Complete stylistic analysis of the short story "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
The story under analysis is written by the famous and popular French writer Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant. Guy de Maupassant is famous for his short stories, which paint a fascinating picture of French life in the 19th century. He was prolific, publishing over 300 short stories and six novels, but died at a young age after ongoing struggles with both physical and mental health.Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouements. His first published story, "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat", 1880), is often considered his masterpiece. De Maupassant’s longer works include “Une Vie” (1883) a pitiful story of the disastrous life of an innocent girl; “Mont-Oriol,” the description of the exploiting of a medicinal spring and the “promoting” of a fashionable watering-place; “Bon Ami,” the career of a handsome but heartless adventurer in financial and journalistic circles; “Pierre et Jean,” one of the most penetrating of his studies of family life; “Fort comme la mort,” and“Notre cœur” (1890). His short stories, on which his fame principally rests, deal with phases of life with which he had himself come into contact. He carried “naturalism” to the farthest point it could reach, describing life as he saw it without prejudice and usually without pity. No man ever wrote with less bias in favor of either good or evil, with less of dominating theory, philosophical, ethical, or social. His aim was to find in life materials for art, and to treat these materials without prepossession of any kind. What he pictured was seldom joyous, often ugly and even base and brutal; but his work had the vividness and precision.
The major theme of the story is the human values, the author wanted to say that people must be happy with what they have, because sometimes people's desire to be and to show yourself like you are really not can lead to the bad consequences. Everything can turn into things that you are not expected.
From the viewpoint of presentation the text is the 3rd person narrative.
The short story "Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant had three major characters. They were Mathilde Loisel, Monsieur Loisel, Madame Forestier. Primarily, the author described the characters directly. Mathilde was the protagonist of the story. All events which were occurred in the story were connected with this person. She was a pretty and charming girl. She was married and she had a loving husband. But she did not like her life. She was not satisfied with her status in the society and with the cash position of her family. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any. She always invied the rich women. The author describes Mathilde Loisel directly, for example:
"She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her".
"She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. "
"She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her."
But at the end of the story she changed completely. After losing the necklace she begun to work very hard to earn as much money as possible with the aim to pay debts: " She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money."
Moreover her appearance also changed: "Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it".Monsieur Loisel was Mathilde Loisel's husband. He was a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. He loved her wife very much and he did everything to satisfy her. Moreover he thought that she was satisfied with everything. We can judge about Monsier Loisel through his speech and his actions, for example: "Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased."
"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me . . ."
"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?"
"He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth."Madame Forestier was the rich Mathilde's friend. Mathilde went to her to borrow the necklace for the party, because she had many jewelries. Mathilde thought that all her necklaces were very expansive, but at the end of the story we saw that they are did not. For ten years Mathilde and her husband worked to pay for the necklace and Madame Forestier was really shoked when she got to know about it: - "You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"
- "Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."
- And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.
- "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs! ".
In terms of the contextual type the text is written mostly as narration waith the elements of description and the elements of dialogue. The description is presented in the text when the author shows the main characters of the story, for example:"She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education." The dialogue is presented in conversations between characters, for example:
"Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?" he asked.
"Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."
"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall."
"Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?"
"No. You didn't notice it, did you?"
"No."
Narration is dominant in the text.
From the viewpoint of composition the text is made up of the exposition, the developments of the events,the climax and denouement, and the conclusion. The story begun with the exposition, where the main characters and the scene of the action are introduced. In this part the author describes Madam Mathilde Loisel, her lifestyle, and her feelings about it. "She was very suffered and she feels deeply discontented with her lot in life". The exposition begins with the words:"She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education." and it ends with the words : " She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that only. She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after. She had a rich friend, a comrade of her convent days, whom she did not want to go and see any more, so much did she suffer as she came away. And she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress."
The development of events is occured in the text when Mathilde's husband, Mr. Loisel, comes home with some present to his wife. The present is the invitation to the one of the gratest party at the palace of the Ministry. The husband thought that Mathilde would be pleased but she is not. Madame Loisel has nothing to wear and her husband gives her some money to buy a new dress, morever these money he was reserving just to buy a gun. But he can not refuse his wife. Then Mathilde realizes that she hasn't jeweler and she borrows a one beautiful necklace from her rich friend Madame Forestier.The climax, the most intense part, takes place in the text when Mathilde loses her beautiful necklace at the party. Her husband and she are in horror. They are searching for the necklace for a long time, but they don't find it and their life turns into the life of the poor people of the lower class.
"Mme. Loisel learned the horrible life of the needy. She made the best of it, moreover, frankly, heroically. The frightful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed the servant; they changed their rooms; they took an attic under the roof." After ten years she meets Madam Forestier in the park, but Madam doesn't recognize her because Mathilde changed a lot. Mathilde tells the real story about the necklace - and this part of the story is the denouement.
The conclusion of the story begins with the words:
| “You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?” “Yes. You did not notice it, even, did you? They were exactly alike?” And she smiled with proud and naïve joy. Mme. Forester, much moved, took her by both hands:— “Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At most they were worth five hundred francs!”The conclusion of the story is not so as we expected. The Madame Forestier's necklace was not a real, it was just a fake and it coasted no more then 500 francs.
The author used a lot of stylistic devices and expressive means in the story to describe all grandness of the story, and its atmosphere.
Firstly, the author used many cases of irony in the story, for example one of the most ironic fact is that Mathilde and her husband worked hard for ten years to pay debts for necklace, that was very expensive as they thought, but at the end of the story they got to know that the necklace was not original, it was just fake. Another case of irony is Mathielde's beauty. She borrowed the necklace from her rich friend Madam Forestier to be seen more beautiful at the party and to emphasize her natural beauty, but as a result the necklace led Mathielde not to the beauty, but to poorness and awful years of life. During these years she become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households.
Moreover the author used a lot of stylistic devices to show the bright pictures of the main characters, their features, also the places and events which are in the text, for example the author used a great amount of epithets: natural delicacy, instinctive elegance, nimbleness of wit, black misery, ball dress, ruinous afreements and a lot of others.
To describe the main characters, their attitude to each other and their speech the author used
exclamation: "What do you want me to do with this?", "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?", "What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" , "What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?", "How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband, "What! . . . Impossible!", "How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!" etc;
comparison: "She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households.", "She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans".
enumeration: She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.", "She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with hapiness.", "She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure...", "She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households", "First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship".
repetition: "She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains", "She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction".
Moreover, the author used asyndeton, to make narrative more dynamic, energetic and tense, for example: "She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education", "I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks", "He had not thought about it; he stammered".
A combination of these expressive means and stylistic devices makes the author's style highly original and easily recognizable.
"The
Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is very interesting and instructive story. It teaches to love what we have and to be what we are, moreover Loisel's family is a good example of the true love. Mr. Loisel adored his wife and did everything to satisfy her, even when Mathilde got into a trouble he was with her in that hard times of their life. Mathilde was the wealthiest thing for Mr. Loisel but she did not realized it.
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