Every individual faces instances of deception on a daily basis; and in every case, there is someone who is being fooled and someone or something that is doing the fooling. "The Necklace" is a short story authored by Guy de Maupassant in which he uses motifs to display underlying lessons, such as the consequences of deception. The story begins with a middleclass woman, Mme. Loisel, who wishes more than anything that she had been born into a wealthy family and handed a lavish lifestyle. She would like to attend an upper class party with her husband but only if she is dressed properly. After her husband agrees to buy her a new dress and she borrows what she believes to be an especially expensive necklace, she is thrilled to attend the party. Everything was perfect to her in that exact moment until she noticed that she had lost the necklace after arriving home from her dream night out. Because of this minor problem, she basically destroyed her life. In this short story, Maupassant uses elegant imagery, rich symbolism, and classic irony to show how deception has the power to be evil and devastating.

Maupassant's use of imagery is shown throughout the entire story. He is trying to show the reader how explicit and perfect Mme. Loisel wants her life to be. As stated in the story, "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" (33). Mme. Loisel did not live in extreme poverty matching the picture Maupassant is painting here. She was an average middle class woman with an ordinary life, but this was not adequate for her and she wanted more. She wanted to live lavishly with extravagant materialistic objects. 

"She thought of the long salons fatted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire". (33) 

In this, single abnormally long sentence, Maupassant describes what Mme. Loisel fantasizes about each and every day. He creates an image for the reader using exquisite diction that shows what Mme. Loisel dreams of and that she is not content with her ordinary life. Because Mme. Loisel felt the need to seem as if she had this more than perfect, extravagant life for the party, she ended up essentially destroying her life. Maupassant shows that misrepresentation has the ability to backfire with extreme consequences.

The use of symbolism is shown throughout this short story in many instances, although the necklace is by far the most important. Maupassant uses the necklace to represent something that seems so real but in reality, is actually a fraud. Mme. Loisel went to her friend's, Mme. Forestier, to borrow some jewelry. As she was going through all of her pieces, "all of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart sank began to beat with an immoderate desire" (35). This necklace symbolizes the exact person Mme. Loisel was. She looked rich, real, and beautiful on the outside, but in reality, it was only a show. These diamonds are the same to Mme. Loisel as Mme. Loisel was to the people at the party. Maupassant uses this necklace as a symbol to relate back to the central theme of deception. If Mme. Loisel had not tried to deceive others into thinking that she was a wealthy upper class woman, she would have never destroyed her own life right before her eyes. If she had bought a fraudulent necklace to wear in the first place, she would not have had to spend ten years of her life working and living in debt. Maupassant wants to express to the reader that misleading others to believe something other than the truth, can essentially destroy one's life.

Maupassant uses irony throughout this entire short story to tie together everything that he is trying to communicate with the reader. The irony in this story begins with Mme. Loisel's expectations to her dreamed perfect life. Her husband was so excited to announce to her that he had gotten an invitation for an elite party, until she had responded "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" (34). He then offered to buy her a dress but then she complained about having no jewelry. He then recommended she borrow some from her friend, and she agreed. Mme. Loisel set high standards for herself and what she wanted to appear to be on the night of the ball. It is ironic that she finally felt where she belonged for one night, only to fall into poverty and live worse than she had before. The necklace itself brings the most irony to the story. Mme. Loisel's friend, Mme. Forestier, stated "oh my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs" (39). She stated this after she had found out that Mme. Loisel had just spent the past ten years trying to pay off the real diamond necklace she had bought to replace Mme. Forestier's fake one. Mme. Loisel thought the necklace was real diamonds, just as the people at the party believed her to be a real upper class woman. Here, Mme. Loisel had simply destroyed her perfectly average life for something that was fake. There was never any need for her to have to work hard and fall into debt. Maupassant uses irony to display the overall message that it is not worth deceiving others because the one doing the deceiving will only end up hurting themselves in the end. 

"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is a paradoxical story that displays underlying lessons through the use of imagery, symbolism, and irony. Maupassant uses these specific literary elements to demonstrate the effects of deception. He presents to the reader that fooling others to believe something that has no truth or that has twisted truth, allows room for downfall and devastation.       

