Throughout the world, people are always striving to be better; to be more popular, to have more money, to be more successful, to have more friends. It is very rare to find someone that is perfectly content with their life; it is simply basic human nature to always want more, to always want what you cannot or do not have. At the same time, there are a number of people that have perfected the art of pretending to be someone else, pretending to be everything they want themselves to be but simply are not. Although these individuals may appear to be in complete bliss, they are typically the most depressed and disconnected people you have ever met. Constantly fabricating a double life can be exhausting and although others may think of them as happy, are they? In the short story "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant, the author uses irony to demonstrate the deceptiveness of appearances, as well as the importance people designate to material goods, both of which aid in widening the gap between fantasy and reality. 

Madame Loisel transforms her identity from that of a lowly housewife to that of a wealthy and respected public figure by using her appearance to deceive others. On a daily basis, Madame Loisel "[suffers] ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all delicacies and all the luxuries" (Maupassant 33). Loisel has a very bleak outlook on life and is constantly dreaming of having "nature fineness, instinct for what is elegant, [and] suppleness of wit;" all of which are key traits of the "greatest ladies" (Maupassant 33). As a result of being invited to the "Palace of Ministry", Madame Loisel feels the need to beautify herself in order to fit in with all of the other enticing women she expects to be in attendance (Maupassant 34). Loisel tells her husband that she has "no dress" to wear and how "it annoys [her] not to have a single jewel"; conveying her insecurity by saying "there is nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich" (Maupassant 34-35). Mr. Loisel is not too concerned with the matter but agrees to give his wife "four hundred francs" to buy a new dress and suggests she borrow jewelry from a friend, "Madame Forestier" (Maupassant 35). On the day of the ball, with a suitable dress and a beautiful diamond necklace, Madame Loisel was "prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy" (Maupassant 36). As a result of changing her appearance, "all the men looked at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced" and she was in a "cloud of happiness" with a sense of "complete victory" (Maupassant 36). By simply changing her appearance, Madame Loisel had the happiest night of her life and thoroughly enjoyed basking "in the triumph of her beauty, [and] the glory of her success" (Maupassant 36). On the night of the ball, Madame Loisel was deceiving everyone in attendance, including herself. By dressing the way she did and acting like she did not have a care in the world, everyone at the ball perceived her to be another beautiful, successful woman who attends events like these on a weekly basis. It is insane to think that a new dress, a diamond necklace, and some makeup can transform a woman who is miserable day in and day out to suddenly become so ecstatic. Loisel appeared to be perfectly content the night of the ball because she was pretending to be someone who had everything in life they could possibly want; but when the night is over, she is once again full of despair. At the end of the night, Madame Loisel's happiness is already fading when her husband "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" (Maupassant 36). Madame Loisel could not stand to be seen and looked down upon by other women who were leaving the ball in "costly furs" (Maupassant 36). Rather than wait inside for a cab, she "rapidly descended the stairs" and stood outside in the cold (Maupassant 36). The fact that Madame Loisel chose to stand out in the freezing cold to wait for a cab rather than wait inside and be seen in less than luxurious outerwear by the "official world" demonstrates her unhappiness with her own circumstances and need to deceive others in order to feel accepted (Maupassant 34). 

Another major factor that enforces the split between fantasy and reality in this story is the perceived power of objects and the failure to be true to one's self. Madame Loisel ultimately loses the beautiful diamond necklace that she borrowed and rather than simply telling her friend that she had lost the necklace, she spent the next "ten years" repaying the debt (Maupassant 39). Years later, Madame Loisel runs into Madame Forestier and tells her the true story of what happened to the necklace, only to find out that the "necklace was paste" (Maupassant 39). Madame Loisel had repaid the debt in the amount of "thirty-six thousand francs" when in fact the fake necklace was only worth about five hundred francs" (Maupassant 37, 39). Madame Loisel automatically assumed the necklace was costly and extravagant because she had always perceived Madame Forestier as being high-class and fashionable as a result of how she presented herself. Madame Forestier had nice belongings, was always well dressed, and always kept good company. However, in the end, Madame Forestier is as much of a fraud as Madame Loisel in that she pretends to be extremely rich and popular when she can only afford costume jewelry. If Madame Loisel had simply been truthful to herself, swallowed her pride, and admitted that she had lost the necklace and could not afford to replace it, her life may have turned out quite differently. 

Overall, the story has an extremely ironic ending in that Madame Loisel discovers that Madame Forestier, a close friend who she idolizes, is just as much a master of deception as she is. Madame Loisel realizes that everything of Madame Forestier's that she has coveted, including material items like the diamond necklace and non material items like popularity, simply do not exist. Merely, these things are false representations of reality that highlight the idea that the power designated to material goods has the ability to alter one's appearance and therefore one's perception by others. 

