How Mathilde Loisel’s priorities for socioeconomic class affect her negatively?
It is everyone’s dream to have to live a life will all goodies from beautiful clothing, luxury housing, and good food. However, life does not always give us what we need but presents us with choices to make, and the priorities we make will have negative or positive consequences on our lives. It is through the realization of this that prompted Guy de Maupassant to write The Necklace. In his book, he presents a female character by the Mathilde Loisel, who doesn’t have the nicest things that she requires, which drives her into making priorities regarding socioeconomic. She is born to a low-class family and consequently being married to a man of the same class who is working as a clerk in the Board of Education. Loisel is craving for an upper-class life standard that prompts her to make several priorities that have both negative and positive outcomes. Personally, I am of the opinion that Loisel’s priorities on socioeconomic class result in negative consequences. Therefore, in this essay, I will provide supportive evidence of my opinion by giving examples from the text.
Mathilde’s priority and desire to be born from the upper class makes her have a miserable and unhappy life. From the beginning, Mathilde is discontented with her simple life making her spend most of her time daydreaming of luxurious things and unattainable riches. She even regrets being born from a low-class family. As reckoned by Maupassant, “born, as if by an error of destiny, into a family of clerks and copyists” (Maupassant P.2). Her priority to be productive makes her not even appreciate her husband’s efforts to make her happy.
Her un-appreciative behavior is also evident when her husband surprises her with an invitation card to attend a Minister’s event, but instead, she throws it away with dismay, crying and complaining of having “nothing” to wear when attending such events. Therefore, her priorities are far beyond her socioeconomic class, which is affecting her life negatively.
Mathilde’s priorities make her and her husband to have a life of suffering. Mathilde places her priority on expensive clothes and jewelries. This makes her husband withdraw all his savings to buy her a nice cloth to attend the ball. As her husband cannot afford jewelry, she borrows one from her friends so she can look beautiful. However, she lost the necklace, which is expensive for them to repay. To repay it, Mathilde and her husband had to spend over ten years working even harder cleaning and cooking for many and “clothed like a woman of the people” (Maupassant p.36). Due to overworking, she becomes worn out to the point that Forestier could not recognize her. Thus, this is clear support that Mathilde’s priorities affected her life negatively.
Mathilde’s priorities have made her live an inhumane life. Throughout the text, not at any point, she is presented being “human” in that she can take blame about her actions. For instance, when they arrive home from the party, she realizes that she no longer has Mrs. Forestier’s necklace. She says, “I have—I have—I no longer have Mrs. Forestier’s necklace.’’ (Maupassant p.35) at this moment, she sounds panicking, but she isn’t ready to take the blame as a human. But instead, she asks her husband to walk through the night and fetch it, which is totally inhuman. Thus, it’s true that Methilde’s priorities affected her life negatively.
To sum up, Mathilde is an example of most of the people who are never contented with the little they have. It is good to accept your social standards as you work your way to the top classes—secondly, it’s fundamentally important to understand that people will never be equal. Therefore, appreciate the little you have and enjoy life.
Reference
Guy De Maupassant, The Necklace, and Other Stories : Maupassant for Modern Times. New York, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016.