INTERACTIVE NOTES
Questions after the first reading
What was the story about?
How did the story end? Did anybody anticipate the ending?
Irony. The necklace, which the Loisel’s had suffered ten years to pay back was fake and cost a mere 500 francs.
Did you sympathize with any of the characters?
The husband, who:
gave up buying a hunting rifle to purchase the dress
went out on a work night to try and find the lost necklace
arranged all the loans to pay for the new necklace
Toiled for ten years in order to pay back the loans
Did not complain during any of it
What did you think of the wife Mathilde?
She felt she should have everything, that she was better than other people, she only cared about fancy clothes and parties and what other people thought of her.
Characters
Mathilde Loisel
Mathilde Loisel is characterized foremost by:
A sense of entitlement (dependent entirely on her beauty)
Questions to ask: Why does Mathilde Loisel believe she is special?
Pt.1 She was unhappy as though she had married beneath her.
For women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family. Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.
Pt.2 Feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury
Pt.3 She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the ONLY things she loved; She felt that she was made for them. She had LONGED so EAGERLY to charm, TO BE DESIRED, to be WILDLY ATTRACTIVE and SOUGHT AFTER.
A focus on what she is lacking (material objects, acclaim from the wealthy upper classes)
Questions to ask:
What does Mathilde Loisel want out of life? What is most important for her?
Pt1. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction.
Pt.10 INSTEAD of BEING DELIGHTED, as her husband hoped, SHE FLUNG THE INVITATION PETULANTLY across the table MURMURING…
p.19 I’m UTTERLY MISERABLE at not having any JEWELS, A SINGLE STONE TO WEAR
Difficulty understanding the difference between illusion and reality
Questions to ask:
How does Mathilde Loisel imagine her current life and how does she imagine her ideal life?
How does she imagine her relations between her husband and her friend who lent the necklace and what is the reality of her relationships with them?
Pt.2 She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.
Pt.3 she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.
IN CONTRAST WITH
Pt 2. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.
Pt 3. When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?"
Charles Loisel
A strong willingness to sacrifice himself for his wife
Questions to ask:
What is the relationship like between the husband and the wife? How does Mr.Loisel feel about his wife?
Pt. 21 "Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. “What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?"
Pt. 25-26 He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark- shooting there on Sundays.
Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money."
Pt. 53 It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten.
Pt. 55 "What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed.
Pt. 67-70 They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again. "I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it." And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought. Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.
CONTRAST WITH
She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.
(Mathilde Loisel is inherently passive)
Pt. 71 He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.
CONTRAST WITH
Pt. 72 She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe.
(Mathilde Loisel-inherently passive, expectant of others to suffer for her)
Pt. 85 He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.
A cheery perseverance and desire to see his wife happy
Questions to ask:
What is Mathilde’s attitude in regards to their living situation? What is the attitude of Mathilde’s husband Charles?
Pt. 6-7 One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand.
"Here's something for you," he said.
Pt. 10 Instead of being delighted, as her-husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring
Pt. 12-20 "Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there."
She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?"
He had not thought about it; he stammered: "Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me...."
He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.
"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered.
But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:
"Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall."
He was heart-broken.
THEMES
CLASS CONCIOUSNESS
Mathilde Loisel possesses a very high degree of class conciousness.
She declares (Pt.1) that a woman’s station in life is solely related to:
“Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit…”
Throughout the story, Mathilde is reminded of her social class
Pt.5 “She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.”
Pt. 32 "No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women."
CONTRAST THIS WITH HOW SHE IS CONSCIOUS OF HER SUPERIORITY AT THE BALL
Pt.46-47 She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.
47 She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.
THE LAST LINE INDICATES THAT IT IS HER FEMININE SIDE THAT HAS ALLOWED HER TO RISE ABOVE HER STATION AND ACHIEVE ALL THAT SHE HAS WANTED.
CONTRAST MATHILDE AT THE BALL WITH HOW SHE TOILS AFTERWARDS
Pt. 90 She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.
ILLUSION VS. REALITY
The deceptiveness of appearances plays a prominent role in the story.
Mathilde Loisel, despite her lower class husband and her humble origins,
is able to impress all the men and show off all the ladies at the ball
while wearing a necklace that looks incredibly beautiful but is absolutely worthless. All of those present at the ball treat Mathilde as one of their own and are easily fooled by her worthless necklace and cheap dress.
Mathilde may have believed that because Madame Forestier was so rich, and because she saw all of the jewels that Madame Forestier had, that the necklace was far more valuable than it actually was. In this respect, Mathilde Loisel lives in a world of illusion where the wealth and power of the upper classes is far greater than it is in reality.
MARTYRDOM AND SACRIFICE
Mathilde and Charles Loisel live on LA RUE DES MARTYRS (MARTYRS’ STREET), which is appropriately named as both Mathilde and Charles suffer the fate of martyrs.
The most obvious martyr is Charles, who gives up his gun and dreams of hunting with his friends, and gives up financial security by taking out loans to pay back the necklace. He does this without complaint and sacrifices himself without a word.
Mathilde also suffers terribly throughout the story and is a sort of false martyr as opposed to her husband who is a true martyr. Mathilde sacrifices ten years of her life and ages terribly in the process in order to save face and shame by not admitting to Madame Forestier that she has lost the necklace.
At the end of the story, the necklace turns out to be useless and this renders all of the suffering and privation Mathilde has endured also useless.
The blasé attitude of Madame Forestier in lending Mathilde the necklace and her dismay that Mathilde has martyred and sacrificed herself indicates that what Mathilde has poured such immense value into is not important.
PASSIVE CONSUMERISM
Throughout the story, Mathilde ignores that which she does have (a home, a loving husband, food on the table, a rich friend who can lend her necklaces) and focuses on what she does not have (huge ornate tapestries, guards dressed in cute little uniforms). Her entire life is focused on what she supposedly lacks. Neither her husband, who is desperate to show his love for her by martyring himself, nor Madame Forestier, who shows obvious dismay and horror at Mathilde’s worthless sacrifice, can prevent her covetous desire for material objects. The fact that the object that Mathilde coveted most and that she most sacrificed for is worthless mirrors the worthlessness of her material desires.
SETTING, MOOD, and SYMBOL
Setting
LES RUE DES MARTYRS, or MARTYRS’ STREET is the home of Charles and Mathilde Loisel and is appropriately named, as both characters become martyrs for one reason or another (see Martyrdom and Sacrifice).
The interior of the home is described as having “mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains”.
Mathilde Loisel mentions however that
“All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.”
The above sentence tends to indicate that the way Mathilde sees her home may not be the way that it truly is in reality.