When reading a short story, it is often times not enough to simply read the text. Sentences are formed by words and words formed by letters, but each word and sentence in a piece of work is more than letters strung together to create full, well-written sentences.  There is a plot to each story we read, and a problem, which is generally followed by a solution, but readers must learn how to pick out words that stand out to them, focus on the realistic elements and adjective use specific to the main idea of the story, and recognize events that seem important to the content of the story. Each of these stratagems will help the reader to better understand and appreciate the text.

The idea of close reading, sometimes referred to more scholarly as Practical Criticism, was brought about by a man by the name of I.A. Richards, and his student, William Empson (Introduction). The purpose of close reading is to analyze the way in which a piece of literature is written.  Readers are accustomed to looking at a passage as a whole, but close reading is meant to make the reader look at each part of a passage while analyzing the vocabulary , the sentence structure, the syntax, and the literary devices that are used to relate to the main theme of the passage which describes the deceptiveness of wealth and appearance.

The Necklace, a short story written in the nineteen-eighties by a French man named Guy de Maupassant, is written in such a way that it is very easy for the reader to close read and understand the theme. Many words are used to relate the plot to the theme of the story and help the reader recognize the main idea. The first words that stick out to the reader when looking at Guy's work are those that display great admiration and envy of which Madame Loisel speaks. Madame Loisel longs to be rich and feel beautiful. She feels that the only way to reach this feeling is to obtain all of the glamorous things that her dear friend Madame Forestier owns. She is especially envious of Madame Forestier's beautiful jewels. The author uses words of envy to describe how the desperate woman believes she would feel if she could ever own such magnificent items. Words such as, 'envied', 'charmed', and 'sought after(de Maupassant 22)' all explain the desired feelings of Madame Loisel. She wants nothing more than to be seen as beautiful and charming, the way that she was born. To express Madame Loisel's current situation, de Maupassant refers to Loisel's "poverty of her dwelling" and the "wretched look of the walls"(22). The use of the harsh words 'poverty' and 'wretched' help the reader to understand how badly Madame Loisel dislikes the life she was born into. She yearns for the opportunity to prove to others what she is truly worth and who she was born to be.  

While some words or phrases are self-explanatory and aid the reader in understanding the feelings of a specific character, others seem out of place to the reader. Madame Loisel's envy was expressed throughout the entire story, but it became more real to the reader because of de Maupassant's realistic comparisons. He writes about the parlors of the rich people and the elegant way in which they are designed and decorated. He uses the phrase, "long salons all fatted up with ancient silk"(22) to emphasize the beauty and worth of the living areas in the rich households.  A reader would be able to relate to that imagery because they are aware of the value of silk in society. Each desired living area of Madame Loisel has curtains of silk and large couches arranged perfectly, all of which are described perfectly by the author. De Maupassant also uses extremely descriptive adjectives to describe the cherished items within each parlor to personify them. He writes about such things as, "dainty dinners", "shining silverware", and "marvelous plates"(22). The value of these items in the households of the wealthy is described perfectly through these descriptions and each item becomes more realistic to the reader. The personification of each item makes Madame Loisel's envy more prevalent to the reader. 

Along with the personification of materialistic items and detailed phrases used in the passage, de Maupassant writes about specific events that also relate to the overall theme. Madame Loisel attends an invite-only event at the palace and claims, "I have no dress"(de Maupassant 23) therefore, she feels as if she is unable to attend the ball. She demands her husband to give his invitation to, "some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I '(de Maupassant 23). After calming his wife down, Monsieur Loisel gives up his own savings in order to find her a suitable gown for the ball. She begins to fuss over not having any jewels to wear with her new gown, saying, "it annoys me not to have a single jewel" (de Maupassant 23). Knowing he would not be able to afford the jewels she desired to wear, Monsieur Loisel tells his wife to, "look up your friend Madame Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels" (de Maupassant 24). Madame Forestier was, in Madame Loisel's eyes, much richer and better off than her. She did, indeed, borrow a, "superb necklace of diamonds" (de Maupassant 24), and she immediately began to feel the way that she has always thought she deserved to feel. On the day of the ball, Madame Loisel felt, "prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy" (de Maupassant 26). Her outward appearance and her material possessions finally reached her desired intentions and they defined her as a person, but there is still more to her than what her money, or lack there of, can prove. 

In the passage, when Madame Loisel first arrives at the palace, de Maupassant states that she begins to feel, "made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success"(24). Madame Loisel instantly felt beautiful, sought after, and charmed simply because of a shiny diamond necklace. Tragically, while she was at the palace, she managed to lose the necklace and did not discover it missing until she had returned home. She panicked about how she would begin to explain to her dear friend that she had lost such a valuable possession. Her husband suggested that she lie, telling Madame Forestier that the clasp had broken but she would have it fixed and returned as soon as possible. Since Madame and Monsieur Loisel would not be able to come close to affording a brand new diamond necklace, they would be forced to both get jobs to earn more money than they ever had. They worked for over ten years earning money to purchase a new necklace for Madame Forestier. On the day that Madame Loisel brought her friend the new necklace, Madame Forestier exclaimed, "my necklace was paste!" (de Maupassant 28).

The reader then realizes that Madame Loisel's fantasy of feeling beautiful, being sought after, being envied, and having wealth were similar to the necklace; fake. Wealth and social status don't come from the amount of money you have or your material possessions. It comes from your heart and your actions, like working for ten years straight to fix a problem that you created. The way that the author describes the envy of Madame Loisel has towards the wealthy strongly portrays the theme of the passage and the message that de Maupassant was trying to get across.  Authors like de Maupassant use stratagems like the ones in this story to aid the reader in understanding the theme. In this specific story, using strong vocabulary, personifying materialistic possessions, and relating events to the theme were literary strategies that Guy de Maupassant used.  The reader cannot focus solely on the plot of the story to attempt to find a theme, but they must also be open to the way the story is written. The plot of a story is important, but it cannot be fully understood or envisioned without the use of descriptive vocabulary, personified objects, relatable imagery, and the actions of each character throughout the entire story.
