Ego truly does consume some people's lives. It has the capability of taking over a life and even destroying one. Madame Mathilde Loisel has a very large ego in The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. Madame Loisel causes unnecessary stress on both her husband and herself by lying to protect her ego. In the short story, she loses her friend, Madame Forestier's, necklace, which she believes to be worth 36,000 francs. Instead of telling Madame Forestier the truth, Madame Loisel chooses to buy a new necklace and live in debt for ten years. When the ten years finally come to an end, Madame Loisel aged a tremendous amount because of the stress she felt from working to pay off the debt. If she had just admitted the truth to her friend from the beginning, she would have learned the necklace was only worth 500 francs. By doing this, she could have saved herself and her husband many years of strife and hardship. By looking at word choice, short phrases, and contrasting diction in "The Necklace" by de Maupassant, one can see that Madame Loisel's ego, vanity, and conceitedness are the reasons for her downfall. 

In the beginning of the story, Madame Loisel is described as being very jealous of those who have money and luxurious things in their lives. In each instance where Madame Loisel desires what she does not possess, de Maupassant shows contrasts by describing precisely what she does have. De Maupassant writes, "She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by mistake of destiny, born into a family of clerks " (page 33). This phrase is significant because it shows how out of place Madame Loisel is, even within her own family. She neither fits into the world she thinks she belongs, nor into the family in which she was born. Her ego and her conceitedness hold her back from the reality that she cannot have everything she wants. In this short story, there is a stigma that looks alone could have catapulted Madame Loisel into a higher class. Madame Loisel believes herself to be much better than her lowly merchant family because of her looks and charm. In "The Necklace", the vanity and conceitedness displayed by Madame Loisel ultimately leads to her inherent downfall.

The character of Madame Loisel is neither loving nor caring. In fact, the only thing that she does love is the idea that people love and accept her because of her looks and apparent charm; "She loved nothing but that; she felt made for that . She would so have liked to please, to be envied  to be sought over" (Maupassant 34). Madame Loisel not only believes that it is in her destiny to be loved by all, but also to have money and luxury in her life. Because of her vain belief that she deserves everything, it is seen that Madame Loisel does not only end up unloved, but also poor, old, and without any physical beauty. De Maupassant writes, "she felt made for that" and "to be envied" (34). These phrases portray the fact that Madame Loisel is oblivious to the fact that her ego is what has made her unappealing and unenvied.

Madame Loisel's true downfall begins when she buys a real diamond necklace instead of telling her friend, Madame Forestier, the truth about losing the original necklace. She gives a similar necklace consisting of expensive diamonds to Madame Forestier and has to work very hard to pay back the jeweler. Before she bought the new, expensive necklace, Madame Loisel and her husband were much better off than they realized. De Maupassant writes, "Mme. Loisel now knew the horrible existence of the needy  The dreadful debt must be paid  They dismissed their servant  they rented a garret under the roof" (38).  After all this time of being unappreciative of what she had, Madame Loisel is forced to acknowledge the reality of those who are truly needy. They were forced to sell their house and fire their helpers. The words "horrible existence" and "dreadful debt" describe Madame Loisel's life after losing the necklace and failing to tell her friend the truth. In this respect, her ego and pride are the catalysts for her downfall. Her inability to admit to losing the necklace ultimately ends up ruining her entire life. 

Ten years after the necklace fiasco occurs, Madame Loisel and her husband finish paying off the debt they owe. For ten long years they both work so hard and are barely able to make ends meet. Descriptive words are used to amplify how much Mathilde is affected by her work. Maupassant writes, "She had become the woman of impoverished households  frowsy hair, skirts askew  she thought  of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so feted" (38).  Mathilde realizes how good her life actually was just ten years ago. Her ego, pride, and vanity ultimately destroyed all of her dreams for a brighter future for herself. The words "impoverished", "frowsy", "beautiful", and "feted" contrast each other (38). Mathilde now believes that she was so great before, but ten years ago she really thought that she had nothing. Although Mathilde's large ego was constantly prominent in the short story, she can now clearly see just how hard her life could have been before and how much beauty she has lost because of it.

At the end of the short story, Madame Forestier runs into Mathilde and does not even recognize her. Mathilde blames her past ten years on Madame Forestier but it was never really Forestier's fault. If Mathilde would have come clean from the start, nothing as stressful would have happened for an entire decade. As Mathilde says that she bought a new diamond necklace and worked excessively for ten years, Madam Forestier says, "'Oh my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs"' (Maupassant 39). The entire time Mathilde could have been living here life debt free if she just let Madame Forestier know what had happened. Ironically Madam Forestier says "poor Mathilde", despite the fact that Mathilde is actually poor, so the word is being used in both ways. Ten years of constant working and stressing ages Mathilde a tremendous amount. Now that she knows the necklace was not real she realizes how egotistical and untruthful she was being by not telling Madame Forestier.

Guy de Maupassant does a great job in The Necklace of using words and phrases to portray the idea that Mathilde's downfall is her ego, vanity, and conceitedness. If only Madame Loisel and her husband had confessed to losing Madame Forestier's fake diamond necklace. Ten years of living in hard situations and ten years of paying of thousands of francs would not have had to happen. Mathilde's ego overcomes her and ultimately leads to her downfall.

