In the story, "The Necklace," by Guy de Maupassant the main message seems to be to not praise valuables. At most formal upscale parties in the late 1800's, Paris, the beauty of a woman is in relation with her status and worth. This is normally determined by the amount of money that is put into their outward appearance such as high priced clothing, accessories and makeup. Mathilde, who is so desperate to be royalty and rich, feels the most elegant due to her appraisal of her necklace, but in actuality in terms of status, she would place far below the mass of other women at the ball. In "The Necklace" Mathilde's reasoning behind her need to look and feel rich when she states, "No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich."(Guy de Maupassant 35) Mathilde feels as though she has been cheated out of her chance to be born into a royal family, as opposed to her current situation of being born into a middle class family and married to a husband with a less than important job. In this piece, through repetition, theme, and setting an interpretation of the text can be made to better understand the story itself and the message it is trying to convey.. 

The story "The Necklace" tells of a mediocre woman who wants nothing less than to be above mediocre at the least. The less important yet still important main character is Mathilde's husband. Her husband whom is referred to as Monsieur Loisel is a clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. Luckily for Loisel's wife all he wants is for her to be happy. Although Loisel wants the best for his wife, he does not truly understand her own self-conflicts and her desires. This is a very miserable cycle to be stuck in because to want something so badly for someone, but not being able to do anything about it must be tiring and depressing. An example of Loisel's distress for his wife is when he says," What's the matter? What's the matter?"(Guy de Maupassant 34) The repetition of Loisel's question emphasizes his strong need to help his wife. Mathilde's biggest downfall is not being able to open up to other people and confront her fears and anxieties with them. If only Mathilde had told her husband earlier that she wanted to obtain jewelry before the ball, her anxiety could have been cured with the help of her husband. Mathilde does not realize the answer to all her anxieties is to step out of her comfort zone and ask for help.

Mathilde has a tendency to over analyze her appearance, therefore as soon as she is invited to the ball she explodes with a cluster of complaints. Her complaints range from, "Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can't go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I."(Guy de Maupassant 34) to, "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." (Guy de Maupassant 35) A plethora of people share this common characteristic. This is true because modern society will only lift its head of opportunity to those with status and outwards beauty rather than idolize the poor and battered appearance of a potential genius who could likely save lives with their knowledge alone. 

In "The Necklace," Guy de Maupassant contrasts Mathilde with all the other women in the ball. He makes it seem that she is so much on a higher plane of beauty that she is almost nothing like the other women. Mathilde's situation in the story is a palace on a landslide considering she goes from the greatest moment of her life to ten years of hard work to rebuild what was there before. In a sense this gives her the opportunity to improve what was previously destroyed. 

This story is a period place fiction because the time and place of "The Necklace," is placed in an earlier point in history. The only difference between a period place fiction and historical fiction is the lack of specific historical details. A period place fiction uses history simply as a backdrop for the setting and doesn't outright tell of history. Even though history is not the soul focus of this story there are some historical facts that can be pulled from the text. Facts such as the etiquette and standards in society are purposely placed in the story to grasp the reader's attention so that they are intrigued with the historical portrayal of the setting. The setting of this story is in Paris during the late 1800's.

Had Mathilde immediately asked Madame Forestier the best possible way to make it up to her for losing the necklace, then Forestier would likely have waived the fee. Even if the necklace had been worth forty thousand francs, Forestier would not have completely shunned Mathilde. Forestier would more likely react as if something would need to be done to repay her. The best way to solve a situation is always a direct formal confession and then a direct confrontation about what needs to be done to help the current situation. The theme of this story teaches multiple lessons to those who interpret the story in different ways. When close reading a story such as this, it is most often up to the reader to determine what lesson can be taken from the story. The theme is to confess when to a mistake when one has been made so that the healing process may begin through working towards fixing the problem, and in some cases the big problem might just turn out to be an understandable error.

