The Necklace

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The Necklace
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• Guy De Maupassant
• Published The Necklace in 1884
• Maupassant was extremely popular during his
  lifetime, and The Necklace was an instant
  success.

• Author

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• The Necklace
• Overview

• Madame Mathilde and her husband are not members
  of the upper class.
• However, she has always dreamed of being rich.

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• Literary Focus
• Themes
• Appearance vs. Reality
• Rich vs. Poor
• Generosity vs. Greed

• Madame Loisel is pretty and charming, but she is
  also unhappy with her life and believes that she
  deserves more.
• Madame Loisels belief that beautiful things and
  luxury are essential to her happiness is the
  misinformation that scars her physical beauty.
• Madame Loisels greed stands in marked contrast
  to the generosity of her husband and Madame
  Forestier.

5

• The Necklace is told by an omniscient
  third-person narrator. The narrator does have
  access to the characters thoughts.
• The necklace is the central symbol of the story.
• The necklace comes to represents Madame Loisel's
  greed and also her artificiality.

• Literary Focus
• Point of View
• Symbolism

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• Literary Focus, Cont
• Irony

• In a society that so highly values appearance, it
  is ironic that the beautiful Madame Loisel is
  excluded from society because of her class
  standing.
• The greatest irony of all, however, comes during
  the storys surprise ending.

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• Beautiful woman on the outside but has a
  superficial personality.
• Believes that she is meant for better things than
  the middle-class.
• Infatuated with superficial things
• a ball gown
• better furniture
• fancy jewelry

• Characters
• Madame Mathilde Loisel

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• Content with social situation.
• Attentive to his wife's desires.
• Acts in stark contrast to his wife generous,
  hard working, selfless.

• Characters
• Monsieur Loisel