Guy de Maupassant was a master story teller , who was a French. Almost all of his writings are available in English translation and are always a pleasure to read. THE NECKLACE is a story, I am never tired of reading again and again.
Mathilde Loisel is a beautiful and charming lady of humble parentage and is married to Monsieur Loisel , a Clerk. Though leading a comfortable life with a caring and loving husband, she is not satisfied with her life and strongly feels that destiny has not been fair to her . She hopelessly dreams of a kind of life that riches and status afford. It is not without a lurking sense of envy that she faces her friend Madame Frostier who is rich and enjoys higher status and stature.There is an invitation to a party from the Minister of Education department , where Monsieur Loisel serves. This is reason enough to the peevish Mathilde to fret , fume and sulk that she has no proper dress to wear for he party. Her husband always ready to please her and do his bit for her offers and buys her a new dress and suggests that she wears flowers instead of jewelry which he can ill afford. At last he suggests to her to borrow a diamond necklace from her rich friend Madame Frostier. Madame Frostier gives her a diamond necklace to wear for the party. Mathilde, beautiful and charming as she is , easily becomes the cynosure of all eyes,and every young man wants to dance with her. Mathilde immensely enjoys her newfound stature and is literally on the tops, while her husband retires to a corner , to save himself from the embarrassment of being seen wearing an old coat .
The party is over and the couple returns home hiring a cab. Unfortunately Mathilde finds that the necklace is missing .This is a bolt from the blue for the couple as all frantic efforts to locate and find the necklace fail.Since the necklace is to be returned in any case, they find a necklace resembling the lost one which costs a whopping thirty six thousand Franks , much more than the Loisels have in their savings. A loan is raised , necklace is purchased and given to the Frostiers. It requires a full decade of hard and extra work to repay the loan and all this takes its toll on the couple’s heath and appearance. Having paid up the loan , the couple feels somewhat relieved.
Mathilde and Madame Frostier meet by chance and Mathilde relates the story of having to incur a debt to pay for the purchase replacement of the lost diamond necklace. A rude shock awaits Mathilde in the form of being told By Madame Frostier that the necklace was not real diamond but an imitation piece which cost only five hundred Franks.
The story carries a few lessons .
-Do not crave for the things, you cannot easily have and learn to live within your means.
-All that glitters is not gold as in the case of the imitation jewelry.
-The rich donot always have genuine things, they also possess fakes and are also a pretentious lot.
Really a master piece by Guy de Maupassant !
Mathilde Loisel is a beautiful and charming lady of humble parentage and is married to Monsieur Loisel , a Clerk. Though leading a comfortable life with a caring and loving husband, she is not satisfied with her life and strongly feels that destiny has not been fair to her . She hopelessly dreams of a kind of life that riches and status afford. It is not without a lurking sense of envy that she faces her friend Madame Frostier who is rich and enjoys higher status and stature.There is an invitation to a party from the Minister of Education department , where Monsieur Loisel serves. This is reason enough to the peevish Mathilde to fret , fume and sulk that she has no proper dress to wear for he party. Her husband always ready to please her and do his bit for her offers and buys her a new dress and suggests that she wears flowers instead of jewelry which he can ill afford. At last he suggests to her to borrow a diamond necklace from her rich friend Madame Frostier. Madame Frostier gives her a diamond necklace to wear for the party. Mathilde, beautiful and charming as she is , easily becomes the cynosure of all eyes,and every young man wants to dance with her. Mathilde immensely enjoys her newfound stature and is literally on the tops, while her husband retires to a corner , to save himself from the embarrassment of being seen wearing an old coat .
The party is over and the couple returns home hiring a cab. Unfortunately Mathilde finds that the necklace is missing .This is a bolt from the blue for the couple as all frantic efforts to locate and find the necklace fail.Since the necklace is to be returned in any case, they find a necklace resembling the lost one which costs a whopping thirty six thousand Franks , much more than the Loisels have in their savings. A loan is raised , necklace is purchased and given to the Frostiers. It requires a full decade of hard and extra work to repay the loan and all this takes its toll on the couple’s heath and appearance. Having paid up the loan , the couple feels somewhat relieved.
Mathilde and Madame Frostier meet by chance and Mathilde relates the story of having to incur a debt to pay for the purchase replacement of the lost diamond necklace. A rude shock awaits Mathilde in the form of being told By Madame Frostier that the necklace was not real diamond but an imitation piece which cost only five hundred Franks.
The story carries a few lessons .
-Do not crave for the things, you cannot easily have and learn to live within your means.
-All that glitters is not gold as in the case of the imitation jewelry.
-The rich donot always have genuine things, they also possess fakes and are also a pretentious lot.
Really a master piece by Guy de Maupassant !
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