Michael Zhu June 1, 2007 The Necklace and Dignity
The Necklace, written by Guy de Maupassant, tells a story of a clerk’s wife, Mathilde, who loves vanity and pomp. She borrowed a diamoand necklace from her rich friend in order to show off on a ball. Unfortunately she lost the necklace on her way home, and had no choice but to take up ruinous obligations to buy a new one. She and her husband spent ten years to pay off all the debts, but eventually were astonished by the fact that the original necklace was a fake.
The ending was a surprise and evoked compassion for Mathilde. However, after pondering through the story for several times, I have a deeper understanding of it. I admire the heroine’s uprightness and candidness about life. In my opinion, Mathilde is peacocky but not false, in lack of fortune but not in lack of dignity.
On the one hand, Matilde is a woman in pursuit of vanity. At the beginning the author presents us with the psychological discription of Mathilde: She is unsatified with her current life and she wants to live as a noblewoman; She feels herself “born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries”(38). Mathilde is peacocky for sure, and that may contribute to her latter harsh life. But in my eyes, the psychology precisely proves her candidness. Living in a society overwhelmed by bourgeois mercenaries and aristocratic snobbery, no one would escape from the idea of leading a noblest life. Born with beauty and elegance, Mathilde should by no means be blamed for her desire for fancy clothes and jewelries. Because it is the human nature to be in sought of a better-off life. We should understand such behavior of her which precisely reflects her true mind and thoughts.
On the other hand, Mathilde is an upright woman who can maintain her dignity through hardships. When the calamity of losing the necklace happened, she did not flee away or cheat on her friend. However, she faced up to it by undertaking the heavy burden caused only by an accident. “She washed dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts, and the dishcloths which she dried upon a line……”(43) All the hard works deprived her of beauty and youth in the cruelty of realism.
Why didn’t she tell her friend about the truth and ask for forgiveness? I consider it the key point that shows her courage to shoulder responsibilities and adamancy to get through the hardships. She is willing to do all the heavy housework and odious cares of the kitchen. She lived in an impoverished life for ten years, which is not easy for ordinary people. The hardships of life not only changed her appearance, but also strengthened her mind. With “frowsy hair, skirt askew, and red hands”(43), she is even not recognized by her friend. But she is not a totally loser. She gains the dignity at the cost of her youth. At this moment, I could not help applauding for her.
To view the story as a whole, I think the necklace is a symbol which typifies the ecstasy about luxuries, the impractical mind of parvenu and the worship of splendor. Therefore the loss of the necklace actually stands for the loss of vanity. It serves as a trigger that awakes Mathilde's sense of responsibility, self-reliance and pragmatism. At the end of the story, when Mathilde met with her old friend, “she smiled with a joy which was proud and naive”(44). It was a feeling from the bottom of her heart which suggested Mathilde's pride of self-renascence. To some extent, I think Maupassant is conveying a deeper significance to us: Mathilde and her husband embody the dignity of the whole lower-class people living in French society whose potential virtues cannot be eclipsed by the foppish ethos of the aristocrat.
In conclusion, the loss of necklace and the ruinous debts bring Mathilde a harsh life which in turn inspire her potential virtues: the courage to shoulder responsibilities and the adamancy to get through all the hardships eventually win the dignity for herself. Mathilde is unfortunate for she lost an important necklace which brings her with the life of hardships; But she is also fortunate because she finds the true meaning of life and gain her dignity through her great endeavor.
Work CitedGuy de Maupassant. “The Necklace.” 1884. Rpt. in The International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and writing about Fiction. Ruth Spack. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994. 38-44.