The Necklace

The short story, "The Necklace," portrays the lives of two run-of-the-mill middle class couple and is told in omniscient limited point of view. The main character, Madame Loisel, always feels ashamed of the life she is living and feels she deserves to live a fancier lifestyle. The plots gets set into motion when Mr. Loisel gets tickets to an elegant dinner. His wife becomes upset because she doesn't have a proper dress to wear to an event like this. After Mr. Loisel gives up his $400 for Madame Loisel to buy an elegant dress, she still isn't satisfied. She now wants jewelry to wear to the dinner, as well. He suggests borrowing jewels from her friend, Madame Forrester. Madame Loisel borrows a beautiful necklace from her friend and wears it the night of the dinner. After having a terrific evening, Madame Loisel begins undressing and notices the diamond necklace is gone. This was the climax of the story. The necklace was nowhere to be found. The Loisel's borrowed money from friends and neighbors to pay for a necklace to replace the one borrowed from Madame Forrester. It took them ten years to pay off all of the money they borrowed and they lived in poverty all the while. Once the debt was paid off, Madame Loisel ran into Madame Forrester and decided to tell her about what really happened. It turns out that Madame Forrester's original necklace was a fake and only worth about 500 francs.
The underlying message in this story is to be happy with what you have. Even though life can seem so tough at times, there is so many more things that could go wrong. Just by being unsatisified with what she had, Madame Loisel ended up ruining her and her husband's life. This story was entertaining for me to read because as a woman, I can relate to Madame Loisel's desire to live a fancy life and be admired. However, I hope that I wouldn't become so possessed by greed that I would end up ruining my life, as well as my significant other's life.