James Underwood
9/12/13
English 101-070
Mr. --------

In the short story, “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, we meet Mathilde, a pretty and charming women who felt she was married into a class below her. While living a comfortable life, she craves more than what she has. She spends most of her time thinking about a lavish and luxurious lifestyle, to the point that it’s everything she wants in life, but nothing she has. The major theme in the story is how deceptive things can seem. When borrowing some jewelry from her rich friend, Madame Forestier, she is overcome with joy, that she finally is living the life she always wanted. She attends a dinner party with her husband and is the center of attention, drawing looks left and right. However, at the end of the night, when returning home, sad the night has come to an end, she realizes she lost the diamonds lended to her. In an instant, all her happiness came to a complete stop. She was so overwhelmed with her beauty and her lavish dress and jewels, that she lost the necklace. She and her husband are forced to buy a new diamond necklace, and work off their debts for the next 10 years. In one of the most cruel twists in a short story I’ve ever seen, she see’s Madame Forestier walking down the street and goes and says hello. After 10 years of torment and hard work to pay off her debt, Mathilde’s beauty has faded away, and all that remained was a face of hardships. When explaining to Madame Forestier what had happened,