Preview

The Necklace Plot Summary

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
404 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Necklace Plot Summary
Tiffany Morris English 1102 September 10, 2009 “The Necklace” Plot Summary “The Necklace” starts with a description of Madame Loisel. Madame Loisel and her husband whom is just a clerk are far from being well off financially, this doesn’t stop Madame Loisel from wanting to live a lavish life above her means. She dreams of status, to rub noses with the elite, gourmet meals and decadent dresses. Madame Loisels’ husband goes through trouble of getting a invite to the ball to make a his unappreciative wife happy. Not receiving the reaction as planned Madame Loisel is once again complaining of having nothing to wear. The very frugal clerk suggests that she wears her theater dress only to be mocked. She convinces him to spend money he saved for summer lark hunts. As the day of the party drew near Mrs. Loisel once again complains, this time about having no jeweles to wear. Her husband suggests she borrow jewels from her old school friend Madame Forestier. Mrs. Loisel visits her friend she assures her that she can pick out any piece of jewelry she likes. She decides upon a beautifully elaborate diamond necklace. During the ball Madame Loisel gets a taste of the recognition she craves so much. She dances until her hearts content till four o’clock in the morning, where she then tries to slip away unnoticed with her husband home in one of those shabby carriages. When she returns home Madame Loisel realizes that the diamond necklace is no longer around her neck. Unsuccessful in finding the necklace, they decide it is best not replace the necklace rather to tell Madame Forestier that it is missing. Out of resources, her husband spends the only inheritance that he’ll receive of eighteen thousand francs along with another eighteen thousands francs borrowed from various people and loan sharks to replace the necklace. They had to give up all of the small luxurious they had acquired such as the maid and they had to move out and into a attic flat. After having to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “The Necklace,” a female character, Mathilde, is living in Paris during the 19th century. She is poor, yet undyingly wishes she was wealthy. One day the woman is invited to a prestigious ball within her city. She immediately she contacts a rich friend and borrows a fabulous necklace. Once the night is all said and done and she returns from the ball, she realizes that the borrowed necklace is lost. She reacts by lying about the necklace and buying her friend a new one. With her financial situation the way it is she goes spiraling into debt and never recovers. Later, once Mathilde admits to her friend that she lost and replaced the necklace, it is revealed that the borrowed necklace was a fake worth very little.…

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mathilde vs. Dee

    • 622 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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.…

    • 622 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You can read “The Necklace” as a story about greed, but this is also about pride. Mathilde Loisel is a very proud woman. She feels far above the humble circumstances and she is forced to live with her husband by her common birth. Her current situation disgusts her. She is also vain too, completely caught up in her own beauty. It is pride that prevents Mathilde from admitting they've lost an expensive necklace. After the loss of the necklace makes Mathilde poor, and her beauty fades, she may learn a pride of a different sort: pride in her own work and…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is nothing but human to want more. This essential quality is what makes people human. By striving to be better, this species has done countless extraordinary things by wanting to elevate ourselves higher than others. However, Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” shows the story of young, beautiful, 19th century housewife Mathilde Loisel aspiring to be a luxurious white collar. Even though it is human nature to want more, Mathilde ravening desire to appear as higher class blinds her of what she has and becomes her own downfall.…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Archetypes In The Necklace

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One should be satisfied with anything good they have. In the short story “The Necklace”, written by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel is unhappy with her life and always wants more. Madame Loisel feels that she should have been born for luxury. She wants to have all these expensive items, such as jewelry. Her husband surprises her by getting her an invitation to the Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau.…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant, Madame Loisel should have been appreciative about her life and belongings, she instead is ungrateful and agonizes over all the imperfect things she owns. Maupassant describes Madame Loisel’s negative feelings towards her home, “She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment… All these things, which other women of her class would…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    He, a lowly clerk at the Ministry of Education, provides Mathilde with a comfortable life, but just not enough for Mathilde. She dreams of more than modesty. Mathilde feels burdened by her poverty and regrets her station in life. She often spends hours daydreaming of extravagance. Even while her husband expressed pleasure at the dinner she prepared for him, she dreams of a fancy feast on china. When her husband presented her with an invitation to a formal party hosted by the Ministry of Education, she was angry, annoyed and irritated, as she had nothing nice to wear. When asked how much a suitable dress would cost, she told him 400 francs might do it. Her husband silently protested, as he was saving that amount to go hunting with friends the following summer, but gave it to her anyways. As the day of the party drew near, Mathilde was clearly upset. When approached by Monsieur Loisel she said she had no jewelry to wear. Monsieur Loisel suggested fresh flowers, but she balked at the idea. Then it dawned on Loisel for Mathilde to ask her friend Mme. Forester. Mme. Forester agreed to lend her some jewels for the party. When Mme. Loisel comes across the diamond necklace and Mme. Forester agrees to lend it to her, Mathilde is overcome with joy at the site of it around her neck in the mirror, kisses her friend and ran off to show her husband. At the party, Mathilde is the most beautiful woman there, and is noticed by everyone and she adores the attention. At 4am she finds her husband sleeping in another room. He drapes her shoulders with her wrap and asks for her to wait inside while he fetches a cab. Mathilde is too embarrassed by her wrap and follows him outside instead. They walk for a while and finally hail a cab. It is not until they arrive home that Mathilde discovers the necklace is no longer around her neck. Panicked, she waits at home as…

    • 3175 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    They went to the ball and danced the night away when they got home she realized she didn't have the necklace anymore. The next day she found out how much it was worth it was worth thirty six thousand francs…

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    She dreams of luxuries beyond her possession and pays a great debt due to that longing. In an attempt to please his wife her husband obtains an invitation to a fancy ball which she refuses to attend because she has nothing fitting in her eyes to wear. After having a gown made she ends up borrowing a diamond necklace from a wealthy friend to wear to the ball only to end up losing it by the end of the night. She ends up spending the next ten years doing menial work to repay the debt incurred to replace the necklace, only to find out in an ironic twist that the jewels were fake. As written in “The Explanation of “The Necklace”:…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In “The Necklace,” GUY DE MAUPASSANT character loisel Mathilde who is a very greedy and selfish woman, believes that she was born for every delicacy and luxury there is and feels that she was made for all beautiful jewels and clothes, which cause her emotional…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In today’s world, people have a hunger for the things they do not, or can not, have; but for some people this greediness will make or break them. In “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel’s rapaciousness will break her down until she is skin and bones, but she refuses to learn her lesson and accept that she will never be a rich, sought after woman.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Necklace And Greed

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages

    To cover up, she buys her friend a new necklace, but has to spend the next 10 years in poverty paying off the expensive diamond bauble. At the end of 10 years, she meets her friend, who she has not seen due to her lamentable state. She tells her friend all, and is shocked to find that the necklace her friend…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Thesis for "The Necklace"

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Mme. Loisel’s struggle with her self image is apparent during this part of the story. At last, she has a nice dress and a fine necklace and has a grand time at the event. This is the end of her first struggle with self-image. Then, when the necklace is lost, she begins a new struggle with her self image to save her self from being seen as a thief. She and her husband go through great lengths to buy a replacement necklace and are forced to sacrifice many of their previous comforts. After ten years of…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the party, Madame Loisel loses the necklace, resulting in tireless work, loans, and night jobs for her and her husband in order to pay back the equivalent of the price. The couple finally succeeds when all the money is paid ten years later, only for Mathilde to discover that the necklace was ironically a fake, and worth a very small percentage of what the couple paid. The theme of this story is that an overemphasis on material wealth can shrink the spirit and leave one open to the changeability of fortune. The situational irony highlights this moral because the Loisels would never have had to exhaust themselves if Madame Loisel wasn’t so obsessed with riches and wealth. From the very beginning of the story, she wastes her time dreaming of luxuries such as fine silks, beautiful furniture, and gourmet feasts. Even when she is at Madam Forestier’s house to try on necklaces to borrow, she is never satisfied until she has seen the very best. Madame Loisel’s preoccupation with appearance clouds her judgment as well. As soon as she realizes that she has lost the necklace, she should simply come clean to Madam Forestier. Instead, she is too concerned with how her reputation will be affected, so she keeps quiet. She later pays the price for this when she discovers that the necklace is “false [and]…worth five hundred francs at most.” The life that she gets instead as punishment during the ten years in debt is even more difficult and meager than her life to begin with, which stresses how fame and fortune is so fleeting and unimportant in the scheme of…

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sequel: The Necklace

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages

    And she smiled with proud and simple joy. Madame Forestier, quite overcome, clasped her by the hand. “Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine was only paste. Why, at most it was worth only five hundred francs!” “Only five hundred francs!” Madame Loisel gasped. Lost in thought, she began to feel sick. Thinking that she has just wasted ten years; doing heavy housework, hateful duties of cooking, bargaining with the butcher and many others, along with living the life of a pauper. “Oh darling, are you all right?” Madame Forestier questioned. “You look terribly ill” “I….I’ve got to do!” Madame Loisel mumbled as she ran towards the court yard. By the time she got home, she was out of breath. Madame Loisel yelled for her husband, but he didn’t respond, guessing that he still hasn’t gotten home yet. Thinking whiled she waited for her husband to return from work, about how he is going to react. When Monsieur Loisel came home, Madame Loisel greeted him pleasantly and began to tell him what has just happened. As she explained the situation, she could see her husband slowly become furious. Madame Loisel finished what she needed to say. Monsieur Loisel calmly stood up and told Madame Loisel to get back the necklace. Madame Loisel was confused with her husband’s reaction but went to go see Madame Forestier. Madame Loisel got to Madame Forestier house and asked “May I please have the necklace back. I will buy you the exact one that I’ve misplaced.” “Of course not, you’ve given it to me so now it’s mine!” Madame Forestier fought back. They continued to fight until Madame Forestier became violent. She revealed a dagger that was hidden under a cloth and persisted on stabbing Madame Loisel. Madame Loisel was stocked and blankly stared at the dagger coming towards her. As she stared, every second became slower and quieter. When the dragger touches her flesh, she awakes and notices it was all a dream……

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays