Bickford
English 1102
6 February 2006
Analysis of "The Necklace" Many women dream of living a rich life, full of luxury, riches and servants. In the short story "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, a middle-class woman named Madame Loisel desires that life style very much. In "The Necklace" Madame Loisel's vain desires cause many conflicts and her ultimate downfall. One small conflict in the story is Madame Loisel vs. her husband. He is always trying to make his wife satisfied and she never appreciates him or their way of life. De Maupassant makes this clear in the beginning by telling the reader that "she let herself be married to a little clerk" (p77). The word "let" indicates her unhappiness with her marriage to him. He
They do not want to tell her friend that she lost the necklace because she is afraid that her reputation might suffer. They find a necklace that looks like the one she lost, however the problem is that it costs 38,000 franks. In order to pay back the loans she and her husband live in poverty and work hard for ten years. After ten years of hard labor she loses her beauty and charm that she was once so proud of. In those ten years she never loses her vanity and pride. All she thinks of is that evening at the ball, when she was adored by members of high society. Ten years after Madame Loisel lost the necklace; she sees her friend in the street and tells her of her hardship. Madame Loisel then learns that the necklace was a fake and that she did all that hard work for nothing. If Madame Loisel would have come clean to her friend she would not had to work so hard for ten years. Throughout the entire story Madame Loisel's foolish desires causes every conflict and her down fall into poverty; her foolish desires also cause her to lose the beauty and charm that was so dear to