A Poem Based on Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace”
Ten long years
For just one night
Ten long years
All was for nothing,
Or so it may well seem
I worked ten long years to make up
For that one incredible night.
If only I had told her
It could have been made right
Years before I saw her
On this fateful night.
For never would I’ve thought,
The jewels I’d worn were phony
As I was on that night.
What can I do now that I know
What’s wrong from what is right?
When I go home and tell Loisel
There’s sure to be a fight.
For he has worked as hard as I
We have made quite a team,
But that can’t change the loss of ten years
In exchange for just one night.
I wrote this poem from Mathilde’s point of view as she walks home from her encounter with Madame Forestier. I imagined that the words “ten long years for just one night” repeated over and over again in her mind as she thinks about the situation. I thought that this repetition would work best in a poem than in any other style
Mathilde was a very shallow and self-centered woman when the story began. All she cared about was what others thought of her, which was why she found it necessary to wear expensive jewels to the party. What was funny about this story was that Mathilde was trying to be something that she wasn’t. She wanted people to think that she was worthy of being at a fancy party, and that she had enough money to buy expensive dresses and jewelry. Many people at the party believed that she was wealthy, and the men that were there found her to be beautiful. People were interested in her. People were making these judgments about her based on what she looked like. The same could be said about the necklace. It sparkled and gleamed like a real diamond necklace would, and Madame Forestier was wealthy enough to have expensive jewelry. However, the necklace Mathilde wore to the party was a phony, just as she herself was.
Mathilde got to feel special for just one night in her whole life. After that she and Loisel had to work very hard to pay off the debt of replacing the necklace. She aged a lot in that ten years from the work and the stress, but she always had the memory of that one night when she was seen as beautiful and interesting. Now that she knows that the last ten years had been unnecessary, she is now left to wonder if it had all been worth it. Was feeling special for a few hours worth being even poorer than she had been before? She and her husband had to move into a smaller home and live a life of poverty. Any beauty that she had was gone by the end of that ten years.
I think this poem is representative of what Mathilde was thinking that night, and for a long time to come. It would be interesting to read the continuation of the story, to see if she told her husband the truth or if she kept it to herself. I would guess that she would keep it a secret and have to live with what she had done for the rest of her life. She would probably spend a lot of time thinking about that night, and wonder if it had been worth it in the end.
