“The Necklace”, written by a French writer Guy de Maupassant, is a short story depicting the life and hardships of a young lady, dreaming about wealthy and luxurious life. It is an astounding story that illustrates the dramatic and psychologically deep effect on the main character, as her dreams and hopes are broken by unhappy occurrence. The most striking literary elements that Guy de Maupassant uses to brighten and imbed his short story in the readers’ memory are the original and intriguing plot, intricate and emotionally colored characters and tender, all-understanding and mildly sympathetic tone of the author.
A short story is a very laconic literary genre, which is characterized by briefness, simplicity and suspensful layout. For this reason, it requires a talent and unique writing skills to describe a great life span on a few pages and make a story interesting and remarkable for readers. Guy de Maupassant found the way to attract the interest in the future destiny of his characters and composed a breathtaking plot, which keeps the readership on the edge of the seat till, literally, the very last line. The plot itself is peculiar due to two factors, which make it interesting and dramatic, namely, it is divided into 3 periods on the basis of the life of the main characters and it has a shocking outcome which takes aback and kills all anticipations for a happy ending.
The second peculiarity of the plot awaits a reader in its very end. In particular, to make his short story much more interesting and unique the writer uses a “post- denouement” climax. It implies another crucial moment in the story, which drastically changes the direction of the whole plot. What is meant is the part where Mathilde meets her friend and she finally reveals her that the necklace was a fake. It is described in the following lines: "Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste! It was worth at most only five hundred francs!" (Guy de Maupassant 61). Such a technique makes a shocking and unforgettable impression on a reader, because nobody expects such an outcome and all predictions are finally ruined. Some could imagine Mathilde finally find the unfortunate necklace after 10 years of poverty and hard work. Others could expect an inspiring speech from Mathilde who finally understood and admitted all insignificance and triviality of fortune and luxury. However, such a twist of the plot plays another malicious jest of her fate. The effect reached is astonishing, as it blows the reader’s mind and leaves some food for thought to imagine Mathilde’s reaction and predict what could happen next.
The magical power and novelty of the plot is indispensable with its main characters. In this respect, another fundamental element in the literary pyramid of the story discussed is the description of characters. Mathilda Loisel represents a complex and dramatic personality of a dreamy and naïve nature. She is reflected as tender, beautiful and charming: “The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks” (Guy de Maupassant 51). However, due to life circumstances she could not get the life she dreamt about and she suffered a lot, though she was lucky to marry not very rich but decent and loving man. At that time, she could not realize it and was very unhappy. Even when her husband satisfied her needs and handed an invitation to a ball, she showed her bad temper and made another problem out of nowhere – how to look worthily on the ball. Her main mistake was that she was trying to be somebody she was not, and later on she had to pay for it. After losing the diamond necklace, her life went wrong. To pay back for one evening of being an aristocrat, the Loisels had to dismiss their only servant and work very hard for long 10 years. Such events in the people’s life change them considerably. Here Guy de Maupassant means that Mathilde is on the right way and she is becoming better, since she decided to comply with their situation and by any means pay the debt off. Therefore, now she is seen as obedient, determined, hardworking and, thus, improves herself in the readers’ opinion. Her current description is tracked in the next example: “She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen” (Guy de Maupassant 59). But this outcome was quite obvious. The most vividly touching words that illustrate her hardships are: “And dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining, meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, sou by sou” (et.). But as time passed, the debt was paid back and she became proud that she and her husband overcame it successfully. Mathilde’s character is of a particular interest in the story under analysis, as it reflects the degeneration and psychological upheaval resulted from the unhappy twist of the fate.
However, Mathilde’s character is not the only one worth elucidation. The writer makes another masterful accent by opposing her character to the character of her husband. They have absolutely different nature, temper, dreams and principles. He is loving and caring, while her wife feels herself as a bird in a gate. He sacrifices his earnings to buy his wife a dress and make her happy. Pertaining to that time and epoch, he is amazingly simple and kind man and that is revealed in his words: “Ah, the good soup! I don't know anything better than that” (Guy de Maupassant 52). Moreover, they really had different interests and while she was experiencing moments of triumph at the ball, he was pretty bored and tired: “Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball” (Guy de Maupassant 55). One of the most important features Loisel had was that he was a man of action. He did not give up and went to search for the necklace or the cab they were using, while “she sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without any fire, without a thought” (Guy de Maupassant 57). In addition, when the hope to find the necklace vanished, he accepted it bravely, worked nonstop and did everything he could to return the debt. And never ever Loisel blamed his wife. This is worth admiration, since his character embodies all positive features the real man and a good person should have. Consequently, Guy de Maupassant choses such different characters for his short story on purpose and their opposition has an impressive effect.
Not less important is the literary element of tone. It also plays a considerable role in the short story “The Necklace”, because it shows the author’s attitude toward his characters and in this way reveals his intention of writing this short story and his point of view on the matter. From the first sight, it seems that Guy de Maupassant has a totally neutral position. However, at first he is trying to describe Mathilde as simply a dreaming person that was unlucky to be born without special privileges and had no opportunities for a great welfare: “The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks” (Guy de Maupassant 51). Willingly or not, anybody who reads these lines feels sympathy to her, and so does the author. In his short story, Guy de Maupassant shows the real, unfair, unexpected life, and his characters are mostly viewed as victims of circumstances, because such misfortune could happen to anybody. Though he does not support Mathidle’s dreams, desires and attitude to her life, he does not condemn her. He is realistic and all-understanding. The author’s sympathy is also precisely felt when the family is struggling with poverty: “She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism” (Guy de Maupassant 58). Moreover, when his main character starts moving in a right direction and doing her best to overcome the misery and pay back the debts, he sympathizes and supports her and then changes the reader’s opinion about her. It is the unique power of a writer to make readers like or dislike his characters. Thus, the writer’s tone is realistically neutral, mildly sympathetic and not unmercifully critisizing.
Works cited
Guy de Maupassant. “The Necklace.” 5 French Masters: Short Story Masterpieces. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2007. 51-61. Print.
