It is commonly said that money is the root of all evil, but in reality, it is the greed for wealth that is the root of all evil. Greed often drives people to overlook the great things in their lives, and to overlook the difference between appearances and what is real. In Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace", the main character, Mathilde, is fooled as she comes to find the unsatisfactory outcome of greed and its illusions. Although she grows for the better in the end because of it, she endures a decade of hard work as a result of her greed. She is fooled by false appearances that distort her ability to see reality. Mathilde eventually grows out of her greed and learns from this deceptiveness of appearances in "The Necklace" through Maupassant's use of word choice, symbolism, and irony.

Maupassant begins the story by describing Mathilde's dissatisfaction with her social class, "as though she had really fallen from her proper station" (Maupassant 22). He goes on to describe all of the negatives of her life and her social class and how she longs for material wealth as "she suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" (22). There is a strictly negative vocabulary describing all of which she has and a strictly positive vocabulary describing all that she longs for. "She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains" (22). All of this negative word choice surrounding her initial position of a middle-class woman clearly contrasts with the positive word choice used to describe all of her fantasized luxuries. "She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs" (22). It seems as though the "delicate and coquettish" objects are all amazing, but Mathilde comes to find that these expensive objects carry a great responsibility. She ends up losing even the one luxurious object she initially had as a result of trying to obtain her fantasy. She borrowed a "superb necklace of diamonds" from her friend Mme. Forestier "and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire" (24), but little did she know that this wonderful necklace would ultimately lead to her losing the little she had before.

The necklace that Mathilde borrows is perfectly representative of the deceptiveness of appearances in the story. Mathilde first believes that the necklace is so amazing and made of diamonds, but the responsibility ends up being greater than the appearance. She goes to the ball wearing the necklace and loses it. Unable to recover it, she and her husband decide that they must replace the necklace. "They could have it for thirty-six" (26) thousand francs, which ultimately put Mathilde and her husband into great poverty. They gave up everything and after "ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury, and the accumulations of the compound interest" (27). After all of this time, Mathilde spots Mme. Forestier in the park while on a walk "and now that she has paid, she was going to tell her all about it" (27). After Mathilde explains all of the work she went through to pay for the necklace, Mme. Forestier tells her that the necklace was paste and that "it was worth at most five hundred francs" (28). The necklace both figuratively and literally represents the deceptiveness of appearances. The necklace itself is a fake, literally representing its deceptive appearance. It becomes the basis for the beginning of all the deception throughout the story. It also represents the false appearance Mathilde wanted at the ball, as she appeared to be of a higher social standing than she actually was. Mathilde gets to fool everyone, including herself for one night, but that one deceptive night turns into a decade of the reality and learning caused by the night. The deception of the necklace itself ultimately leads Mathilde and her husband to try and replace it to deceive Mme. Forestier. Through all of the deception the necklace causes, Mathilde grows greatly from the experiences.

Ironically, Mathilde would come to learn from the lowest point of her life that the appearances are not what matter because they are deceptive. Mathilde does not grow until "she had become the woman of impoverished households -- strong and hard and rough" (27). The initial irony can be seen at the end of the story when Mathilde finds out that all the work she had done was for a fake necklace, but upon closer reading, it can be seen that she ironically grows from that situation. She comes to learn "the horrible existence of the needy. She took her part, moreover, all on a sudden, with heroism" (26). In an effort to deceive herself and those around her, she comes to find that it is that which is on the inside that means the most, not the fake appearances that people around her put on. She forms an identity for herself that actually exists of a woman that has worked. "She washed the dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts, and the dish-cloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping for breath at every landing" (27). In all of this she finally grows out of her greed and is able to be who she truly is, "dressed like a woman of the people" (27). She finds out in the end that even Mme. Forestier, who is wealthy, tries to deceive people by making herself look even wealthier with a fake necklace. 

Although Mathilde sometimes thinks back to that day, she no longer fantasizes about material wealth and was content with paying her dues for the ten years. Mathilde grows out of her greed and learns from the deceptiveness of appearances in "The Necklace" through Maupassant's use of word choice, symbolism, and irony. Although she could have avoided that time by simply telling the truth, she is able to become a better person for it all and overcome her greed and the illusions that come with it.
