The Necklace

Characters:

• Matilda Loisel
• Mr Loisel, Matilda’s husband
• Jeanne Forestier, Matilda’s friend

Summary of the Story

This story is about a lower middle-class married woman, named Matilda Loisel, who suffers miserably for pretending to be a rich and high class woman. Matilda is young and pretty but was born into a family of clerks and is now married to a petty clerk who earns just enough to fulfill the couple’s basic needs, and not enough for luxuries. She feels that she doesn’t deserve to live a poor life which she has now, and so remains always unhappy.  

One day her husband and she get invited to a party at Education Minister’s residence. Her husband Mr Loisel gives her money to buy a party dress, but she doesn’t have any ornaments to wear in the party. So, she borrows a diamond necklace from her rich friend, Jeanne Forestier. In the party she dances very enthusiastically and everybody praises her for her beauty and grace. But while returning from the party, she loses the necklace. For days the couple search for the necklace but don’t find it. Then, Matilda has to return identical diamond necklace to her friend, which her husband buys from a jewellery shop borrowing money from his friends. Now, in order to pay the debt, Matilda works hard to earn and save little by little, and thus lives miserably for ten years until all the debt is paid off. One day, when she meets her friend Jeanne on the way and tells her the reason of her misery, her friend reveals that the necklace Matilda lost was a false one which did not cost much. Poor Malitda has toiled hard for ten years just in vain.

Theme: The consequence of dissatisfaction and pretension

(Source of the Story: Popular Short Stories by Guy de Maupassant in Board of Editors, OUP)