The Necklace

"The Necklace"

La Parure, illustration of the title page of the Gil

Blas, 8 October 1893

Author Guy de Maupassant

Original title "La Parure"

Country France

Genre(s) Short story

Publication date 1884

"The Necklace" or "The Diamond

Necklace" (French: La Parure) is an 1884
short story by French writer Guy de
Maupassant. It is known for its twist
ending (Ironic ending), which was a
hallmark of de Maupassant's style. The
story was first published on 17 February
1884 in the French newspaper Le
Gaulois.[1]

The story has been adapted to film and

television several times.

Plot
Madame Mathilde Loisel has always
imagined herself an aristocrat, despite
being born into a lower-middle-class
family (which she describes as an
"accident of fate"). She marries a low-paid
clerk who tries his best to make her happy
but has little to give. Through lots of
begging at work, her husband is able to get
an invitation for the both of them to the
Ministry of Education party. Mathilde
refuses to go, for she has nothing to wear,
and wishes not to be embarrassed.

Her husband is upset to see her

displeasure and, using all the money that
he was saving to buy a hunting rifle, gives
Mathilde 400 francs to use. Mathilde buys
a dress but is still unhappy because she
lacks jewels to wear with it. The couple
does not have much money left, so her
husband suggests that she should buy
flowers to wear with it. After Mathilde
disagrees, he suggests borrowing
something from her friend, Madame
Jeanne Forestier. Mathilde borrows
Madame Forestier's fanciest piece, a huge
diamond necklace. After attending the
party, Mathilde discovers that she has lost
the necklace. She tries to find a quick way
to replace it. She goes to a shop and buys
a similar necklace for 36,000 francs. The
couple sells everything they own and must
secure loans at high interest rates to pay
for the necklace.

Ten years later, while walking along the

Champs-Élysées, she suddenly sees
Madame Forestier, who barely recognizes
her in her somewhat shabby state. As the
women are talking, Mathilde recounts the
story of losing and replacing the necklace,
and that it was because of Madame
Forestier that she has lived so terribly the
past ten years. Horrified, Madame
Forestier takes Mathilde's hands,
explaining that her original necklace was a
fake or "made of paste", and was worth
nothing more than 500 francs.
Themes
One of the themes within "The Necklace"
is the dichotomy of reality vs. appearance.
Madame Loisel is beautiful on the outside,
but inside she is discontented with her
less-than-wealthy lifestyle. This reinforces
the idea that wealth means happiness.
Mathilde is gripped by a greed that
contrasts with her husband's kind
generosity. She believes that material
wealth will bring her joy, and her pride
prevents her from admitting to Madame
Forestier that she is not rich, and that she
has lost the necklace she borrowed.
Because of her pride and obsession with
wealth, Mathilde loses years of her life and
spends all of her savings on replacing the
necklace, only to find out that the original
necklace was a fake to begin with; a
falsely wealthy appearance, just like
Madame Loisel herself.[2]

The story demonstrates the value of

honesty; if Mathilde had been honest to
Madame Forestier, she'd likely have been
able to easily replace the necklace and
enjoy the prosperity she wanted but never
had.

Adaptations and other

influence
The following are direct adaptations of
"The Necklace":

The Diamond Necklace (1921), a British

silent film directed by Denison Clift and
starring Milton Rosmer, Jessie Winter,
and Warwik Ward
A String of Pearls (《一串珍珠 》)
(1926), a Chinese film directed by Li
Zeyuan[3]
"The Necklace" (1949), the first episode
of the NBC-TV series Your Show Time
(producer Stanley Rubin won the first-
ever Emmy Award for this episode)
 Mathilde (2008), a stage musical by the
Irish composer Conor Mitchell[4]
" යම මාලය" (Diyamanthi Maalaya),
a translation by K. G. Karunathilake[5]

The following works were inspired in part

by "The Necklace":

"Paste" (1899), a short story by Henry

James in which the twist ending is
reversed[6]
"Mr. Know-All" (1925) and "A String of
Beads" (1943), short stories by
Somerset Maugham that both revolve
around the price of a necklace[7]
 "The Diamond Pendant" in Impact #1,
E.C. Comics, March/April 1955;
adaptation by Carl Wessler, illustrated by
Graham Ingels[8]
Vennila Veedu (2014), a Tamil family
drama uses a similar story as its main
theme
The subplot of the season 4 episode 13
of "Mom" ("A Bouncy Castle and an
Aneurysm" OAD: 9 Feb 2017) is a
comedic version of the story with Anna
Faris' character losing the necklace
belonging to her wealthy friend.

In Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor

(1969), one of the characters, a writer,
claims she has written a short story
entitled "La Rivière du diamants", which
mimics Maupassant's "The Necklace". The
moment in which this occurs is set in the
book to be around 1884, the year in which
Maupassant actually published his short
story.

References
1. Roberts, Edgar (1991). Writing Themes
About Literature (7th ed.). Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall. p. 4.
ISBN 9780139710605.
2. "The Necklace Themes - eNotes.com" .
eNotes. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
3. Dillon, Michael (2010). China: A Modern
History . London: I. B. Tauris. p. 207.
ISBN 9781850435822. OCLC 705886007 .
Retrieved 9 July 2012.
4. Rudden, Liam (15 August 2008).
"Mathilde makes it to the stage" .
Edinburgh Evening News. Retrieved 23 July
2010.
5. ංහල සා ත සංගහය. Colombo:
Education Publication Dept. Sri Lanka.
2016.
6. James, Henry. "Paste" . The Henry
James scholar's Guide to Web Sites.
Retrieved 27 September 2014. “The origin
of "Paste" is rather more expressible.”
7. Shukman, Henry (28 May 2004).
"Homage to Maupassant" . The Guardian.
8. Von Bernewitz, Fred and Geissman,
Grant. Tales of Terror! The E.C. Companion,
Seattle: Gemstone Publishing and
Fantagraphics Books, 2000, p. 198.

External links
 French Wikisource has original text
related to this article: La Parure
The full text of The Necklace at
Wikisource
Media related to La Parure at
Wikimedia Commons
 The Necklace public domain
audiobook at LibriVox
The Necklace - Annotated text aligned
to Common Core Standards

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