The Necklace: A Closer Look at Character Essay English 102 P Buss Essay 1In any literay work, it is absolutely essential to have characters,whether major or minor. It is also necessary to develop these charactersthrough out the story. Character development gives the reader insight to themore important meanings or lessons of the story. These lessons are usuallybrought out by the events that take place within the story.
Looking at Guy DeMaupassant’s piece The Necklace, we see a very clear development of the maincharacter Mathidle. In the story, we see a change in her attitude about life. This change come about when she has to learn one of life’s little lessons thehard way. She and her husband are forced to live a life of hard work andstruggle because of her own selfish desires.
Mathilde changes from a woman whospends her time dreaming of all the riches and glory she doesn’t have, torealizing that she over looked all the riches she did have. The story opens with the description of how miserable Mathilde is. Maupassant describes her as suffering constantly, feeling herself destined forall delicacies and luxeries. (Pg 4) She sits dreaming of silent rooms nicelydecorated and her own private room, scented with perfume to have intimate tete-a-tetes with her closest friends.
Then she is awakened, only to realize thatshe is in her own grim apartment. In her eyes, she lives a tortured and unfairlife. Mathidle has a husband named Losiel. He is much the opposite of his wife. He is completely content with his lifestyle. He seems to be a very passiveperson, who doesn’t let status or riches effect him.
Of course, if he had thechance to be rich he would, but he doesn’t dwell on the fact that he is part ofthe middle class. He seems ot be a hard worker and does his best to provide forhis wife. He demonstrates is simplicity the one night at dinner Losiel andMathilde sit down to eat. Mathidle is dreaming of fancy four course meals,while he is ecstatic because they are eating boiled beef. Losiel is aware that his wife has not yet adjusted to her status. Onenight, he had come home from work very excited.
He had worked extra hard toget he and his wife invited to one of the biggest parties ever. Losiel thoughtthis would be please his wife, when in fact it only made her upset. Here wasLosiel trying to please his wife and she just started to cry. This just goes toshow how ungreatful she really is. When Losiel had inquired about why she was upset, she had said it wasbecause she had nothing to wear. She was hinting to her husband that she neededa dress.
Then Losiel, because he wanted his wife to be happy had willinglygiven up his vacation money so his wife could have a dress to wear. Still, thatwasn’t good enough for her. Mathilde wanted more. Luckily, Mathilde had a friend in the upper class.
She had gone to herfriend and had asked to borrow jewlery for the occasion. This just helped toprove her need to have more. When she arrived at her friends house she had manythings to choose from. Mathilde had seen all kinds of things that delighted herbut one thing imparticular had caught her eye.
In a black satin box, a superbdiamond necklace, and her heart throbbed with desire for it. Her hands shook asshe picked it up. She fastened it around her neck, watched it gleam at herthroat and looked at herself ecstatically. (Pg 6) She had gotten all shewanted. Once again, Mathilde’s selfish desires had been fulfilled.
After going to the ball and basically being the life of the party,she returned home to her drab apartment, only to remember the events of theevening where she was in the sporlight and people looked at her. It was at thatmoment that she had noticed that the necklace was missing. She and her husbandhad searched everywhere for it yet, the necklace was no where to be found. Forthe next ten years Loisel and Mathilde worked their fingers to the bone to repayMathilde’s friend for the necklace that Mathilde had carelessly lost. They hadto move to a different apartment, this worse than the last.
They also had toborrow .
