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Mathilde dreams of the living in a beautiful home whereas Della does not seem to…
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Discuss what happens to Mathilde in “The Diamond Necklace”. Why did it happen? How could it have been different? What would you have done in this situation?…
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In the story it says, “With no dowry, no prospects, no way of any kind of being met, understood, loved, and married by a man both prosperous and famous, she was finally married to a minor clerk in the Ministry of Education.” Your family’s financial status determined your future; if you had a lot of money you’d have a rich husband, if you didn’t have a lot of money you’d be married off to a man of the same status. Mathilde didn’t like where she was at on the social ladder and “she grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of living”. She couldn’t control where she was at though because, as stated before, your status was based off of your husband’s. “For women have no family rank or social class.” The women like Mathilde, trapped in a class they didn’t like or felt they deserved, had no way of changing it or moving higher up. Once you were born into the class you more than likely didn’t make it out, unless you were a lucky one and married your way…
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At first glance, a reader might conclude that these characters have no similarities to each other in terms of their sense of status, well-being, and satisfaction. Mathilde was only satisfied with luxuries and riches while living a middle class lifestyle with her longing to be important while the grandmother was satisfied with having things flow her way while she was already in a better status than Mathilde and was…
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These two women are also unlike one another because of how they treat their husbands. When thinking about what to get her husband Jim, Della thought, “Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.” (Henry, ¶6) This quote shows how much Della loves her husband, and how she thinks it is the best thing in the world to be his, and to be married to him. Meanwhile, instead of feeling like her husband “won” her heart, Mathilde feels like she settled for him. She shows these feelings for her husband when O. Henry writes “…and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education.” (Maupassant, ¶1). Madame Loisel also does not show gratitude towards her husband when he acquired the…
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Mathilde’s perception of herself as a martyr leads her to take unwise, self-serving actions. When Mathilde loses the necklace and sacrifices the next ten years of her life to pay back the debts she incurred from buying a replacement, her feeling of being a martyr intensifies. She undertakes the hard work with grim determination, behaving more like a martyr than ever before. Her beauty is once again being wasted; this work eventually erases it completely. Her lot in life has gotten worse, and Mathilde continues to believe she has gotten less than she deserves, never acknowledging the fact that she is responsible for her own fate. Her belief in her martyrdom is, in a way, the only thing she has left. When Madame Forestier reveals that the necklace was worthless, Mathilde’s sacrifices also become worthless, and her status as a…
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In these plays, they both found happiness in money. In the Necklace, Mathilde “had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but appearance of its possession, led Mathilde to borrow an expensive necklace from a wealthy friend to show it off at the ball she was invited to by the Minister of Public Instruction. She ended up losing the necklace and worked half of her life to get it back. Not knowing that the necklace was fake. She didn’t want anyone to know that she had lost it, and would do anything to earn money.…
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The irony that is implied in the story is that in the fact borrowing the necklace was what the main character, Mathilde hoped would help her into the life she coveted, yet it was also what put her into a life of poverty. In the story, it stated that “ She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.” This shows how Mathilde has a poor family background while compared to the rich classes for the women in that time period.…
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Imagine how she felt when she received the information that it was not even worth half as much as the necklace she replaced. Through all that time laboring to pay off the borrowed necklace, Mathilde has lost her natural beauty. As said on page 168, “She became heavy, rough, harsh, like one of the poor. her hair untended, her skirts askew, her hands red, her voice shrill, she even slopped water on her floors and scrubbed them herself.” Her friend Mme.…
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Mathilda proves to be selfish many times throughout the story by only thinking about herself. For example, “Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.” (2) She knows how much he loves her and knows that “He was heart-broken.”(3) When he saw her crying. She does corrupt things that would hurt other people for her own gain, she does not care about her spouse. In addition, he gives in, asking how much money it would cost. When she says four hundred francs, “He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun” (3) Mathilda didn’t stop to wonder if the money was set aside to buy something else or about the financial strain she’s going to put on her husband, she thought about herself. When Mathilda “flung the invitation petulantly across the table.”(2) The invitation to the ball is very select and she completely ignored the hard work Mr.…
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It could be said that within the story Mathidle was narcissistic and even manipulative when things do not go the way that she wants them to. In the story Mathilde constantly complains and is also ungrateful for the things that she does not possess instead of the things that she is has: “Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall” (2).…
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Mathilde is a greedy, liar but she also has a heart of love when it comes to her husband. Through her trying to get as much money as possible for a dress, and trying to see as many jewels as possible Maupassant shows a greedy nature about Mathilde. Through her going to the ball and as she returns the necklace, Maupassant reveals a lying habit. Through her marriage to her husband, and sticking by him through all the hard times Maupassant portrays Mathilde as loving. In the end, Mathilde looks like a terrible person who loves her husband, which is what she really…
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In “The Necklace”, Mathilde is seen as a poor woman who had low self-esteem and was married to a clerk. In this story, she was invited to a ball and borrowed a friend’s necklace. After the ball, Mathilde discovers that the necklace was lost. As a result, she had to search for a similar necklace and had to take out loans to make a purchase. She was forced to work for ten years to pay off the debt until one day when she saw her friend. Little did Mathilde know that the necklace she lost was worth much less than the new necklace she paid for.…
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One thing she lacks is independency from the hands of her husband. You could say, that he’s the breadwinner, the supporter of the household. After she quit her job, her husband told her, that she didn’t have to work anymore. They could easily afford it. She was now a lady of leisure. There’s another passage in the text, that can support my thoughts of the husband being the trigger to this shop-lifting; “’Busy day?’ he asks. ‘Hair appointment?’ He laughs. There’s a strange pride in the way he teases her about her empty, frivolous days. He is the sole breadwinner…
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"The Jewelry" by Guy De Maupassant is about a young, clerk who falls in love with what was thought of as the "ideal" good woman, because of her saintly qualities. Her beauty had charm of angelic shyness; and her smile always seemed a reflection of her heart. She seemed exactly what any man would want and wanted to spend their life with. Madame Lantin had only two flaws, her love for theater and her passion for false jewelry. As time soon told this love struck gent, these were not her only flaws.…
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