Response Blog 10/18

    "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is written in 3rd person omniscient, set in France at an unnamed time period. The point of view is chosen to give us a fairly unbiased view of how the people in the story act and to showcase their thoughts at crucial moments. Most of it is focused on the protagonist but the husband and others are occasionally used.
  The protagonist is Madame Loisel, a woman of limited means who longs for riches, wealth, and luxury. Her feelings of self-worth depend heavily on what others think of her, if they believe she is charming or elegant or wealthy. This is the internal conflict at the beginning of the story. Her pride continues to affect her life throughought the rest of the story. The inciting incident of the story is when her husband brings home an invitation to a company occasion at the Ministry. Madame Loisel is convinced she won't be presentable unless she has a very nice dress, which her husband sacrifices 400 francs for, and then still not satisfied, she prevails upon her friend to borrow a necklace. When this necklace is lost, both her and her husband seek to replace it with an exact replica. Here the conflict could have been resolved by speaking to the friend about the issue, but pride prevents them from admitting they lost the necklace. They end up paying 36,000 francs after taking out loans and mortgaging, and it takes them ten years of hard work to repay it all, at the end of which they are both changed by their hardship. The twist at the end--that the necklace was an imitation worth 500 francs at the most--really shows how much of their own misery they could have prevented had Madame Loisel swallowed her pride and spoken to her friend about the issue.
  An interesting note, perhaps insignificant, is the possible symbolism of the street they live on, the Rue des Martyrs, or "Road of Martyrs." This could relate to Madame Loisel's "martyr complex" of being long-suffering and dealing with her "poverty" despite her wishes for wealth and high society.