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Essay / A theme of perception in Guy De Maupassant's The Necklace
Society sometimes pressures people to be something they are not, so that they can be seen as this wonderful person. A book that shows this is “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. The story is about a woman who is beautiful and has everything she needs, but is still not satisfied because she doesn't have the things that others have. Mathilde Loisel is the woman in the story in question. One of the most consistent themes throughout the story is the perception of objects. Loisel thought that if she had the necklace, it would change the way people looked at her. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Maupassant begins the story by telling us about the objects that Loisel wanted but did not have. Losiel feels like she deserves to have these items and wants to have them so that she can be considered a beautiful and wealthy person if she does. “She had no dress, no jewelry, nothing. And she only liked that. She felt made for this. She would have loved to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.” She also feels like because she's not rich or part of that social class that means she deserves to have these things. Loisel is very materialistic. One way to prove this is when her husband received an invitation to a party. When Loisel receives the invitation, she goes out to get an expensive dress and jewelry so as not to look poor in the eyes of everyone at the party. She views other people's things as something good to have. While she views her husband and home as something people will put her down for. She feels like an outsider because she didn't have the same things as her counterparts. “She had a friend, a former classmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she no longer liked to go see because she felt sad when she came home.” Loisel's way of looking at the world is similar to that of others like her, that is, comparing the things she doesn't have to what others have. Loisel dreams of having wealth and beauty. Finally, when she receives the necklace, she feels like the woman she always wanted to be, envied and charming. Then, when she loses the necklace, her life begins to fall apart. This is where reality is emphasized to show that the power is in you and not in objects. On the other hand, his rich friend Madame Forestier does not consider this thing powerful. Since Forestier is rich, she knows that these items are not something people should be proud of. She also knows that people have the power to perceive what the object contains. Forestier probably looks at fake objects as she would look at real objects. This is why, when Mathilde asked Forestier to borrow her necklace, she accepted because she does not have much respect for this necklace. But since Mathilde is not as rich as the others, she considers these objects to be the most important things in the world. Mathilde does everything to look like something she is not. In a sense, she created her own world in her mind. The problem is that his world isn't real. When she went to that party, she could see her life as being the same as the lives of the people who were there. Mathilde's uncontrollable obsession with objects is the cause of her downfall. When she lost the necklace, she had to spend the next decade paying off loans to replace the necklace she had borrowed from Forestier. Which then caused her beauty to disappear because she was stressed and going through poverty. In reality, Mathilde sacrificed her life for a necklace which, in the end,