Gravelling Freytag’s Triangle of De

Maupassant's The Necklace and

Implications About the Plot Development

Lebanese University, Fifth Branch

Genres of Writing

Submitted to Professor Elise Saad

On June 2021
The progressive plot, in The Necklace, does not only include the properties of Freytag’s
triangle of events: the basic situation, rising actions, climax, falling actions and
denouement, but also is shaped with the two basic modes and with proleptic time
(bisd303.org; Barry,2002). Plot also reveals the forms of characters and its dimensions
through thoughts, actions and stream of consciousness (maywoods.org).

With the support of Ryan’s possible worlds and the stream of consciousness, the readers
are given glimpses in Liosel's mind which graves for materialist luxury. She is
trapped ,from the very beginning , in the fantasy proposition of luxury and transforms
the proposition into imaginary physical properties which are identified through the
senses which contrasts with the dull room and pale furniture:

“She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every
luxury. She suffered from the
poverty of her dwelling, from the worn walls, the abraded chairs, the
ugliness of the stuffs. All these things,
which another woman of her caste would not even have noticed, tortured
her and made her indignant. The
sight of the little girl from Brittany who did her humble housework awoke
in her desolated regrets and
distracted dreams. She let her mind dwell on the quiet vestibules, hung
with Oriental tapestries, lighted by
tall lamps of bronze, and on the two tall footmen in knee breeches who
dozed in the large armchairs, made
drowsy by the heat of the furnace. She let her mind dwell on the large
parlors, decked with old silk, with
their delicate furniture, supporting precious bric-a-brac, and on the
coquettish little rooms, perfumed,
prepared for the five o’clock chat with the most intimate friends, men well
known and sought after, whose
attentions all women envied and desired.”

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Similarly, her husband’s emotional state is not better than hers regarding
the invitation to the party:
“Everybody is after them; they are greatly sought for and not many are
given to
the clerks. You will see there all the official world.”

Both are depicted craving for luxury between a wife who is dancing with
drunken joy and enjoying her beauty as a “triumph” in the party after her
husband who sought for the invitation and who sacrificed his savings for
her rather than to save them for shooting in the summer.

This introduction to the characters informs the readers that they belong to
the middle working class and they cannot afford easily for a luxurious life.
The rising actions are resulted from her continuing complaining about
what to wear among the rich. The rising actions are buying the dress,
borrowing the diamond necklace from a friend and attending the party
until the necklace is lost which is the highest point: the climax which
arouses the suspense and dive the reader to continue reading it.

It upsets the readers how the main characters managed to solve the
problem in limited and naïve perspective and why did they write the
necklace clap had broken to her friend and chose not face their fear which
is telling her friend the truth until they pay the expensive costs of the
necklace and become poorer and they aged due to long working hours.

The diegetic and mimetic falling actions are upsetting until they crush the
readers and the characters with the bitter truth and the late discovery:

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the Mme. Forester, much moved, took her by both hands: —
“Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At most they were worth five
hundred francs!”

The plot begins with the hamartia which means the fault or sin of the
character. The hamartia or the tragic flaw in the story is paying
extravagant costs related luxury whether buying a dress which is depicted
in diegesis:

“I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me that with four hundred francs I
might do it.”
He grew a little pale, for he was reserving just that sum to buy a gun and
treat himself to a little
shooting, the next summer, on the plain of Nanterre, with some friends who
used to shoot larks there on
Sundays.
But he said:—
“All right. I will give you four hundred francs. But take care to have a
pretty dress.”

or replacing the necklace which is depicted in mimesis :

In a shop in the Palais Royal, they found a diamond necklace that seemed
to them absolutely like the
one they were seeking. It was priced forty thousand francs. They could
have it for thirty-six.
They begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days. And they made a
bargain that he should take it
back for thirty-four thousand, if the first was found before the end of
February.

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These scenes caused the main characters to give their own different
dimensions as they breathe and change through moral financial and social
tortures; they are dynamic and round characters.

The imbalance between the basic needs and the luxury is achieved
especially after they are pushed below the middle class into the poor class,
the late self-recognition or the late anagnorisis to Mdm. Loisel :

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows?
Who knows? How singular
life is, how changeable! What a little thing it takes to save you or to lose
you.