"The Necklace" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant, which tells the story of a beautiful woman named Mathilde, who ruined her life as a result of her aspirations of wealth. Mathilde did anything she could to hide the fact that she was married to a clerk and was not as wealthy as the other women in the town. The characterization of people and events in the final dialogue of "The Necklace" shows that the perceptions of some people may be skewed as a result of the false outward appearance expressed by the original person. 

In the short story, Mathilde Loisel, is married to a hardworking husband that would sacrifice anything for her. From the beginning of the text to the end, Mathilde was greedy and unhappy with her lower socioeconomic status. When her husband worked hard to acquire a ticket to a lavish ball, Mathilde complained of her limited wardrobe and jewelry. The husband generously let Mathilde buy a new dress with his hard-earned saving that he had originally earmarked for a gun show that he wanted to attend. Even after Mathilde bought a fancy dress, she was still unhappy with her appearance because she did not have any jewelry. The husband then gave her the idea to borrow fancy jewelry from Mme. Forestier, who was a friend of Mathilde. Mathilde borrowed a necklace from Mme. Forestier and unfortunately lost it while at the ball. In order to maintain her pride, Mathilde replaced the seemingly expensive necklace without any suspicion from Mme. Forestier. For the following ten years, Mathilde and her husband had to work very hard in order to repay their loans taken out for the necklace. In a conversation with Mme. Forestier ten years after the incident, it was revealed that the necklace was not real diamonds and was not worth nearly as much as the replacement necklace. All of their hard work in the ten years after the incident was wasted. Mathilde and her husband had worked for something that was not even real. The events in the story expose a lot about the characters and who they really are as people in society. 

The specific passage that reveals the overall message of the text is the final dialogue between Mathilde Loisel and Mme. Forestier. This conversation takes place on a Sunday in a park ten years after Mme. Forestier lent Mathilde the necklace for the ministerial ball. This passage plays an important role in ending the story and portrays the message of the story to the audience through the plot twist that occurs. The main event in the passage is when Mathilde explains her story of her difficult struggle to replace the lost necklace. After Mathilde tells what she has done, Mme. Forestier tells her that the necklace was paste and worth only five hundred francs. This exchange completely changes what the reader thought about the story because all of the work that Mathilde and her husband had done in the past ten years was worthless. They should have just been honest and this would have saved them from their troubled life after the ball. 

When looking at specific characters, the passage shows a lot about Mathilde Loisel and Mme. Forestier. Before the ball, Mathilde was upset with her life and aspired to be wealthy and luxurious like the women she looked up to. Almost all of her focus was on becoming like those seemingly royal women, such as Mme. Forestier. With the little pride that she had at the time, Mathilde refused to admit to Mme. Forestier that she lost the necklace. Mme. Forestier gave the impression that she was wealthy and had a lavish lifestyle with a plethora of expensive jewels. This secret resulted in the next ten years of terribly difficult and draining work. In the passage when Mathilde finally comes clean about her past and the necklace, it shows that she has come to terms with her mistake and she was at ease when telling that she lost the necklace to the original owner.  Mathilde expressed this feeling when she said, "At last it is ended, and I am very glad" (de Maupassant, 39). Mathilde seemed to be almost proud of her hard work in the past ten years because although it was tiring, she was able to pay all of the loans back with the assistance of devoted husband. Since the final words of the passage were of Mme. Forestier telling that the necklace did not have real diamonds, Mathilde's reaction to this was not explained. It can be assumed though after reading the entire text that Mathilde realized that she should have been truthful and it would have saved her from her changed lifestyle in the past ten years. 

The plot twist of Mathilde finding out the diamonds were not real in the original necklace shows a lot about the character of Mme. Forestier. When Mme. Forestier was first introduced, she was given the description of being very wealthy. Her reveal of the actual cost of the necklace showed that her outward appearance was not true and she was not as wealthy and elegant as people perceived her to be. Mme. Forestier must have thought it was important to appear wealthy just as Mathilde did. The appearance of Forestier changed from being very wealthy to being fake. Also, when Mme. Forestier told Mathilde that the diamonds were not real, her language had a condescending tone towards Mathilde. Mme. Forestier "smiled with a joy which was proud and naive at once," which shows that she thought it was somewhat funny that Mathilde was deceived by the genuineness of the necklace (39). Mathilde and Mme. Forestier both had details revealed about them in the passage that changed the meaning of the whole text. 

Mathilde's husband was left out of the passage and conversation between the two women as a way to focus more on the two main characters. Throughout the text, the husband was often in the background and was not to blame for the loss of the necklace, but it was odd that he was left out of the final interaction. The husband played a large role in helping repay for the necklace and was always willing to do anything for Mathilde since she was not as hard of a worker as he was. His reaction to the plot twist is left to the reader's interpretation since he was not included in the passage where this was revealed. 

The author of "The Necklace" used the final dialogue between Mathilde Loisel and Mme. Forestier to expose the truth about the characters and the necklace. In their society, wealth was a top priority and it was shown in the text that people would do almost anything to appear wealthy. Maupassant used descriptive language to show who the characters truly were.  The language used also shows the transformation of the characters and the plot. The dialogue completes the short story and it illustrates the general theme that people may not always be who they appear to be. 

