The Necklace (Kate Chopin)

327 Words2 Pages
What does the necklace represent? By using the symbol of the diamond necklace, Maupassant tried to represent Mathilde’s pride and materialistic attitude, in stronger words-her vanity. In the beginning of the story, the diamond necklace reflects Mathilde’s imaginary world, where she always desired “to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after,” and later in the story, the same necklace developed into a burden. By the end of the story, Mathilde discovered that the necklace was worth almost nothing. With the ironic twist at the end, the author, all in all, perhaps wanted to put forward the idea that vanity ruins us all. “The Necklace” began with the description of Mathilde’s misery that “she suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries”. Her vanity was clearly portrayed through her desire for expensive goods to accentuate her beauty more.Her desire for expensive materials, here vanity, made her unhappy and never satisfied with the life that her husband provided her. Never acknowledging her husband’s love for her, she denounced his immense appreciation for her ordinary cooking and his endeavor to manage an invitation to the Minister’s party. Mathilde directly exposed her vanity when she fell all over herself to show off how pretty both she and the necklace were, and she lost herself in the fleeting moment at the minister’s party.She suddenly came back to the world only after losing the necklace. It was eventually when she started facing the cost of buying another similar necklace, she realized the cost of her preoccupation with appearance, her vanity. Through the necklace, Maupasasnt successfully revealed the cost of Mathilde’s vanity and confirmed that vanity is worthless. The cost of the vanity to Mathilde and her husband were ten years slavery life and Loisel’s beauty, only to discover at the end that what she
Open Document