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status isn't everything

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In, 'The Necklace', The narrator Mrs. Loisel learns that status isnt everything and you should  appreciate what you have in the moment before it is gone. Mr. Loisel gives an effect on the theme because he himself has never even thought about how he presents himself or considered what the people around him might rank his status as. He is the building blocks that reveal the theme essentially.

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In "The Necklace", Madame Loisel learned that some dreams are meant to stay dreams.

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In, "The Necklace," the conflict is that the wife wants all the things that all the rich women have. However, she and her husband can't afford them.

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throughout the story she's obsessed with bettering her status. she dreams of the finer things in life

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In “The Necklace”, Madame Loisel learns that status isn’t everything and striving for a better status can lead to a worse status, which is shown by her first house and her second house.

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In the short story, "The Necklace", the necklace Madame Loisel lost represents the wealth and states she so desperately wants but cannot reach. The necklace plays a role in the theme of status not meaning everything because caring too much about status can cause consequences later on.

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In "The Necklace," mme Forestier helps Loisel learn that status isn't everything by giving mme Loisel a chance to experience high class and learn that she can be content in lower class.

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In "The Necklace" Madame Loisel is trying to get fancy stuff so she is the most important thing in the ball and she succeeds but she has to pay for ten years of arduous labor.

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"When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" Mr Loisel is very appreciative of everything he has and he enjoys the life he is living no matter how much money he has. He doesn't even regard the 3 day old cloth like his wife does, and gets excited for the little things like soup.

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"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." (Maupassant para. 2) This shows that she was very angry that others had things that she didn't and she longed for these.

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When mme Forestier gives loisel a ‘diamond’ necklace for the night, she gives her an illusion of higher status. During the ball loisel "...danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, ... in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration..."(para 47). Loisel enjoyed the ball where she could act high class even if it was just one night.

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During the story, Mr. Loisel goes out of his way to do something what he thought would be big for Mrs. Losiel. She didn't appreciate the present which came as a surprise to him because he treated her to something prestigious. "Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me . . ." He does not see the way Mrs. Loisel sees because he loves everything he already has however its a large contrast to his wife's point of view.

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"When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests..." (Maupassant para. 3) Here is where the conflict really starts. Her husband obviously doesn't have the same values as her. He is happy with what they have! The wife has different values and the theme is shown that possessions can possess you into being very selfish and just plain out mean!

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"...there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women. How stupid you are! exclaimed her husband." Mrs. Loisel says that it would be humiliating for her to show up to a fancy party if she is noticeably not as rich. She sees status as self worth when it really isn't at all. Mr. Loisel calls her stupid for it, as it is not something that should worry her. He says this because he could not care less about how he appears in a crowd of rich people because status does not matter to him.

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I think that the ball represents what people like Madame Loisel strive for, a place where they are constantly admired and given all the attention they desire, but is not realistic to happen for her because she has too low of status. I think this because near the end of the story her friend doesn't recognize her after the ball because she looks like the average person in France.

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Another example of how the ball represents a place of attention that no one can achieve is that after she was able to have her amazing night, she had to basically go back down to the bottom of the social ladder to be able to make up for the lost necklace, but they didn't even know it wasn't worth that much.

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In the text, it says, “She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.” (Maupassant 5). Here readers can notice how Mathilde goes about life worrying about how others will see her. Mathilde can’t let go of her status and just live an enjoyable life with her husband, she constantly compares herself with others and thinks about what more she can have.

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As the story progresses, the text says, “"She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?" (Maupassent 88). Mathilde hid the fact that she lost the lended necklace because she did not want her friend thinking less of her. Instead, Mathilde and her husband had to spend the next 10 horrible years trying to scrape off enough money to buy the necklace new, costing thousands of dollars. However, if Mathilde hadn’t worried so much about her status in her friends' eyes and just been truthful, Mathilde would have found out that the necklace was actually just a cheap replica. It is important to always be truthful no matter if it may result in consequence.

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Finally, the story mentions, “Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?" (Mauapassent 99). Since Mathilde was not truthful to her friend before she felt as if she was in debt to her friend. Fearing for a higher status will always make one feel as if they aren’t fulfilled, and will always hesitate before making decisions. In this case, Mathilde could not even go and speak to her good friend without thinking about what her friend might think of her. It is vital to be able to go on about life and people without those feelings of doubt. Those feelings will refrain one from great opportunities and life experiences. If Mathilde had just gone to the party without the necklace in the first place, the next 10 years could have gone a lot better for her.

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She learns how to be content with what she has and what status she is. After that one night she is forced to go into debt and she works in a lower class for ten years, “She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen.”(para 91). She is also proud when she pays off her debts, saying to mme Forester, "Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed."(para 114). Both the work and her feelings of paying it off show her that status isn' everything.

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I say some dreams are meant to saty dreams because sometimes the means to get to that point just aren't worth it, like when she wanted to look nice but in the end she lost the necklace that she borrowed to perform said task but the cost of going for something she could not do own her own lead her to an undesirable lifestyle. The consequences of having to replace what she couldn't get on her own resulted in major debt. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs" (Mauapassent, para 121). That shows that having unrealistic goals could also lead to impulsive behavior. I say impulsive because she wasn't going to even wear the necklace that long, only for one night.

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This same point can also be backed up by the fact that she went into major major debt for having to buy the "replacement" jewels that were in the necklace and because of this her husband could not get a rifle to hunt with his friends, but it also ended up backfiring (pun intended) on Mathilde as well because she had to perform all the chores in the house and on top of that she will probably never see the quality of life improvements she wanted to see because she spent so much time in debt that there was not enough saved for the things she desired afterwards such as jewelry or some finer clothing.

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Madame Loisel was dissatisfied with her life in her first house. She thought she was deserving of more than she had and wanted jewels and a very fancy home:  “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. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm- chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove.” (Maupassant 2) and “When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvelous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.” (Maupassant 3).  Madame Loisel never appreciated the status she had, and this dissatisfaction got the best of Madame Loisel. She borrowed a friend’s necklace to go to a party.  She wanted the riches she never had, and she wanted to show off expensive clothing at a fancy party.  She later lost her friend’s necklace, which turned her and her husband’s lives upside down.  Her obsession with status ended up lowering her status.

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Madame Loisel and her husband had to pay off the cost of the necklace she lost, so they had to fire servants and move to a room in an attic: “She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.” (Maupassant 81). Madame Loisel had to work a lot around the house in order to pay off the debt of the necklace: “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 fruitier, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, and fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.” (Maupassant 92).  Madame Loisel’s husband also had to work many hours at his office, but he barely earned any money: “Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at two pence-halfpenny a page.” (Maupassant 94).  This terrible lifestyle lasted ten years. If she would have been content with her status at the beginning, she wouldn’t have ended up with a lower status.

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When she gets access to the finer things in life in the form of the diamond necklace she ends up losing it and working for 10 years to get it back. This shows that status can be lost as quickly as it can be gained

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When she's able to give back the necklace the woman she borrowed it from says that it was fake. This shows that status is fake and that it really doesn't matter