"The Necklace"
Short story by Guy de Maupassant
La Parure, illustration of the title page of the Gil Blas, 9 September
Original titleLa Parure
CountryFrance
Genre(s)Short story
Publication
Publication date1884

"The Necklace" (French: La Parure) is a short story by French writer Guy de Maupassant. It is known for its twist ending (ironic ending), which was a hallmark of de Maupassant's style. The story was first published on 17 February 1884 in the French newspaper Le Gaulois.[1]

Plot

Madame Mathilde Loisel has always imagined herself an aristocrat, yearning for wealth and admiration despite having been born into a family of clerks. Her husband is a low-paid clerk at the Ministry of Education, and who tries his best to make her happy but has little to give. After much effort, he secures for them an invitation to a ball to be hosted by the Minister of Education, Georges Ramponneau, and his wife.

Mathilde refuses to go because she has nothing to wear and wishes not to be embarrassed. Upset at her displeasure, Loisel gives her 400 francs (approx. $2,531.20 USD in 2022)[2] - all the money he had been saving to go hunting with his friends - so she can buy a dress. Even after Mathilde does so, she is still unhappy because she has no jewels to wear with it. She spurns Loisel's idea of wearing fresh flowers but takes his suggestion of borrowing some jewelry from her wealthy friend, Madame Jeanne Forestier. Mathilde then visits Jeanne, who shows her assorted jewelry for Mathilde to choose from. The only item Mathilde borrows is a diamond necklace.

On the day of the ball, Mathilde enjoys herself, dancing with influential men and reveling in their admiration. Once she and Loisel return home, though, she discovers that she has lost Jeanne's necklace. Loisel retraces their steps but unable to find the missing jewelry, he has Mathilde write to Jeanne, lying to her that the clasp has broken off and that the necklace is being repaired. When a week passes with no word as to the whereabouts of the necklace nor who might know about it, the Loisels resign themselves to replace it. At the Palais-Royal shops they find a similar diamond necklace priced at 40,000 francs (approx. $253,141.59 USD in 2022)[2] and bargain for it, eventually settling at 36,000 ($227,827.40 USD).[2] Loisel uses an inheritance from his father to cover half the cost and borrows the rest at high interest. Mathilde gives the new necklace to Jeanne without mentioning the loss of the original and Jeanne does not notice the difference.

To pay off their debt, Loisel and Mathilde fire their maid, sell their house, move into a low rent apartment, and work tirelessly. For ten years the Loisels live in poverty, he working the night shift as a copyist to earn extra income and she sacrificing her beauty to work as a cleaning woman. After all the loans are paid off, Mathilde encounters Jeanne by chance on the Champs-Élysées; however, Jeanne barely recognizes her owing to her shabby clothing and unkempt appearance. Mathilde tells Jeanne about the loss and replacement of the necklace and of the hard times she has endured on Jeanne's account, blaming her for the misery of the past decade. A horrified Jeanne reveals that the necklace she had lent to Mathilde was made of paste and worth no more than 500 francs ($3,164.26 USD).[2]

Themes

One of the themes in The Necklace is the dichotomy between reality and appearance. Madame Loisel is beautiful on the outside but inside she is discontented with her less-than-wealthy lifestyle. Mathilde is gripped by a greed that contrasts with her husband's kind generosity. She believes that material wealth will bring her joy, and her pride prevents her from admitting to Madame Forestier that she is not rich and that she has lost the necklace she borrowed.

Because of her pride and obsession with wealth, Mathilde loses ten years of her life and spends all of her savings on replacing the necklace only to find out that the original necklace was a fake. While it is true the Madame Forestier is at fault, however we also find that Mathilde's sin of vanity scarcely surpasses the trouble she had to go through to pay for the 'false' necklace.[3]

The story demonstrates the value of honesty; had Mathilde told Madame Forestier the truth, she would likely have been able to replace the necklace easily. This story represents a world in which people search for happiness in material wealth.

Literary Tradition

The Necklace manifests the literary tradition of Realism where a story is told with all its realistic elements and without over dramatization.

Adaptations and other influence

The following are direct adaptations of "The Necklace":

The following works were inspired in part by "The Necklace":

  • "Paste" (1899), a short story by Henry James in which the twist ending is reversed[8]
  • "Mr. Know-All" (1925) and "A String of Beads" (1943), short stories by Somerset Maugham that both revolve around the price of a necklace[9]
  • "The Diamond Pendant" in Impact #1, E.C. Comics, March/April 1955; adaptation by Carl Wessler, illustrated by Graham Ingels[10]
  • Doctor Innocentanu (2012), a Malayalam family drama film is inspired from The Necklace but have some changes.
  • Vennila Veedu (2014), a Tamil family drama uses a similar story as its main theme.
  • The subplot of the season 4 episode 13 of Mom ("A Bouncy Castle and an Aneurysm" OAD: 9 Feb, 2017) is a comedic version of the story with Anna Faris' character losing the necklace belonging to her wealthy friend.
  • In Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor (1969), one of the characters, a writer, claims she has written a short story entitled "La Rivière du diamants", which mimics Maupassant's "The Necklace". The moment in which this occurs is set in the book to be around 1884, the year in which Maupassant actually published his short story.

References

  1. ↑ Roberts, Edgar (1991). Writing Themes About Literature (7th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. p. 4. ISBN 9780139710605.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Historical Currency Converter". Historicalstatistics.org. 22 April 2021.
  3. ↑ "The Necklace Themes - eNotes.com". eNotes. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  4. ↑ Dillon, Michael (2010). China: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris. p. 207. ISBN 9781850435822. OCLC 705886007. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  5. ↑ Rea, Christopher (21 January 1926). "The Pearl Necklace 一串珍珠 (1926)". Chinese Film Classics. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
  6. ↑ Rudden, Liam (15 August 2008). "Mathilde makes it to the stage". Edinburgh Evening News. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  7. ↑ සිංහල සාහිත්‍ය සංග්‍රහය. Colombo: Education Publication Dept. Sri Lanka. 2016.
  8. ↑ James, Henry. "Paste". The Henry James scholar's Guide to Web Sites. Retrieved 27 September 2014. The origin of "Paste" is rather more expressible.
  9. ↑ Shukman, Henry (28 May 2004). "Homage to Maupassant". The Guardian.
  10. ↑ Von Bernewitz, Fred and Geissman, Grant. Tales of Terror! The E.C. Companion, Seattle: Gemstone Publishing and Fantagraphics Books, 2000, p. 198.
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