The necklace is a short story, with a simple moral: be happy with what one has and not to be jealous of others' lives. Throughout the story Madame Loisel wants to be much more than she actually is, which later comes back around to eventually harm her in the long run. As for Madame Forestier, she had the beautiful, but fake necklace that she let her friend borrow, but never told her the necklace was fake, which she later loses and ends up replacing it with a similar necklace that is real. The necklace forced her into years of work to pay off the loan she had to take to get a replacement, which was not needed the whole time. The power of the necklace has strong symbolism, the power of perception, and materialism can distort ones view of happiness and fulfillment. 

The necklace personifies many strengths, which can be seen throughout the story. "All of a sudden she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of herself"(Maupassant, 35). The necklace is beautiful but worthless, representing the power of perception between appearance and reality. Throughout the story Madame Loisel places the necklace on a pedestal, which is false recognition of worth, seeing as the necklace was costume jewelry. The necklace is perceived to be an object with power, just as Madame Loisel expected, but when the truth comes out, it turns out the necklace is as fake as the wealth that Madame Loisel and Madame Forestier seem to have.  

Madame Loisel is not a wealthy woman, but is wealthy in looks, and men seek after her. She wants to be wealthier than she actually is which is why she wants to buy a new dress, which is not something she should have done to start with. One could say the dress is where it all started. When she decided to ask her friend for the necklace, and found the necklace in the black satin box, she got extremely excited. "Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anguish: "Can you lend me that, only that?" "Why, yes, certainly." She sprang upon the neck of her friend, kissed her passionately, then fled with her reassure"(Maupassant, 35). Her excitement suggest that she wanted this piece of jewelry more than the rest because of this beauty and her assumption about its worth, due to the fact she had a lack of wealth. The wealth caused her to feel less ugly, which is why she wanted this particular piece of jewelry. Though this piece of jewelry could have caused happiness for some short time, it later died. "He threw over her shoulders the wraps which he had brought, modest wraps of common life, whose poverty contrasted with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wanted to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly fur"(Maupassant, 36). She runs down the stairs to get away from the others trying not to show her unhappiness. When she lost the necklace she realized that it was going to be more than just an apology she was going to have to give. She was going to have to return a real but fake necklace, because of the loss of the original. The shame and lack of confidence in her forced her not to say anything before hand, eventually causing more trouble than needed. 

Madame Forstier was a wealthy friend of Madame Loisel, who owned the necklace. "She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking: "Haven't you any more?" "Why, yes. Look. I don't know what you like"(Maupassant, 35). The questions begin here. Did she not pull out the necklace due to the fact it was a fake piece? Did she herself feel as if she was less valued if she explained that this piece was fake?  When Madame Forstier lets her friend use this piece she did not hint in any way that the piece was fake, nor did she want her to know.  "You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?" "Yes. You never noticed it, then!' They were very like." And she smiled with a joy which was proud and naive at once. Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs"(Maupassant, 39). Whenever Madame Loisel brought the necklace back to her, Madame Forstier did not question the necklace because it was fake and she did not give much care about it. Madame Forstier did not look at the necklace when she got it back those many years ago because it was fake and even if she did look at it, she did not question the authenticity of the necklace because it was fake to start out with. 

The irony throughout the story is that Madame Loisel and her husband wasted their whole life trying to pay for the necklace that turned out to be worthless putting them into finical debt and forcing them into the lower class when Madame Loisel was trying to be something she was not and make herself seem like she was in the upper-class. This mess of losing the necklace, brings them down to the lower class, when in the beginning, they were a middle class family. 

