The Necklace
The
story under analysis is “The
Necklace”written by a popular 19th-century French writer Henri-René-Albert-Guy
de Maupassant (1850-1893). He belonged to the naturalistic school; is
generally considered the greatest French short story writer. In his short
stories Guy de Maupassant painted a fascinating picture of French
life in the 19th century.
Maupassant created 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books,
and one volume of verse. In tone, his tales were marked by objectivity, highly
controlled style, and sometimes by sheer comedy. Usually they were built around
simple episodes from everyday life, which revealed the hidden sides of people.
Among Maupassant's best-known books are Une Vie (A Woman's Life,
1883), Bel-Ami (1885), Pierre Et Jean (1888). Maupassant's most
upsetting horror story, Le Horla (1887), was about madness and suicide.
The story tells about a simple French family. One day M. Loisel comes
home with an invitation to a fancy ball thrown by his boss, the Minister of
Education. M. Loisel had a lot of trouble to get the invitation, but his wife
Mathilde doesn't have anything nice to wear, and can't possibly go! M. Loisel
doesn't know what to do, and offers to buy his wife a dress, so long as it's
not too expensive. But she has no
jewels. So M. Loisel suggests her to borrow the jewels from her friend Mme.
Forestier, a rich woman. So Mathilde has
taken a gorgeous diamond necklace. With the necklace, she's sure to be the best
at the ball. But she has lost the necklace and decides to buy the new one to return it to the
owner. Mme. Forestier doesn't notice the substitution. Buying the necklace
catapults the Loisels into poverty for the next ten years. After ten years, all the debts are finally paid, Mathilde
gets to know that Mme. Forestier’s necklace
was just a fake.
"The
Necklace" is a short story that gives an important moral. You should
always be grateful for what you have, as things can always be worse.
The events in the
analyzed text take place in the glamorous city of lights and love, in Paris. I suppose it is the
19th century. The importance Mathilde gives to money, posh
"comfort," and fancy, fashionable baubles make her fit right in with
the Paris of the late 19th century. That period was often called the
"Belle Époque" (which you could translate as the "Lovely
Age," or "Grand Years" – depending on how you understand it). It
was a time of peace and technological innovation (electricity, for example). It
was also a period of spectacular wealth, modish fashion, and what you might
call "high consumerism."
But it’s only my
presumption, as we don't get many specific clues or some details of clothes, of
important people, places, or happenings of the time. If the author doesn't give these details
perhaps that doesn’t mean much. In such a way he draws our attention on that
terrible event that happened in the life of ordinary french family. This makes
the story immortal and actual in all the
times.
From the point of view of presentation “The
Necklace” of Guy de Maupassant is the 3rd person narration. The
author tells us about the events happening in the story as if he knows
everything very well and at the same time he doesn’t show his own attitude
towards them.
The characters we meet in the story under analysis are:
Major
Characters:
Mathilde Loisel – the protagonist of the story.
She's obsessed with beautiful, expensive things, and the life that
accompanies them. Unfortunately, she wasn't born into a family with the money
to make her dream possible. Instead, she gets married to a "little
clerk" husband and lives with him in an apartment. She is annoyed with the
every day work in the house. Mathilde hates her life, and probably her husband
too. She weeps "all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and
from distress".
Monsieur Loisel – Mathilde’s husband. He is the
"little clerk in the Department of Education". Monsieur Loisel is
content with the small pleasures of his life but does his best to please
Mathilde’s demands. He loves Mathilde immensely but does not truly understand
her, and he seems to underestimate the depth of her unhappiness. He also seems
to be devoted to his wife. After all, he got her the invitation to a
fancy party. He sacrifices the hunting rifle he's spent months saving up for,
so Mathilde can buy a dress for the ball. And when she loses the necklace, he's
the one who goes all over the city searching for it. Moreover, Monsieur Loisel
sacrifices his own future to help her repay the debt. He pays dearly for
something he had never wanted in the first place.
Madame Forestier –
Mathilde’s wealthy school friend. Madame Forestier treats Mathilde
kindly, but Mathilde is bitterly jealous of Madame Forestier’s wealth. When
Madame Loisel visits, Madame Forestier is as friendly as ever, generously
offering to lend her friend a piece of her jewelry for the ball. When the diamo
nd necklace is returned more than a week late, however, Madame Forestier is
cold and reproachful. She does not know that the borrowed necklace was lost.
She is horrified to realize that Mathilde has wasted her life trying to pay for
a replacement necklace, when the original necklace had actually been worth
nothing.
Many years have passed but Madame Forestier is still beautiful.
She does not recognize her old friend when they meet.
Minor Character:
M. Georges Ramponneau –
is the man who conducts the fabulous ball that just might be the best few hours
of Mathilde's life. He's the Minister of Education, which makes him M. Loisel's
boss (which is probably why M. Loisel was able to get the invitation). And he apparently
notices Mathilde at the ball, like every other man there.
The writer reveals all the characters, using both direct and indirect
characterization. He describes the characters and also reveals their features
with the help of their deeds. He looks deeply
into the emotions of Mathilde, and make the reader feel her pain and sympathize her. But
the narrator doesn’t share his emotions. He appears to be rather detached from
the events happening. Maupassant’s detachment also keeps the reader aside from being too strict with Mathilde and blame
her for her troubles.
The author used the first paragraphs of the story to introduce
the main character, Mathilde. Without
naming her, he depicts the life-story of this woman. We get to know about her
“background”, her social position and her unhappiness because of mediocre life.
The Exposition.
The action proper begins when Mathilde's husband, M. Loisel comes home
with the invitation to the ball.
Mathilde now gets the best opportunity to appear in the high society, she always wanted to belong to.
But she has nothing to wear. This problem sets the rest of the plot in motion.
The story itself.
Her husband gives her all his
savings for a dress. But later she needs to have some jewels. She feels
absolutely depressed. Fortunately, her friend Madame Forestier is able to
provide her with a fabulous
diamond necklace. Mathilde had a success. She was the most beautiful on the
ball.
The climax.
Perhaps, the most exciting and dramatic moment in the story is when
Mathilde discovers that she has lost the diamond necklace (until that crazy
twist in the last lines of the story). It's the turning point of the story.
After having lost the necklace, Madame Loisel worked hard to buy the new one
and to return it to the owner. Her life was very difficult. Their family spent
10 years to pay the debt.
The denouement.
Mathilde meets Madame Forestier on the Champs Elysées. The Loisels have
finally finished paying off their debts for the necklace. All that remains is
for Mathilde to see whether her friend ever noticed the substitution of the
necklace. Mathilde wanted to tell her the sad story of the whole affair. But
then unexpected turn of events.
The anticlimax.
Mathilde gets to know that Madame Forestier’s necklace was a fake.
“"You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"
"Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much
alike."…
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth
at the very most five hundred francs! . . . " “
The types of speech employed by the author of the
analysed story is a mixture of narration and description with dialogues.
In order to portray the characters, to describe the setting, to reveal
the idea and to render the general mood
of the story vividly and convincingly the author of the analysed text resorts
to the following devices:
LEXICAL
EPITHETS: Despairing regrets
Bewildering dreams
A sphinxlike smile – Epithet based on the simile
Irritated glance
A violent effort
A frightened exclamation
Immoderate desire
Awakened desires
Deserted anteroom
Mad fear
Hollow face
Chilly manner
Dainty fingers
Pretty hard life
These epithets are used to make the presented events in the story more
true to life, vivid and expressive to the reader. They help to the reader to
see the mood of the whole story.
HYPERBOLY: Very greatest ladies
Wild with joy
Mounted the stairs
String of diamonds
No doubt that it is used here for the purpose of intensification, for
the reader better to feel the moment or event happened.
METAPHOR: Ancient silk (curtains)
SYNECDOCHY: "And what do you wish me
to put on my back?"
OXYMORON: uttered
a cry of joy.
These stylistic devices shows the emotional state of
the main character. Mathilde didn’t know what to do. She abandoned herself to
despair.
COMPARISON: "She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households."
…She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was
unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station…
She was prettier than any other woman present…
This device states the degree of similarity or difference between two or
more notions.
IRONY: “Oh
my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the most five hundred
francs!”
Irony used here formally shows the positive or neutral
attitude of the narrator to the main character
and her ambitious and the joke the fate
had played with her. Also it reveals the real face of Madame Forestier.
PHONETIC:
ALLITERATION:
Madame Loisel
seemed
sad,
uneasy,
anxious.
He stopped, distracted,
seeing that his wife was weeping.
She removed her wraps before the
glass so as to see herself once more in all
her glory.
The examples of alliteration is used to intensify the rhythmical effect.
ONOMATOPOEIA: “…she threw the invitation on the table crossly, muttering:
"What do you wish me to do with that?..”
In this case the usage of
onomatopoeia underlines the Mathilde’s emotions. It shows that she was upset
and didn’t know what to do.
The story is full of different
SYNTACTIC constructions :
DETACHMENT: He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was
weeping.
They looked, thunderstruck,
at each other.
Detachments emphasize the main idea. In this particular examples the
emotional state of the characters.
ENUMERATION:
- She was prettier than any
other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with
joy.
- It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
The usage of enumeration makes the utterance more emphatic.
CLIMAX:
- She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming,
to be sought after.
- She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood,
loved, married by any rich and distinguished man.
- She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian
gold cross set with precious stones, of admirable workmanship.
- She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure,
forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a
sort of cloud of happiness.
Climax used in these examples intensifies the emotions of the character
and make the influence on the readers’ perception of the story.
ANTICLIMAX:
- She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing.
- It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single
ornament, nothing to put on.
PARALLELISM:
She thought of
silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry,… She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk,… and she thought of delicious dishes served
on marvellous plates…
- She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the
bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains.
This SD underlines the main points the author wanted to intensify. In
the first example he draws our attention to Mathilde’s thoughts and in the
second – to the reasons of her being unhappy.
EXCLAMATIONS: - "How was that?!"
-
How stupid you are!
-
"What!...Impossible!"
-
How strange and changeful is life!
-
How small a thing is needed to make
or ruin us!
- You
never noticed it, then!
- "Oh, my poor Mathilde!
- Why, my necklace was paste! It was worth at most only five hundred
francs!".
REPETITION:
"I have – I have – I've lost Madame Forestier's necklace,..
Exclamations and repetition underline the emotional degree of the main
characters.
EMPHATIC CONSTRUCTIONS:
“…"It
was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the
clasp."…”
“…He did borrow, asking a
thousand francs….
These emphatic constructions intensifies the doer of
the action and the action that was performed in such a way giving it more prominence.
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS:
-
If she had detected the substitution,
what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken
Madame Loisel for a thief?
-
What would have happened if she had not
lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How strange and changeful is life!
How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!
-
Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she
speak to her?
The rhetorical questions used in the story help
to understand the character’s inner state, her feelings.
ASYNDETON:
- She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood,
loved, married by any rich and distinguished man; she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of
Public Instruction.
- She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was
unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty,
grace and charm take the place of family and birth.
- Everyone wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many
invitations to clerks.
- "It was not I, madame, who sold that necklace; I must simply have
furnished the case."
- "You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed
it."
- Look further; I don't know what you like."
The
usage of such stylistic device make the
story sound energetic, dynamic and tense.
ELLIPSIS:
- "Nothing. Only I have no gown, and,
therefore, I can't go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife
is better equipped than I am."
- "True!
I never thought of it."
- “…"What!
. . . Impossible!"”
- “…"No. You didn't
notice it, did you?". "No."…”
- "Haven't
you any more?"
"Why,
yes. Look further; I don't know what you like."
- "Why,
yes, certainly."
- "Yes,
probably. Did you take his number?"
- “Yes, I
have had a pretty hard life, since I last saw you, and great poverty – and that
because of you!”
“Of me! How so?”
- "Do
you remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the ministerial
ball?"
"Yes.
Well?"
- "Oh, my poor Mathilde!
Elliptical
sentences are used in this short story to present the emotional tension of the
speech.
Summing up the analysis of the chosen short story I should admit that the
writer Guy de Maupassant brilliantly
uses ALL the mentioned above stylistic devices, especially syntactic
ones, which help to reveal the main
characters’ nature, their feelings and emotions; to create true to life
atmosphere of the events depicted. The stylistic devices used make the reader
more interested in the life of the main characters, they make us either
sympathize to the Loisels or blame them for being too naïve.
