The Necklace Character Analysis

To what extent does Maupassant allow the reader to sympathize for Madame Loisel?

This essay will be an analysis on how Maupassant makes the reader feel sympathy for Madame Loisel in the piece ‘The Necklace’. ‘The Necklace’ is a story about a woman called Madame Loisel loses a necklace that she borrowed from her friend when she was set to attend a party. She ends up replacing it with a very expensive necklace, and lives in hardship for ten years. When Madame Loisel meets her friend again, she find out the necklace she lost was only a fake, and her ten years of hardship would have never happened if she told the truth to her friend. “The Necklace” is written by Guy de Maupassant. His views on women are very misogynistic and he gets criticized

When Madame Loisel wanted to buy a dress for the ball, she asked for four hundred francs from her husband to buy a dress just for one night. “But he said: ”Very well, I’ll give you four hundred francs.”” The adverb “very well” shows that Monsieur Loisel wants to use his money for his own trip he planned with his friends, but he loves his wife so much that he lets her buy a dress instead. Also, when it is Madame Loisel’s fault she loses her necklace, she expects her husband to do everything for her while she watches on. “He mortgaged the rest of his life, not knowing if he would ever be able to honour his commitments.” The noun phrase “rest of his life” shows that Monsieur Loisel is making a huge commitment and sacrifice to help his wife out. The noun phrase “ever” is a superlative. It emphasizes that Monsieur Loisel is sacrificing a lot for Madame Loisel, and that he is trying as hard as he can to help his wife. This shows that Madame Loisel treats Monsieur Loisel rather poorly, but he still tries his hardest to help her. This provokes the reader to feel sympathetic for Monsieur Loisel and unsympathetic for Madame Loisel. Furthermore, this is another instance of greed against generosity. Monsieur Loisel tries as hard as she can to find the necklace that Madame Loisel herself lost, while she

For example, when Monsieur Loisel tells Madame Loisel to borrow a necklace from Madame Forestier, she reacts as if she had completely forgotten about her rich friend. “You’re right! I never thought of that. The exclamatory here shows that Madame Loisel never considers asking her richer friend to borrow the necklace until Monsieur Loisel gives her the idea to. This could be because Madame Loisel is in a lower class than Madame Forestier, she doesn’t have much of a chance to see her old friend again. This makes the reader feel sympathetic because Madame Loisel is set aside from her friends only because of her social ranking. Also, When Madame Loisel see’s Madame Forestier after her ten years of hardship, Madame Forestier is still quite young in comparison to Madame Loisel, who has aged quite significantly after working for so long. “It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.” The tripling here is imagery to emphasize that Madame Forestier hasn’t changed beauty-wise compared to Madame Loisel. The repetition of the adverb “still” is to show that Madame Loisel could have been like Madame Forestier, but because of her having to go through all the hard work, she has had to change her appearance a lot. This provokes the reader to feel sympathetic because Madame Loisel was in the same class of