The Theme of Deception

The Theme of Deception

            Deception is the act of hiding truth or promoting false ideas or beliefs. In most cases, deception is motivated by the desire for personal gain. The jewelry by Guy De Maupassant has its setting in Paris. The story revolves around Mr. Lantin, who was a chief clerk in the office of the minister of the interior. The theme of deception appears to take a large part of the story. Mr. Lantin is lied all through by his first wife into believing that his little salary was enough to lead their luxurious lifestyle. Lantin had no idea that the jewelry possessed by his wife was not false as he had believed all through. Deception is built throughout the story through the use of several literary devices. The theme is made dominant by the wide use of irony, a point of view, metaphor, and exaggeration, which present the theme as a selfish character that only acts for the benefit of the deceiver without taking care of the feelings of the deceived.

Personal appearance is not an accurate measure of an individual’s character. “Deception is a way of making a material worth reading,” (Crites, 6). The first time Mr. Lantin meets his first wife, he was deceived into believing that she is poor and respectable. Lantin immediately falls in love with her wife and does not seem to recognize her business. The deception by his wife appears to be working quite perfectly as seen when the narrator says, “And such was the charm of her personality that, six years after he married her, he loved her even more than he did the first day…” (5). It is funny how Mr. Lantin finds only two faults in her wife for such a long period and later finding out that one of them was a lie. Lantin had been deceived into believing that his wife had a strong passion for false jewelry. Evidence that all had not been a case of pretense comes out because even after the death of his wife, Lantin goes to the jewelry shop to sell the stock as false jewelry only to be challenged by the shop owner. Even for Mr. Lantin, there is some lie in the amount of money he reports for the reason of his resignation. Lantin reports four hundred francs instead of the two hundred obtained from the sale. The prevalence of the theme of deception seems to be made by the wide presence of irony.

The events reported in the story happen to be ironical to both the characters and the audience as well. There is always a connection between irony and deception (Walsh, 91-110). Lantin did not expect his wife to have been living a lie for all that time to an extent of thinking that she was economical in managing the little salary. Even after the death of his wife, Lantin would have expected that his salary would still be enough to cater for his fewer needs, but it turns out to be different. The money Lantin receives as the asking price for the jewelry is much higher than he would have expected. One would expect a wife to be transparent to her husband concerning her savings. Also, a husband would be expected to be observant enough to notice any form of deception from his wife. Staying for six years without getting to see an additional source of income in one’s house is not in line with the expectation of many. Lantin’s wife seems so caring such that she does not want to go to the theatre without the company of her husband. It would be expected that this caring nature would compel the wife into telling her husband the truth about her savings.

Most happenings in the story have been exaggerated. Lantin’s wife is reported to be so perfect that no man would find a more beautiful wife than her. Also, Lantin appears to exaggerate his love for her to the extent that he fails to question how she managed the little money he provided to maintain the luxurious lifestyle. The mourning by Lantin over his wife’s death appears to be a little exaggerated. It may well seem to be a lie for one’s hair to turn white just because of mourning for one month. The exaggeration in the story, however, depends on the different points of view.

There is more than one point of view throughout the story. The narrator is not a character in the story and reveals the theme of deception quite clearly through his point of view. The narrator’s point of view concerning Lantin’s wife is much similar to that of Lantin as well as that of the other people who knew her. The narrator says, “The man who gets her will be lucky. No one could find a nicer girl than that.” The way Lantin falls in love with his wife, at first sight, confirms this definition of beauty. However, the point of view of the audience could be different from that of Lantin in that deception is much evident from the way her wife is much committed to keeping the ‘false’ jewelry. The narrator notices that there could have been some secret behind her passionate delight towards the box of jewelry.

There is wide use of metaphor to pass information in the story. Metaphors compel the reader into asking questions during the reading experience, (Palde 11). The wife to Lantin was a daughter to a tutor. Her wisdom in the way she maintained her secrecy about her savings may be attributed to the wisdom of a tutor. The metaphorical tutor father could have been used to give a glimpse of how wise the lady was. In as much as jewelry in this context reflects just the normal material possession, one would argue that it represented the girl’s worth regarding beauty which had fallen into hands that could not afford.

All in all, deception as much as is aimed at an individual’s gain, the reasons behind it are diverse. Lantin falls at the center of deception that is presented with the aid of metaphors, irony, exaggeration and several points of view. The story “Jewelry” as mainly based on the theme of deception.

References

Crites, Stephen. “The aesthetics of self-deception.” Soundings (1979): 107-129.

Walsh, Sue. “Gender and irony: children’s literature and its criticism.” Asian Women 32.2 (2016): 91-110.

Parde, Natalie, and Rodney Nielsen. “Automatically Generating Questions about Novel    Metaphors in Literature.” Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Natural            Language Generation. 2018.