Mathilde Loisel: One Unhappy Woman - Essay Example

of the of the Mathilde Loisel: One Unhappy Woman “The Necklace” revolves around Mathilde Loiselwho lives in a time where social classes are distinctly classified and the rich enjoy all the pleasures and live a luxurious life. Loisel, belonging to the middle class gets allured towards the lavishness of the upper class. Although she is well aware that she could do nothing to change her fate she continuously daydreams about “silent antechambers hung with.whose attention they all desire” and fails to get satisfied with her current life.

Born in a poor family, Loisel considers it a mistake of the fate that she had been denied a better life. Her nature is overwhelmed by extreme greed and jealousy that isolates her from her friends because she is embarrassed and feels jealous of the expensive clothes that her rich friends wear. Her greed for grandeur had stripped her of the feelings of acceptance and gratefulness and filled her with jealousy and a burning desire to achieve the fairytale-like life which the rich lived. Mathilde believed that she was destined for “frocks, jewels, elegant dinners, and admirers” and the life of poverty which she was living caused her great distress.

She feels desolation over her fate and would weep for days “from chagrin form regret, from despair and disappointment.” Loisel is a materialistic woman who believes that money is the key to happiness. She was born in a poor family and is not satisfied with the social class which she belongs to. Throughout the novel we see her expressing her discomfort over her poverty and yearning to get included in the upper class by any means. Peer pressure plays a major role in attracting Loisel towards a luxurious life.

She is lured towards the luxuries enjoyed by the rich and this makes it more difficult for her to be happy with her life. From the beginning, we see her whining and complaining about the life she is living. Instead of reciprocating his husband’s love, she complains about all the things he cannot provide her. Even when he sacrifices his savings to get her a new dress for the party, she was still discontented and wanted to have a jewel. She meets Madame Forester and even there she picks the best of the jewels: a diamond necklace .

We see elements of narcissism present in her nature. Throughout the novel, Loisel thinks that she should belong to an upper class of the society and should be treated as an eye candy by everyone. She always appears to be grumbling about her surroundings indicating her dissatisfaction with her life. “She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn-out appearance of the chairs, and the ugliness of the draperies.” In the novel, the party is the only time when she is happy because she gets everything there what she had wished for: luxury, lavishness, admiration from the men and becoming a centre of attraction.

In her new dress and borrowed necklace, she for once in her life enjoys the experience of living like the rich. She enjoys the party and is oblivious to everything including her husband who dozes off in an empty room while she has the time of her life. In the morning, when she looks in the mirror, it dawns upon her that the necklace was missing. The couple tries to find it all over the city but in vain. They are forced to take loans to buy a necklace and spend the next ten years in poverty which puts Loisel in a tougher and harsher life.

Loisel turns from a beautiful lady to a rough and aged woman whereas Madam Forester is still the same. The climax of the novel occurs when she meets Madame Forester and gets to know that the necklace for which she had ruined ten years of her life was a fake. The pleasure of one night had jeopardized her happiness for the next ten years of her life. If Loisel had been driven by better sense of judgment and had been grateful for what she had in life, such a fate would never have befallen her. The novel provides an advice and a message for its readers that one should always be happy and satisfied with his life and that greed only brings misery and hardships in life.