Greed in "The Necklace"

If I could do this piece over again, I would use more specific details. I would work on developing my thesis. I would also focus on one point in the story. I would check more carefully for grammatical and typing errors. Furthermore, I would complete the works cited page.

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"The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant is about a poor girl wanting to be rich. The girl's wanting to be rich causes her family tragedy in the end. Her husband does all he can to make her appear to be rich, but she is still not satisfied. She wants more than they can afford. She is being very greedy. A person being greedy can lead them to more problems than they have to begin with.

The lady's husband one day got them an invitation to a dinner, and instead of being happy, she also wanted a dress to wear. The invitation is very hard to get, but her husband manage to get one. Instead of her celebrating the opportunity, she got angry, and ask:
"what do you expect me to wear to go there?" (Literature pg8)

If she is thankful to have the opportunity to go there, she would get something out of the closet to wear. Instead she cries, and tells him to give the invitation to someone whose wife will have something nice to wear. She makes him feel guilty. Since he felt guilt, he gave her the money he saved up for summer vacation, to buy a new dress.
After the woman gets the dress, she complains about not having any jewelry to wear:
" It's awful, but I do not have any jewels to wear, not a single gem, nothing to dress up my outfit. I will look like a beggar. I’d almost rather not to go to the party." (Literature7)

Her husband tries to convince her to get something they can afford, but it does not work. She insist on having expensive gems. Her husband had given her almost all of the money they had to buy her a new dress; therefore he can not afford to buy her expensive gems. Then, he comes up with the brilliant idea to borrow some jewelry from her wealthy friend. She agreed to ask her friend.

Since she wants more than she could afford, she go to borrow a superb diamond necklace from her friend. As she tries the necklace on she is fascinated with her beautiful appearance. She asks her friend: "Could you lend me this, nothing but this?"(Literature8)

Her friend lends her the necklace, and she was all prepared for the dinner. She had fine clothes, and to top it off fine jewelry to go along with her outfit.

Since the woman is not honest, and does not tell her friend the truth about losing the necklace, it takes her ten years to pay for the necklace. The woman learns to do heavy housework, and accepts a cheap flat. In order to pay her debts off, she haves to live like a true needy person. She also puts her husband in a struggle to pay the necklace off. Finally, she discovers what living as a needy person really feels like. She can no longer afford a maid, therefore she dismiss her. She hand washes their dirty laundry, she even hangs them out on the line to dry. She has to grocery shop herself, with her basket under her arm. She can not even dress as a middle class person anymore. She carry her trash to the streets, and her water back home. If Mathline would have went to her friend and explained to her what happened to the necklace, she would have saved herself years of hard work.

She did not tell her friend, that she lost the necklace and can not afford to replace it. Instead, she covers it up, and buys a more expensive one. She slaves for ten, long, hard years to pay off the debts from the new necklace. Her beautiful appearance turns into a worn out, hard worker's look. After ten years of long, hard, work she finally told her friend how she lost the necklace. She explained how she bought a new necklace, and worked so hard to cover up her irresponsible actions. Her friend laughed at her and tells her the necklace is not real. The necklace is only costume jewelry. She also told her the necklace was only worth five-hundred francs. If she would have been honest she would have known that the necklace was not worth as much as she thought it was worth. She would have saved herself a lot of money also.

Mathline's greediness for wealth caused her family complete chaos. If she would have accepted the fact that she was just a middle class person, she would have turned outin a better situation in the end. She insists on appearing wealthy, and it caused her family to become truly needy. Mathline was living well, but she wanted to live great. She was able to afford a maid, when she was living middle class. She became the maid in the end.



Works Cited
Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. "The Necklace." 09 June, 2007.