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Character Of Mrs. Loisel In ‘The Necklace’
Mrs. Loisel isn’t the brightest person and can be seen as selfish, which signifies her only thinking for and about herself. The title of the short-story is ‘The Necklace’ and written by Guy De Maupassant. To give a brief overview, the Loisels aren’t very wealthy, in fact they struggle financially. Mrs. Loisel day-dreamed about having riches they couldn’t afford, and when she was invited to a party, she wanted to be the most beautiful and the most radiant. She asked her best friend to borrow her paste, which is an artificial gem, and ended up misplacing it. There were many character traits that could determine Mrs. Loisel as a person such as snobby, impatient, ashamed, desperate, and whiney, but only a few lingered and rose above the rest and those were ungrateful, manipulative, and materialistic, and you will be provided evidence and an explanation as to why these traits define Mrs. Loisel.
To tackle the most distinguishable trait, Mrs. Loisel is seen as ungrateful by most due to numerous amount of reasons shown. Ungrateful means showing lack of appreciation for the actions of others. Paragraph three indicates, ‘She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment, the worn-out appearance of the chairs, the hideousness of the draperies.’ To evaluate, Mrs. Loisel would be analytical to the surroundings she lived within. Inserting the word ‘grieve’, gives the impression to the reader that she is not satisfied with what she is provided. Another piece of evidence that stood out was surfaced in paragraph twenty-four. It states, ‘It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a gem. I’ll look like a pauper, which means poor, I’d almost rather not go to that party.’ This shows her being ungrateful on another level. Her husband had recently bought her a five-hundred francs dress. As if that hadn’t cost a little too much, she still begs Mr. Loisel for jewelry to go along with it. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to buy her jewelry due to having to remind her that she could borrow jewelry from her friend. To end things on that note, Mrs. Loisel showed numerous signs of being ungrateful which then leads to the next topic.
The second most transparent characteristic was Mrs. Loisel being simply materialistic. Materialistic means caring or showing interest in inanimate objects or things. To prove that she is materialistic, paragraph five gives an idea on why she is focused on inanimate items. It specifies, ‘She would dream of fashionable dinner parties, of gleaming silverware, of tapestries making the walls alive with characters out of history, and strange birds in a fairyland forest.’ To go into specifics, she shows interest in non-living artifacts. She doesn’t appreciate what or how she is living. She also doesn’t think about how other people may have it worse, when she hardly even has it that way. The second piece of concrete detail is in paragraph thirty-three and it portrays, ‘All at once she found a superb diamond necklace and her pulse beat faster with longing.’ This is enough to make it official that she is just that obsessed. Due to ‘her heart pulsating faster through her veins’, this gives the idea that she is really shallow when it comes to what she wants. To conclude, Mrs. Loisel being materialistic results in her being ignorant to what matters leading to the next discussion.
The third and final trait to label Mrs. Loisel would be manipulative. The definition of manipulative is skillfully being able to have control over people emotionally, or mentally. Mrs. Loisel illustrates signs of being manipulative in paragraph sixteen stating, ‘Mr. Loisel stopped talking, dazed to see his wife bursting out in tears.’ He then continued to say, ‘What’s the matter?’ In explanation, Mrs. Loisel is manipulating her partner to feel guilty for not buying her the dress she desired. Truth is, Mrs. Loisel is being unreasonable with him, but he doesn’t know when to speak his mind. In continuation, paragraph twenty-two exclaims, ‘I’ll give you four-hundred francs, but try to get a nice dress,’ which is said from Mr. Loisel. This is the moment after Mrs. Loisel gave her cry of plea, and shows that he was taken advantage of. Mrs. Loisel is obviously delighted with her outcome, but is still missing something else. In summarization, Mrs. Loisel being manipulative is given as indirect characterization.
To bring everything back together, materialistic, unappreciative, and manipulative defines who Mrs. Loisel is as a person, named ‘The Necklace’ and written by Guy De Maupassant. Her reason for being ungrateful was due to her feeling like she didn’t have enough, leading to her never being satisfied. Her not being thankful led to her being materialistic, which led to her being manipulative to gain what she desired the most.
