feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury," Loisel fantasizes about the life she feels entitled to. While she eats simple meals with her husband, Mme Loisel is "thinking of delicate repasts." Although the Loisels were well-off enough to attend the theater occasionally, Mme. Loisel feels that she has no dresses worthy of the elite party. Rather than appreciate the material goods she and her husband do have, she laments what she lacks and thus seems bitter and ungrateful. Her life filled with fantasy and longing causes quite severe mental and emotional impairment, even depression: "she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress." Madame Loisel was depressed before she lost the necklace, mentally, emotionally, and physically weak. Her weakness is expressed physically in her trembling hands, her "boundless desire," and her artificial sense of "ecstasy" when she first lays eyes on Forester's strand of diamonds.

Her artificial ecstasy continues while she experiences a brief moment of fame and attention at the party: "Mme. Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest of them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy." Alive for the first time since the beginning of the story, "she danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure." Her "intoxication" is reminiscent of her being out of touch with reality before she donned the necklace.