Mathilde’s Mistakes
In “The Necklace” a short story by Guy De Maupassant, there is a couple changes to Mathilde Loisel but not just little, they are the effect of her actions from the entire story.. She was at first unhappy with her appearance, and that caused lots of problems for her but ultimately changed her in the end. She then thought that she was entitled to get anything she wanted. But then at the end of the story she finally realizes that she needs to work hard to get things that she wants. Mathilde’s character is revealed in the story by her decision to try very hard to fit in, which causes her life to become a roller coaster.
At the beginning of the story, Mathilde gets the invitation that her husband got for her. She wasn’t very appreciative when she said, “haven’t a dress and so I can’t go to this party,” (Poe 20). She is saying just because she doesn’t have an extremely nice dress she can’t go to the party, but even before saying this, her husband suggests, “Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me…” (Poe 15). She doesn’t agree though. If she hadn’t been so picky about her attire, none of the problems that came up later in the story would have happened. She was too worried about her appearance instead of being appreciative of her husband’s effort to even obtain the invitation for her. Her husband eventually gave in and gave her 400 francs to buy a suitable dress for the party, which caused her to realize that if she begged she could get her way, which leads to her next decision.
After Mathilde got her way with the dress, she thought she needed more. Her next idea was to get some form of jewelry to wear. She knew she would not be able to get it herself, so she approached a wealthy friend of hers for one. She realized she could just borrow a necklace from her friend when her husband suggested, “Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that,” (Poe 33). This was her worst decision of all because she got a necklace to wear that was diamond, or so she thought it was. After the party, the necklace she borrowed was lost. This affected her life drastically because now she would need to buy a new necklace for her friend, it would cost more than she could afford at the time, so she would need to work for quite a while to get the money back. The quote is showing that though she is poor, she still has an opportunity to look nice, but it came with a price to pay. That choice to borrow the necklace was not the best in the world, but it changed her character, which leads to the next paragraph.
At the end of the story, Mathilde and Monsieur Loisel had bought the new necklace and returned it to Madame Forrestier, but were in an immense amount of debt which had to be payed back. They were used to living a life with not a great deal of work, but when they had to pay it back, they knew they had to start working for money. Mathilde had to come to know the, “…heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money,” (Poe 91). This changed Mathilde forever because she knew she now had to work for things she wanted and not take everything for granted. She had never had a life filled with so much work, so it was a wake up call for her to start working for things. Her decision to work hard shows that her character to finish out the story was hard-working and most likely more grateful for the things she had.
Mathilde’s character is revealed all through out the story because of her choice to want to fit in no matter what. She was very ungrateful for her invitation at first. She was also mad about not having anything to wear to the party. At the end Mathilde turned hard-working and realized the importance of being grateful and working for things you get. Mathilde’s realization came at a big price to pay, but it surely helped her to realize to change as a person. Mathilde needed to learn to be grateful and hard-working, which is how everyone should be. She may have realized much to late though.
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