Analysis of “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant

Everyone can think of someone they know that isn’t very grateful for what they have, and
always wants better. Guy de Maupassant was primarily known for his novels and short stories
about “characters as unhappy victims of their greed, desire, or vanity but presents even the
most sordid details of their lives without sermonizing” (Colombia 1). This is the base for his
short story “The Necklace” which is about a woman who is unhappy with her life and
marriage, and the consequences of her greed. Guy de Maupassant uses stereotypes and great
detail to tell the story of her greed, misfortune and misunderstanding.

“She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of
destiny, born in a family of clerks” (Maupassant 38). Maupassant makes clear in the very first
sentence of his story “The Necklace” that his main character, Madame Liosel, most likely
feels as if though the path of her life was a mistake by destiny. He points out that she was
raised in a family of clerks, and then later says that she also married a clerk. She always
dreamed about wearing jewels, beautiful gowns, being surrounded by silver tapestries and
rich company. Maupassant tells us she has a house servant, “The sight of the little Breton
peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets…” (38) which shows that she
isn’t entirely poor and is most likely middle class. The poor people of the time could never
afford a house servant. He also describes her husband, who is entirely the opposite of
Madame Liosel. He is very content with the life they live, and wants to make his wife happy.
So in order to do so, he manages to get an invitation addressed to him and his wife to an
exclusive, high end ball Larabee 2

and his wife only threw it onto the table and was upset. Most women would have been
ecstatic, but she was more concerned about the fact that her dress wasn’t expensive enough,
and that she had no jewels to wear along with it. Maupassant continues to show Madame
Liosel’s ungratefulness, as she tells him to give away the invitation, and then asks for four
hundred francs in order to buy a new dress instead. Although he was saving his money to buy
a new gun, he gives her the 400 francs and she buys a dress for the ball.

“His characters inhabit a world of material desires and sensual appetites in which lust, greed,
and ambition are the driving forces, and any higher feelings are either absent or doomed to
cruel disappointment” (Turnell 1). In Turnell’s biography he describes Maupassant’s short
story characters. Madame Liosel had already been ungrateful towards her husband for getting
her an invitation as well as being given money for a brand new dress. But Maupassant takes
her greed even further when she insists to her husband that she cannot go because she has no
jewels to wear, and he then suggests that she borrow some from her friend Madame Forestier.
When she goes to her friend’s house to borrow her jewels, she repeatedly asks for better
jewels until she finds one that is extravagant and looked very expensive. At the ball
Maupassant describes her as “She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling and
crazy with joy” (Maupassant 40). She was happy because she felt glamorous and rich, which
is highly ironic as to what happens after the ball. When she arrived home and began to take
off the wraps that she thought made her look poor, she realized she no longer was wearing
the necklace. She tells her husband and he then hurries off to back track and find the
necklace. After checking the cab company, the police station and everywhere else, he came
back empty handed. They then went to every jeweler to see how much it would cost them to
replace the necklace, and Madame Liosel had written to her friend to tell her that she had
broken the clasp and was getting it replaced. After a lot of searching they finally found the
jewels that looked like the ones she lost, only to find out they were worth 40,000 Larabee 3

francs but could get it for 36,000 francs. After borrowing money and using his savings,
Madame Liosel’s husband bought the jewels. Madame Liosel finally returns them to Madame
Forestier and began to repay her great debt for the necklace.

“She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen. She
washed dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen,
the shirts, and the dishcloths…” (Maupassant 42). Maupassant portrays Madame Liosel as
being poor, doing hard housework and “dressed like a woman of the people”. She was
insulted and miserable, and life went on that way for ten years before they had their debt paid
off. He uses descriptive words such as “rosy” nails and also emphasizes the difficulty of the
housework. This is highly contrasted to the Madame Liosel before losing the necklace, who
used to have a servant that did the housework for her. She used to feel bad for the “little
Breton peasant”, but now is doing the same work that she did. When Madame Liosel sees
Madame Forestier she is worn and old, and Madame Forestier hardly noticed her. When
Mme. Liosel explains why she looks this way and explains that it’s because she lost the
necklace, Mme. Forestier looks shocked and tells her that the necklace she lent her was only
worth 500 francs because it was a fake, yet Mme. Liosel bought her a real one to replace it.
This is highly ironic which is characteristic of Maupassant, Madame Liosel was highly
ungrateful for the life that she had, and paid for it by working to repay her debt for ten years.

According to Turnell’s biography of Maupassant, “The lucid purity of Maupassant's French

and the precision of his imagery are in fact the two features of his work that most account for
its success.” (Turnell 1). Maupassant used great detail to describe his characters and their
conflicts, and was known to write very great novels and short stories about the common
people dealing with greed and trying to defy its consequences. His stories will always pose a
moral, which in “The Necklace” is to always be happy with what you have, and that destiny
is impossible to defy.

Works Cited
"Guy De Maupassant." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2011): 1. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 15 July 2012. Martin, Turnell, and Dumesnil René. "Maupassant,
Guy De." Britannica Biographies (2012): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web. 15 July 2012
Maupassant, Guy de. “The Necklace.” Ed. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto and William E.
Cain. Boston: Longman, 2011. 38-43. Print.