A Hard Lesson Learned
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ENG 125
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04/01/2014

A Hard Lesson Learned

Upon reading The Necklace written in 1884 by Guy de Maupassant, you certainly encounter surprise and anguish. This short story, The Necklace, is one that causes the reader to shake their head and embrace honesty over pride. Mme. Mathilde Loisel is a lovely woman that, forced by fate, “The idea that what people did and what happened to them were determined by natural forces external to themselves” (Corrie, 2013),

to learn a hard life lesson in modesty. The narrator uses the setting of 19th century Paris, France, as an underlying way to narrow the idea of beauty and elegance. It is the need of obtaining this elegant lifestyle that causes the Loisels to meet with their dooming debt. The plot is essential in the world of fiction. It is a sequence of interrelated, conflicting action and events that typically build to a climax and bring about a resolution. Mme. Loisel's night of wonder ends when she returns home with her husband. “She took off the wraps with which she had covered her shoulders, before the mirror, so as to see herself once more in her glory.” Here we see the vanity in her character. “But suddenly she gave a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her throat!” Now our plot is unveiled. The climactic moment that will change the next ten years of her life, and her husband's too. “She turned to him, terror–stricken:—"I—I—I have not Mme. Forester's diamond necklace!” He jumped up, frightened—.”(Clugston 2010) The Guy de Maupassant story is written in the third-person objective point of view. The narrator is external and takes a detached approach to the action and characters. By using this point of view, the story is given a dramatic effect and we do not enter into the minds of the characters. When presented with a symbol we have something which contains a literal identity but also stands for something else. This “something else” is well known and easily recognized by most of society. The second identity (or referent) is always abstract in nature. (Clugston, 2010) “The chief value of symbolism to organizational science is that it begs one to look beyond what is literal and face-valid by the typically cursory and routine efforts to construe the objects of the study. It leads one to consider the supplemental, alternative and deeper meaning of things and in doing so, perhaps sheds new light on old problems.”(Meindl, 1985) The symbols held in the short story give us insight that the narrator does not. This affects the narrative theme in a subconscious manner. The rose shows us the deep love M. Loisel has for his wife and admiration of her beauty. While he never comes out and exclaims these things, the symbols reveal its truth. On the opposite end of the symbolic scale, the black box containing the root of all Mme. Loisel’s future angst is sheathed with ignorance and corruption, hinting for the reader to keep an eye out for foul play. By keeping the point of view stable in an objective third-person, we are able to focus on the sequence of events advancing to the plot. The plot affects the narrative theme by giving us the sequential conflicts that lead up to a climactic moment that will ultimately prove a hard lesson to Mme. Loisel. She will have to learn that appearances can be deceiving and that fate always takes control and that one should not judge by standards of “the grass is greener on the other side.”
References
Corrie, M. (2013). 'God May Well Fordo Desteny': Dealing with Fate, Destiny, and Fortune in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur and Other Late Medieval Writing. Studies In Philology, 110(4), 690-713.
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books
Meindl, J. R. (1985). Spinning on Symbolism: The Liberating Potential of Symbolism. Journal