The Necklace Analytical Essay

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Though her story ended differently, Madame Loisel, the protagonist from Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, reminds of the fairy tale Cinderella. Cinderella, a poor girl treated like a slave by her step family, one night has the opportunity to attend the prince’s ball when her Fairy Godmother arrives and grants her a dress and a pair of glass slippers. She has one requirement: to be back by midnight, though she is evidently a few minutes late and loses a glass slipper while rushing. All she has left is the other shoe. This reminds me of Madame Loisel because she has one night to have fun and be seen as beautiful and rich, though it all ends when she loses the necklace, relating to Cinderella being late and losing a shoe. Now, all she has left…show more content…
society conflict when she is pressured by society’s heavy expectations as well, because she knows that she will be judged, so she spends a lot of money to fit in. Madame Loisel explicitly states in a implicitly gloomy tone, “‘No… there’s nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women’”(2). This demonstrates how Madame Loisel knows the expectations of society, and knows that she can’t look poor, because she will be judged and may be the topic of the party. She wanted to show her beauty, to be part of this level of society, even if it’s just for a night. In the end, she lost a lot of money and became poor because of this flaw. First of all, will someone really recognize her if they meet again, without the proper attire, makeup, and jewelry? (Probably not, so she should just go and have fun.) Second, will she meet them at all? (Their social statuses are so different, the chance is extremely low.) Madame Loisel learns from this man vs. society conflict that you shouldn’t always try to fit in. She learned that fitting in isn’t everything, so this scene involving this conflict in particular is very…show more content…
She goes through a man vs. man, a man vs. self, and a man vs. society conflicts. Unlike her, Cinderella had rushed and fulfilled her requirements, but, even though she just needed to watch over a single gem on a chain, she didn’t keep her promise to bring back the necklace safely. Because of this, while Cinderella became an elegant and beautiful princess, Madame Loisel became poorer than ever. She learned responsibility and the negative power of trying to fit into society. As a children’s story, Cinderella lives happily, but even she was the slightest bit late, so if she were converted into a more realistic world, even she would suffer, a humiliation to herself and her step family, in front of hundreds of people. This is what Madame Loisel was afraid of the most, but because of society’s tight restrictions, she suffered terribly; worse than before, especially after she learned the truth behind the necklace and the amount of money that she and her husband had spent. If only Madame Loisel were able to turn back the clock hand to back to

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