‘The Necklace” The character of Mathilde in Guy De Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace”, can be defined as a dynamic character; one that undergoes a change or develops as a result of the action of the plot. Mathilde starts out in the story as a self-indulgent woman obsessed with her dreams of material possessions. She seems to undergo a change in character, however, while working off the debts she and her husband obtained when they replaced Mrs. Forrestier’s necklace. At the end of the story, it seems as though Mathilde’s character has changed for the better. She comes off as being more mature and reasonable, and it is easier for the reader to find her likable.
In the beginning of the story, Mathilde can be seen by the reader as the unhappy victim of vanity and desire. She is described in the beginning as “a simple person, without the money to dress well” (5).
She appears to be unhappy with her possessions because she considers them to be cheap, and she often dreams of nicer things; “‘She dreamed of the perfume of dainty private rooms’, ‘She dreamed of expensive banquets'” (5).
Even though most women in Mathilde’s social class would never be bothered by the lack of fine material possessions, it seems as though she is obsessed with them.
It’s as though she refuses to be happy with or even to accept the standard of living she and her husband maintain. When Mathilde’s husband, Loisel, brings home an invitation to the Ministry of Education dinner, it only upsets her when in reality it should have made her happy. All she can think about is how she has nothing to wear, and how the other women may look down on her. She tells Loisel to give the invitation to “someone else at the office whose wife will have nicer clothes” (6) than her own. Mathilde’s vanity becomes very apparent by her willingness to spend her husband’s summer vacation money on a dress that she may wear only one time.
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Even after she has obtained the dress, she still remains unhappy because she has no nice jewelry to wear with the dress, she tells Loisel that she ” ll “look like a beggar” (7).
He suggests that she borrow jewelry from her wealthy friend Mrs. Forrestier, and so she borrows a “diamond” necklace to go with her dress. Mathilde used the occasion of the dinner to try and make her unrealistic dreams of wealth and respect come true. It seems as though she has succeeded when, at the dinner, she “danced joyfully, passionately, intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing but the moment, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, on cloud nine with happiness made up of all the admiration, of all the aroused desire, of this victory so complete” (8).
The loss of Mrs.
Forrestier’s necklace brought on a series of events in the story that would eventually lead to the change in Mathilde’s character. Loisel and Mathilde both had to give up any luxuries they may have had, and work long hours in low paying jobs in order to pay off their debt from replacing the necklace. Mathilde “soon discovered the horrible life of the needy” (10), she washed dishes and clothes, and ran countless errands involving hard labor. She learned to do the “heavy housework, dirty kitchen jobs” (10).
It seemed as though, by working to pay off her debt, Mathilde was learning the importance of every penny she earned.
She could no longer dream about the gloriousness of wealthy possessions, the reality of her debt was all that occupied her time and thoughts. She “dressed in cheap house dresses, she went to the fruit dealer, the grocer, the butchers, with her basket under her arms, haggling, insulting, defending her measly cash penny by penny” (11).
The Essay on The Necklace Character Sketch
The Necklace Character Sketch Not once in the whole story does Mathilda ever thank her husband. She is concerned only with herself. Mathilda's selfish greediness is also shown in her attitudes toward other people. She has one acquaintance mentioned, Madame Forrester. Matilda is such a type person in our society. A woman not thankful for what she has. One might perceive that Matilda and her husband ...
She continued to live this life for ten more years, until they had paid back everything- even the “extra charges imposed by loan sharks and the accumulation of compound interest” (11).
It is not until the end of the story, after all of debts have been paid off, that the reader can finally see Mathilde as a woman of integrity; she essentially becomes a woman that the reader can find admirable. She is described now as “looking old”, and “the strong, hard, and rude woman of poor households” (11).
Even though she has aged and become “rougher”, the reader can find her admirable because she has behaved heroically in paying off her debt.
She has, in essence, paid off the debt that was the consequence of her former vanity and desire for things that were realistically unattainable. Even after Mathilde finds out the necklace had never been real, and that it may to her seem pointless to have worked so hard for ten years; the reader can see that the hard work and suffering has brought out the best in Mathilde’s character. In Guy De Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace”, the character Mathilde endures ten years of suffering and hard work, but becomes a better person because of it. She is a dynamic character, a character that undergoes a change for the better as a result of ten years of hardship and dedication.
But even in the end, she cannot completely shed her old ways, as she still “sometimes” dreams of “that evening so long ago, of that party, where she had been so beautiful and admired”.
