Utilizing Third Person Narration in the Necklace by Guy De Maupassant

In Guy de Maupassant's, "The Necklace", the author utilizes the third person narrator throughout the story to refrain from showing any judgment towards the character or their actions. At the same time, the author still had the ability to enter the thoughts of his characters to portray the feelings that the characters were going through in the story. This helped understand the changes in feelings and the importance of the theme. Although, Maupassant tends to mainly focused on what was happening at the time of the moment and touches very little on how the character feels about the situation. As seen on a particular sentence, "and this life lasted for ten years" (182), he never reveals how she feels about the ten long years that she had to work, but merely the fact that she had to work

Maupassant leads up to his story by introducing a lower class wife who envied the typical Cinderella tale. Mathilde wanted to attend a ballroom event in an extravagant dress and sparkling jewels; items that she seemed to have lacked. Fortunately, she had a loving husband that sacrificed buying a gun for himself in order for his wife to afford a dress of her liking. Throughout the beginning, Mathilde was unappreciative and always wanted more and when she finally attended the ball she showed no love for all that her husband did for her. All she did was live her fantasy, flirting with other men, drinking the booze, and not paying attention to her husband.

Maupassant showed the importance of his characters by making his minor characters either round or flat. Mme. Forestier and M. Loisel were completely flat characters since their parts are not much of importance in the story. There is little to be known of them, except for their association with Mme. Loisel. On the other hand, he made Mme. Loisel's character round to show that she is the main character in the story. She experiences a remarkable change in the course of the story, and the change is described in great details. Despite her natural beauty, she is never satisfied with her life as a wife of a lower-middle classed clerk. She calls it "a mistake of destiny" (177). She constantly suffers "from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains." (178) Maupassant shows great detail and implants a picture to the readers to show how miserable she feels about her life. The detail described about the character shows that her character is round.

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Maupassant symbolically describes his characters and significant events in greater depth than others. When Mme. Loisel sees Mme. Forestier's necklace for the first time, the in depth descriptions of her desire for the beautiful necklace are eager to tell something. "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 tremble 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" (180). The usage of the expressions of the black satin box, immoderate desires, and lost in ecstasy at the sight of her self, suggests the significance of the piece in the story. It foreshadows hinting that there is either something good or bad that will happen in the story.

The high appeal of the necklace in the story sets it's central theme around it. The theme of the necklace, though, had a hidden moral, which claims that it is in one's best interest to tell the truth. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!" (183). As hard as it may have been at the time to confess her wrongdoings, if she had just been honest in the beginning she would have saved herself from ten years of servitude to all the loan sharks they to repay for the necklace.

"The Necklace" was a good story. It was told in a way to keep an audience on its feet. The author did this by not revealing the ironic ending until the very last sentences, "Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs" (183). It showed that even rich people as judged didn't always buy the most extravagant items. It made her realize that even though she had suffered for ten years to repay their loans, it made her a better person at the end. It goes to show that the truth would have been the better route to take in the first place.

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