In Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace", the protagonist, Mathilde, loses everything for one night of beauty and splendor.  De Maupassant uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony to illustrate that greed and materialism can both lead to ones eventual downfall like it did with Mathilde in the short.

In "The Necklace", the diamond necklace itself is the symbol that Mathilde lusts after that eventually leads to her and her husbands downfall. Mathilde lived an average life with her husband and took the things she had for granted.  He got her tickets to a ball and new dresses because she always wanted that kind of lavish lifestyle.  However, she still wanted more and, as a result, borrowed a gorgeous diamond necklace from one of her wealthy friends.  When she lost the necklace after the ball, she tried to preserve herself and her social standing as best as she can by finding a replacement necklace.  "I brought you back another just like it. And now for ten years we have been paying back for it. You will understand that it was not easy for us, who had nothing. At last, it is done, and I am mighty glad." (Maupassant 28).  The one she ends up getting is thirty-six thousand francs that she and her husband spend 10 years living like peasants and working to pay off..  The necklace that she worked so hard to replace ended up being a sham like many other components in Mathilde's life throughout the piece.  It has an  illusion of wealth and beauty that lured her in with a promise that if she wore it, she too would be wealthy and beautiful.  It deceived her and resulted in her loss of whatever mediocre wealth and beauty she had previously.  This diamond necklace represents all of her hopes and dreams of being a member of the upper class while also representing her reality of the middle class at the same time (Maupassant).

De Maupassant uses some foreshadowing to hint that something bad is going to happen to Mathilde as a result of her wanting the necklace.  After her husband showed her the invitation to the ball and gave her four hundred francs for a new dress, she still was not satisfied with her appearance and went out to borrow some jewels from her wealthy friend, Madame Forestier.  "All at once she discovered, in a box of black satin, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with boundless desire. Her hands trembled in taking it up. . . . Then, she asked, hesitating, full of anxiety; 'Can you lend me this, only this?'" (pg 24)..  De Maupassant is hinting slightly at the fact that something bad might happen to this necklace since it is the only piece Mathilde asked to borrow and it gave her such an immediate reaction of desire.  If the necklace was indeed worth thirty-six thousand francs, not only would Madame Forestier have been a lot more hesitant to have lent it in the first place, but she also would have been a lot more inquisitive about the whereabouts of the necklace immediately after the event it was borrowed for.

De Maupassant's entire work, "The Necklace", is littered with irony.  In the beginning of the short story, the first several paragraphs talk about Mathilde's lust for the finer things in life.  She wants all the sophistication and fancy of the upper class but doesn't realize how good she actually has it.  She and her husband were well off to begin with, he even suggested she wear her theater dress to the ball, but she took everything she has for granted and demanded she needed a new dress.  Her husband selflessly gave her a large sum of money to go out and buy a new dress when he was originally planning on using that money to buy himself a new gun.  Even after he worked hard to get her the invitation and handed her four hundred francs for a new dress, she still wasn't satisfied with how she looked.  Mathilde had to go to a friend who was better off than she was to borrow a diamond necklace that she then proceeds to lose and spend ten years of her life working to buy a replacement.  After ten years of hard work to pay off the cost of the replacement necklace, Mathilde learned that the original necklace was a fake when she ran into Madame Forester in the marketplace.  What was once thought of as precious and dazzling turned out to be nothing more than a bit of plaster. There was situational irony present when Mathilde found out the diamonds were fake when she paid thirty-six thousand francs for a real diamond replacement., There is also the irony that someone who lusted over and who thought she knew so much about the finer things in life was unable to tell fake diamonds from real ones.  The real diamonds, although thirty-six thousand francs, turned out to cost Mathilde and her husband so much more than just the physical money.  It cost them their youth, beauty, and the lifestyle they once had.  They went from being well off in the middle class to actually being poor and having to work even harder sans servants (pg 27).  There is a bit irony in the fact that Madame Forestier did not bother telling them that the original was faux.  If she was unable to notice that the replacement necklace they gave her was not the original, there was no way for her to have known to tell them and save them from years of hard work and misery.

Guy de Maupassant illustrated that theme of greed and materialism as one's downfall using the necklace as a symbol for Mathilde herself, foreshadowing the downfall, and by the irony of the necklace being faux.  Mathilde and her husband wasted years of their lives to pay off their debt from one night of indulgence.  They let their greed get to the best of them and as a result, it ruined them.  They traded in everything they once had for the temporary beauty of materialism.
