I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not go at all. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses. You're intimate enough with her to do that. Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box, brought it back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:.
She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian gold cross set with precious stones, of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the mirror, hesitated and could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back.
She kept asking:. Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at her reflection in the mirror.
She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure. The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success.
She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced.
All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with her. She was remarked by the minister himself. She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness comprised of all this homage, admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of triumph which is so sweet to woman's heart.
She left the ball about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball. He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, the modest wraps of common life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wished to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs. But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs.
When they reached the street they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen passing at a distance. They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient night cabs which, as though they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day, are never seen round Paris until after dark.
It took them to their dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they mounted the stairs to their flat. All was ended for her. As to him, he reflected that he must be at the ministry at ten o'clock that morning. She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her glory.
But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her neck! Mathilde is a young and beautiful woman, struggling with the ordinary circumstances of her life and marriage.
When she is invited to a fancy ball with her husband, she borrows a diamond necklace from a friend. To her horror, she finds the necklace to be gone by the end of the night. The couple must now find a way to quickly replace the necklace, but the cost turns out to be terribly high.
The story has inspired film adaptations, such as the silent film The Necklace Guy de Maupassant was a prolific French writer considered a pioneer in modern short story writing. They have inspired countless film adaptations including the French-Belgian drama called A Woman's Life Author : Guy de Maupassant Publisher: W.
Credited with influencing the likes of Chekhov, Maugham, Babel, and O. Henry, Maupassant had, at the time of his death at the age of forty-two, written six novels and some three hundred short stories. Yet in English, Maupassant has, curiously, remained unappreciated by modern readers due to outdated translations that render his prose in an archaic, literal style.
In this bold new translation, Sandra Smith—the celebrated translator of Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise—brings us twenty-eight of Maupassant's essential stories and two novellas in lyrical yet accessible language that brings Maupassant into vibrant English.
In addition to her sparkling translation, Smith also imposes a structure that captures the full range of Maupassant's work. Dividing the collection into three sections that reflect his predominant themes—nineteenth-century French society, the Franco-Prussian War of —71, and the supernatural—Smith creates "an arrangement suggesting a culture of relation, of structure, of completion" Richard Howard.
In "Tales of French Life," we see Maupassant explore the broad swath of French society, not just examining the lives of the affluent as was customary for writers in his day. In the title story of the collection, "The Necklace," Maupassant crafts a devastating portrait of misplaced ambition and ruin in the emerging middle class.
This section features Maupassant's most famous novella, "Boule de Suif. While certain critics may attribute some of these stories and morbid fascination as the product of the author's fevered mind and possible hallucinations induced by late-stage syphilis, they echo the gothic horror of Poe as well as anticipate the eerie fiction of H.
The result takes readers from marriage, family, and the quotidian details of life to the disasters of war and nationalism, then to the gothic and beyond, allowing us to appreciate Maupassant in an idiom that matches our own times.
The Necklace and Other Stories enables us to appreciate Maupassant as the progenitor of the modern short story and as a writer vastly ahead of his time. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more.
To browse Academia. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free ODT. Download Free PDF. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Their native keenness, their instinctive elegance, their flexibility of mind, are their only hierarchy; and these make the daughters of the people the equals of the most lofty dames.
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 had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she have taken her friend for a thief? From then on, Madame Loisel knew the horrible life of the very poor. But she played her part heroically. The dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their maid; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.
She came to know the drudgery of housework, the odious labors of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, staining her rosy nails on greasy pots and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung to dry on a line; she carried the garbage down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping at each landing to catch her breath.
And, dressed like a commoner, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, fighting over every miserable sou. Each month they had to pay some notes, renew others, get more time.
Her husband worked every evening, doing accounts for a tradesman, and often, late into the night, he sat copying a manuscript at five sous a page.
At the end of ten years they had paid off everything, everything, at usurer's rates and with the accumulations of compound interest.
Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become strong, hard and rough like all women of impoverished households. With hair half combed, with skirts awry, and reddened hands, she talked loudly as she washed the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and thought of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she had been so beautiful and so admired. What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace?
Who knows, who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be ruined or saved! Madame Loisel felt emotional. Should she speak to her?
Yes, of course. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not? The other, astonished to be addressed so familiarly by this common woman, did not recognize her.
She stammered:. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it. It wasn't easy for us, we had very little. But at last it is over, and I am very glad. Guy de Maupassant. He stammered: "Why, the dress you go to the theatre in.
What's the matter? At last she answered hesitantly: "I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it with four hundred francs. However, he said: "Very well, I can give you four hundred francs. One evening her husband said to her: "What's the matter? I had not thought of that.
Madame Forestier went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a large box, brought it back, opened it, and said to Madame Loisel: "Choose, my dear. She kept asking: "You have nothing else? But I don't know what you like. Then she asked anxiously, hesitating: "Would you lend me this, just this?
Loisel held her back.
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