All written texts contain all sorts of hidden messages and meanings buried within them.  Readers then try to interpret and understand these messages and meanings, ultimately coming up with their own conclusions as to what these messages are from the evidence in the text.  "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is no different no different from other written texts in this regard.  In the story, Madame Mathilde's unhappiness before losing the necklace, the joy she finds in paying off the debt she believes she owes, and how her desire for wealth without working for it leads ultimately destroys the what wealth she had to begin with can be used to argue the interpretation that only hard work leads to happiness.

The concept that Mathilde is unhappy with her present social and economic status is clear very early in the story.  Quotes such as "She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" and "She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing.  And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that (de Maupassant, 34)" established this point.  Her lack of wealth made Mathilde miserable and jealous, so much so that she stopped visiting a former friend from school just because the fact her friend was rich and she was not made it so that she "suffered so much when she came back" from visiting her friend (de Maupassant, 34).  She even thought that she deserved better than the people around her because of her looks and " she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper position  (de Maupassant, 33)."  The ideas of wealth and how her environment made it clear that she was far from wealthy, such as worn-out chairs and ugly curtains, tortured her despite other women "of her rank" would have never noticed their poverty compared to the rich.  Basically, she was never content with what she had, despite having a loving husband, a house, and even a servant (de Maupassant, 36).  Despite all this, the only attempt she made in the story to improve her situation was to get her husband to buy her more expensive items in order to look rich, but she was never described as actually working to better her position before she lost the necklace.  Not only was she not content with what she had, she was ungrateful when she received more.  Her husband went through "had an awful trouble" to get an invitation to a prestigious ball in order to make her happy, but she was only ungrateful and upset because she was convinced that her dress did not make her look affluent enough to attend a ball intended for the upper echelons of society (de Maupassant, 34).  Her husband, who already went through the trouble of getting her the invitation, did not have the money to purchase her a dress without giving up the gun he was planning on purchasing to go hunting with friends.  So, Mathilde's husband then went out of his way again in an attempt to make his wife happy by sacrificing the money he was going to spend on a gun in order for Mathilde to get a new dress (de Maupassant, 34   35).  However, that was not enough for Mathilde either because in the days leading up to the party, she complained "It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on.  I shall look like distress.  I should almost rather not go at all (de Maupassant, 35)."  So, despite how her husband already worked to get her an invitation to a prestigious ball and how he sacrificed the money he was saving for his own source of happiness, she was still sad and ungrateful to her husband.  She was not even thankful towards her husband and was never shown to work for her own goals, much less make a sacrifice for her husband.  Therefore, her reluctance to chase her own desires and how she was never content with anything she had or received, only resulted in unhappiness and misery for her.

The fact that Mathilde only received satisfaction in the story by working towards a goal she set, further supports the interpretation.  In order to have something to wear for the ball, Mathilde borrowed a necklace supposedly made of diamonds from a wealthy friend of hers, but then she lost them while returning from the ball.  She honorably decided it was her duty to pay off the debt (de Maupassant, 37).  She then bought a fake diamond necklace to return to her friend to temporarily act as a substitute for the "real" necklace and is described by the author as taking her new role to pay off the debt "with heroism (de Maupassant, 38)."  Although she worked hard and was unhappy while trying to pay off the debt, she did feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment in paying off the debt.  This is demonstrated by how after she bought a new, real, diamond necklace to replace her friend's and presented it to her "she smiled with a joy which was proud and naive at once (de Maupassant, 39)."  While she was not content with what she had before or whenever she was given something new, she was joyful and proud because she believed she and her husband earned their way out of debt.  Since she had finally been forced to work towards a goal, she felt a since of accomplishment at achieving that goal.  Despite how she was economically better off earlier, she actually experiences happiness due to her hard work, not the luxuries she previously coveted.

Finally, her desire for luxuries is what actually led to the misery she experienced while working to begin with.  She was convinced that "there's nothing more humiliating than look poor among other women who are rich" and needed jewels in order to avoid looking poor at the ball (de Maupassant, 35).  So, Mathilde's obsession with wealth led to her borrowing a necklace from her friend, which she then lost.  Her belief that she would only be happy if she had the same luxuries and status symbols that the wealthy had led to the debt she believed she owed her friend.  This, in turn, turn led to the miserable kind of work she had to endure, but meant she could still feel a sense of accomplishment if she accomplished her goal like she did (de Maupassant, 38).  If she just worked to accomplish her desires to begin with, she could still have had the sense of accomplishment and the joy that comes with it, without having to take the punishing and upsetting jobs she was forced to in order to pay the debt.  In other words, her greed and dreams of wealth without actively pursuing it led to the difficult and miserable ten years it took to completely repay her perceived debt.  The fact she learns after repaying the supposed debt that the original necklace was fake and the debt never really existed to begin with only adds to the amount of misery her obsession caused her, but does not mean that the sense of accomplishment, which is based on working hard towards a goal and not the goal itself, was responsible for this misery.

In conclusion, "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is no different from any other story in how events can be interpreted to have a hidden message by the reader.  "The Necklace," like other written texts, can be interpreted and understood in a variety of ways.  However, one interpretation of the events of this story is how only hard work leads to happiness, which is supported by Madame Mathilde's unhappiness before losing the necklace, the joy she finds in paying off the debt she believes she owes, and how her desire for wealth without working for it leads ultimately destroys the what wealth she had to begin with.

