Every person has a subjective view of the world that stems from their various perspectives, experiences, beliefs, and desires that they have gained throughout life. Due to these subjective views, people's perceptions of various things are skewed. This idea of skewed perception can be seen in Guy de Maupassant "The Necklace." In this short story, the main character, Mme. Loisel, who is a middle class woman, believes she is entitled to an upper class life. Mme. Loisel's entitlement skews her perception of many things, including her middle class life, how she is perceived by others, and the authenticity of the necklace she borrows from a friend, Mme. Forestier. By looking at word choice, sentence structure, and foreshadowing, we can see Mme. Loisel feels entitled to a life better then what she has which warps her perception. This is important because in the end she ends up with less then what she started with, living in poverty.  

Maupassant uses word choice at the beginning of the short story in order to make it apparent that Mme. Loisel is a middle class woman. Also, the word choice used to describe Mme. Loisel's middle class life and her beauty at the ball along with how she felt at the ball both argue that because Mme. Loisel is entitled, her perception is skewed and she views everything in extremes. Mme. Loisel is "born into a family of clerks" and married to a clerk (de Maupassant 21). The word "clerk" suggests that Mme. Loisel was born into an adequate middle class life and because she married a clerk, she continues to live a middle class life (21). However, she feels as if she deserves and was born to be of higher social status. Mme. Loisel "suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" (22). This quote shows that she feels entitled and believes she deserves more then what she currently has. Due to Mme. Loisel feeling she is entitled to a higher social status then the one she currently has, her perception is distorted which ultimately leads to her becoming a part of the lower class. Mme. Loisel feels that "[s]he suffered ceaselessly" and "suffered from poverty" (22). She 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 middle class lifestyle. Mme. Loisel claims "[s]he had no dresses, no jewels, nothing" (22). Maupassant's use of words such as "nothing", "suffered", and "poverty" show how Mme. Loisel's perception of her middle class life is skewed to where she thinks that she is living in poverty because without the things she feels entitled to such as jewels, dresses, and a fancy house, she feels she has nothing (22). This is ironic because in the end, Mme. Loisel's entitlement leads to dropping to a lower class status. When Mme. Loisel puts on the necklace she borrows for the first time she is described as being "lost in ecstasy" (24). Then, when Mme. Loisel attends the ball she is said to have "danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure..." (24). Maupassant's use of words such as "intoxication", "passion", "pleasure", and "ecstasy" shows how not only is Mme. Loisel happy she looks pretty, but feels she as if a new women and goes from describing her life as endless torture to being in this state of euphoria all from a necklace (22). This state of euphoria is considered a "glory", "success", and "victory" in Mme. Loisel's eyes (24). Mme. Loisel thinks the success of living the life of luxury for a day is what she is entitled to for life, which causes the skewed perception of what wearing the necklace actually did for her. The necklace did not change any aspect of Mme. Loisel as a person, but in her eyes in made her a new women because she felt like she finally was given what she felt entitled to all along. This is ironic because she ends up living in poverty due to feeling she deserves a high-class life. 

In "The Necklace" Maupassant uses long flowing sentences evocative of the character's ideas concerning treasures and the ideal of a high-class lifestyle she feels entitled to. In addition, prolonged, descriptive sentences are used to describe her emotion at the ball where she finally experiences a high-class existence, as well as in the description of the loss of the necklace and the subsequent poverty she and her husband are forced into. These lengthy sentences follow her transitions along the social ladder from middle class to high class and as she falls from it into poverty. In the beginning of the story, Maupassant utilizes the aforementioned sentence structure to describe Mme. Loisel as she muses about all the things she believes to be associated with a wealthy, upper-class lifestyle.  "She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and desire" (22). In the above-mentioned quote, it becomes evident to the reader that Mme. Loisel dreams of luxuries and believes herself to be entitled to them, distorting her perception of her legitimate middle class home, and making it seem worse then it actually is. Mme. Loisel's entitlement becomes unmistakable when she puts on the necklace and attends the ball, believing the necklace to improve her class standing. At the ball Mme. Loisel "danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these awakened desires, and of that sense of complete victory which is so sweet to woman's heart" (24). Through the necklace, Mme. Loisel fulfills her desire to live a high-class lifestyle of wealth and extravagance, though she is deluded into believing in it's permanence. Maupassant later describes Mme. Loisel's poverty due to the misplacement of the necklace, and her consequent need to pay for a replacement, is only made ironic by the discovery that the necklace had been a fake. Mme. Loisel now "dressed like a women of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou" (25). The elongated sentence structure regarding her newfound poverty provides evidence that because she felt entitled to luxuries such as necklaces and dresses, she was unaware that the necklace she borrowed could be fake. In addition, it reveals irony in the story, as her ultimate dream of living a wealthy and extravagant life was only realized through something worthless and counterfeit. Maupassaunt's elongated sentence structure reveals Mme. Loisel's conception of wealth, display her greedy and materialistic personality, and emphasize the irony in the rise and downfall of her social life due to an item of little worth. 

The concept that Mme. Loisel is oblivious to the notion that the necklace could be an imitation becomes evident through foreshadowing. Mme. Forestier suggests the necklace is not real by her letting Mme. Loisel borrow it so quickly and without hesitation, exclaiming "[w]hy, yes, certainly" (26).  Additionally, upon it's return she does little more than toss it aside. When Mme. Loisel first saw the necklace she "trembled as she took it" and because she felt entitled to jewelry of the sort, it did not occur to her that the necklace could be synthetic (26). Mme. Loisel lies to Mme. Forestier in order to extend the time needed to replace the lost item, writing her a letter saying she had "broken the clasp of her necklace" (26). Maupassant uses additional foreshadowing through his description of Mme. Forestier's lack of attentiveness as she did "not even open the case" to examine her returned jewels. 

Maupassant uses many elements throughout the story to provide evidence that Mme. Loisel's perceptions were distorted due to her feelings of entitlement. Through word choice, such as the descriptions of Mme. Loisel's middle class lifestyle and her enjoyment at the ball, long and expressive sentence structure revealing the character's ideals concerning high class living, and the use of foreshadowing through Mme. Forestier's lack of regard toward her jewelry, Maupassant characterizes Mme. Loisel as an unsatisfied and entitled woman. It is this sense of entitlement that leads her out of a middle class life of comfort and stability, into one of poverty and labor.
