Whether reading the "Merchant of Venice", "The Necklace", or observing typical societal behaviors, it is apparent that greed is a vice every human experiences. Greed is a desire for something more, and people can be greedy for a multitude of things such as money, love, and happiness. In "The Necklace" the author, Guy de Maupassant, shows the effects of greed through the main character, Mme. Loisel and her desire to live a luxurious life. By looking at the word choice, tone, and pace of the short story we can see the irony how Mme. Loisel's greed for a grand life leads to her borrowing and losing an alluring necklace from a friend causing Mme. Loisel to go into debt and work tirelessly for years in order to pay it off; this is important because it sets up the life lesson Mme. Loisel learns in end that greed will corrupt a person. 

Maupassant's word choice throughout the story creates a vivid idea of what Mme. Loisel yearns for and an accurate description of the strong craving she has for a five-star life. In the beginning of the story Mme. Loisel thinks of "...long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities..." (Maupassant 22). Mme. Loisel does not just refer to the couch as something she would casually sit on, rather as something of beauty to be treasured. She has all these thoughts and dreams of being in a house with the finer things running through her mind that the greed suppresses her thoughts about the life that she chose and practical chores such as doing the dishes and taking care of her husband. Mme. Loisel feels that "[s]he suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" (Maupassant 22). Mme. Loisel goes out of her way to describe her life as endless torture when in reality her husband, who is a clerk, provided her with a comfortable lifestyle. Mme. Loisel's greed blinds her from seeing how fortunate she is and her mind has been corrupted to thinking the only way of living life to the fullest is with luxury and splendor.

Mme. Loisel's gluttonous personality shines through the tone when she asks her husband to buy her a new expensive dress while "...he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer..." (Maupassant 23). Mme. Loisel's husband's tone shows that he is upset but is willing to sacrifice in order to provide Mme. Loisel with as much grandeur as he can. Mme. Loisel's greed has caused her heart to fill up with lavish desires, which, in turn, have caused her to become unscrupulous and selfish when making decisions even if they affect the people she loves. However, once Mme. Loisel puts on the necklace she borrowed and her new dress, "[s]he danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure..." and sets the tone that she feels like she is on top of the world (Maupassant 24). This tone is very different from the beginning of the short story because she is no longer dreaming about living an extravagant life, she is experiencing it first hand. Mme. Loisel's hunger for earthly possessions is satisfied during this party when she is giddy, drunk, and blissful. However, her material desires for beautiful things such as the necklace, lead to her downfall. Mme. Loisel loses the necklace and goes into debt in order to replace the one she lost, and after ten years working to replace it she ponders over "[w]hat would have happened if she had not lost that necklace...How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!" (Maupassant 27). This is the turning point of the story and the tone changes from one of suffering and hard work to that of wondering what life would have been life if Mme. Loisel would have not been greedy and lost the necklace. The one thing she wanted more than anything, a lavish lifestyle, threw her far into debt. Greed did corrupt and ruin Mme. Loisel's life because instead of being content with what the lifestyle her husband provided, she felt as if she needed to have sumptuous possessions. The exquisite necklace and craving for a luxurious life causes her to borrow the necklace and lose it which is ironic because she lived the finer life for one night and is having to pay and suffer for it for ten years. The very end of the short story is even more ironic when Mme. Loisel, after working off all the debt, finds out the necklace she borrowed was not real. This shows how greed has corrupted Mme. Loisel because in first receiving the necklace, she did not ask if it has real jewels or anything specific, she just "...fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of herself" and the beauty of seeing something so magnificent put her in a state of euphoria (Maupassant 24). Mme. Loisel's mind is corrupt and she is living in the clouds where everything is perfect the way she wants it, and in reality she is willing to do anything, even work ten years, if it means experiencing her dreams of living a magnificent, high end lifestyle. 

The idea of greed leading to corruption is apparent when Mme. Loisel does lose the necklace and instead of talking to her friend to work something out, her husband went and borrowed money "...asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there" (Maupassant 26). The pace of the sentences show how fast Mme. Loisel's husband is moving and how quickly everything needed to be done providing a tone of stress. Borrowing money from these various places all at once in such a short amount of time causes stress to set in about having to pay the various people back. Mme. Loisel's mind however is corrupt to a point where she will go to any length for the luxuries and fancier objects. Her priorities do not lie where they should, because if they did, she would have worked something out with her friend where she did not have to be in debt. Mme. Loisel's corrupt state of mind causes her husband to suffer with her and she is completely oblivious that the necklace was not his responsibility. Mme. Loisel realized not only does her husband have to work, but she also has to work so "[s]he went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou" (Maupassant 27). The fast pace of the sentence shows that chore after chore she was miserable but she knew she had to keep working for money. The pace also shows how Mme. Loisel continuously had to run errands and work tirelessly throughout the day for days on end. This furthers the idea that Mme. Loisel's heart has been consumed with greed, in turn causing her to be corrupt, making it hard for her to see that something so small, like a necklace, would had such a negative impact on her family. The greed that Mme. Loisel experiences has corrupted her mind, body, and spirit. It has corrupted her mind to a point where she does think about reality and is selfish. Greed has corrupted her body because after being gluttonous, losing the necklace, and working ten years, she is worn "[w]ith frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands..." (Maupassant 27). The fast pace when describing how Mme. Loisel looks emphasizes how worn down and washed out she is on the outside as well as the inside. Greed has corrupted her soul, making her not live for her family, or a higher being, but for the fancy couch she dreams of and the extravagant life she so years for. 

Guy de Maupassant use of stylistic tools such as word choice, tone, and pace further the ironic idea behind Mme. Loisel's story and prove greed leads to corruption. From Mme. Loisel going into great detail about the items she is fantasizing about, talking of the exhilaration she felt when at the party, to listing all the dreadful chores that needed to be done, her gluttony shined through. One seemingly small item turned Mme. Loisel's life upside down causing her to end up with less then what she had when she started proving that greed, one of the seven deadly sins, even in the smallest amounts can lead to a person's downfall. 
