Character Analysis of The Necklace Narrative

This article provides a character analysis of the narrative The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. It discusses the characters of Mathilde Loisel, Monsieur Loisel, and Madame Forestier.

Running Head: CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Name

1CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
According to Valerie, Guy de Mauppassant’s enriching and beautifully crafted narrative piece
“The Necklace” has very strong and appealing characterization which altogether helps to bring in
proper justification to the narrative.
The most significant character or the protagonist of the narrative is Mathilde Loisel. A
woman with beauty but worn out in the tussle of trying to make her life seem something which is
far from the reality she lives in. According to Charles, despite being promised with a comfortable
living and a loving husband she is blind in the rage and jealousy having more wealth and
fortunes than her friends. This desire of having more and more constantly left her in pain and
suffering. According to Raymond the author has portrayed a very sensitive aspect of emotion
through the character sketch of Mathilde Loisel and that is how greed and over ambitiousness
often lead to destruction and materialistic joy can never promise utmost satisfaction nor create a
room for permanent happiness. The only moment when Mathilde is genuinely happy is on the
night of the party when she appears all decked up in borrowed the diamond necklace from her
friend Madae Forestier and an attire which helps her finally cherish the feeling of belonging to
the wealthy world, the only thing she aspires to. Amidst all the show and pomp Mathilde
completely becomes oblivious of the reality, for cherishing these momentary pleasures and
brings her own misfortune and sufferings. The narrative largely emphasizes how one wrong
decision leads to years of suffering. Losing the diamond necklace in the spur of the moment
made Mathilde realize how materialistic joy can never ever last longer and for her one single
mistake she had to compensate for the next ten years. It completely ruined her peaceful and
happy marriage.

2CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
According to Geile, Monsieur Loisel is the husband of Mathilde Loisel and strikingly
different both in his approach towards life and towards his love, his wife. He is completely
overwhelmed with simple pleasures of life, he is very much concerned with his wife’s
unhappiness and continuously tries to give her what she desires. However the hunger and greed
had made Mathilde so blind that she never addressed the love of his husband. Monsieur Loisel
never really understood what could actually make Mathilde happy. It is of no doubt that the
eagerness and extreme willingness of Monsieur Loisel to always please Mathilde no matter what
she asked for ultimately brings in the downfall for both of them. As she complaints of not having
any proper jewelry to wear in the party, her husband asks her to borrow one from her dear friend
with one single intention as usual which was to make her wife happy. However there is yet
another shade of his character which has been portrayed by the author and that is being skillful
and resourceful in chalking out a plan when her wife had lost the diamond necklace. He seems to
be very sorted even in such a tensed and furious situation and thinks of replacing it with another
necklace. Though it did cost him ten long years of extreme hard work and sacrifice of many
more of his dreams but what gives him strength is his selfless love for his wife and for her
happiness he was ready to take it all.
Madame Forestier
Madame Forestier and Mathilde have known each other for a while from the time of their
convent days. She is the wealthy friend of Mathilde. Every time her friend Mathilde visits her,
she is consumed with the feeling of jealousy for all the wealth her friend possessed. Mathilde has
always been unhappy for she could hardly have the luxuries that her friends were having
(Nurmalasari and Samanik,). Even though Mathilde was bitterly jealous of Madame Forestier,

3CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
she was tender-hearted towards Mathilde and treated Mathilde with similar kindness. In the story
madame Forestier is kind, helpful and a true friend who is envied by her friend Mathilda. The
kind behaviour of Madame Forestier only made Mathilde feel unfortunate and painful. For the
party, Madame Forestier lends her diamond necklace to Mathilde as she is a person one can turn
to when something fabulous to wear is needed. When Mathilde returns her the necklace, she
doesn’t even inspect the necklace.
After returning the necklace, they do not meet again until ten years later. Certainly, Mathilde was
too ashamed of being seen by her friend in the poverty she was living. She was even afraid of
explaining her friend about the way the necklace changed her life. When she became aware of
the fact that Mathilde wasted her life trying to pay for a replacement necklace, she was horrified.
The original necklace was in actual was of worth nothing since it contained fake diamonds
(Gale).

4CHARATER ANALYSIS OF THE NARRATIVE THE NECKLACE
References
Dugan, John Raymond. Illusion and reality: a study of descriptive techniques in the
works of Guy de Maupassant. Vol. 59. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014.
Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace. Gale,
Cengage Learning, 2015.
Kuhn, Gielle. "Exploring French Short Stories: Guy de Maupassant's Writing Style and
Social Justice." (2016).
May, Charles. The short story: the reality of artifice. Routledge, 2013.
Nurmalasari, Uning, and Samanik Samanik. "A Study of Social Stratification In France
In 19th Century as Portrayed inThe Necklace ‘La Parure’Short Story by Guy De Maupassant."
English Language and Literature International Conference (ELLiC) Proceedings. Vol. 2. 2018.
Shaw, Valerie. The short story: a critical introduction. Routledge, 2014.