Essay Draft Three

Carol Xie

May 9, 2007

Draft 3

 Lethal Vanity

Back to the late nineteenth century, in Paris, the society was organized on a class basis; even the French Revolution could not totally eradicate the class distinctions, which remained an integral part of French society at that time. The class distinctions were so strict that it was very difficult for people to change or move from the class into which they were born, in that case, a man often chose a wife on the basis of how large her fortune was, as a husband would receive a dowry from the family of his future bride during the time.

But unfortunately, Mathilde Loisel, “one of those pretty and charming girls” (38), was only born in a family of clerks. Guy de Maupassant, one of the greatest writers in the history of literary, who was born in the nineteenth century, kept writing and tried to criticize the class basis in the novel the Necklace, through the story of Mathilde. In order to dress herself up to attend the ball, Mathilde borrowed a necklace from one of her friends but accidentally lost it, for which she paid ten years of hard work but finally that “expensive” necklace turned out to be a fake one. The ten-year hardship may be too heavy a punishment for Mathilde, but it was her own excessive vanity that led to the big change in her life.

At the beginning of the story, Mathilde’s vanity is revealed elementarily. She married to a little clerk and dressed plainly, as the family could not afford the good dressing, but “she was unhappy as though she had really fallen from her proper station” (38). Mathilde always thought that she should belong to a higher rank, but the situation of the time could not satisfy her. “She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries.” (38)The writer has further descriptions, which made the figure of Mathilde much more vivid: She suffered from “the poverty of her dwelling” (38), “the wretched look of the walls” (38), “the worn-out chairs” (38), “the ugliness of the curtains” (38), which would draw attention from no other women of her rank. But they “tortured her and made her angry” (39). Mathilde is presented as a woman who was never content with the temporal life she was leading then, especially her appearance, the house she lived in, and the fitments, which were all about the “vanity fair”. We can imagine how those things bothered her in the daily life. She suffered a lot, because of her own vanity.

Except for her suffering, Mathilde always thought of many beautiful things that never belong to her, including “[T]he silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove” (39); “the long salons fitted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire” (39); “dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest” (39); and “delicious dishes served on marvelous plates and of the whispered gallantries which you listen to with a sphinxlike smile, while you are eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail” (39). All those can make up of a complete picture of a luxurious life. Mathilde was so after the silk-stocking life. She craved to lead a better life—a better material life, which would be always admired and envied. She wished to be looked upon to, to be the focus among people, to be together with the rich and distinguished persons. Generally speaking, Mathilde’s vanity decides all her thinking and doing.

When the news came that Mathilde and her husband were invited to a high-level ball, she cried and said “Only I have no dress and therefore I cannot go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.” (40)Through this, we can imagine how often Mathilde complained at home to her husband who was totally in love with her, and how the husband made every efforts to satisfy Mathilde. Moreover, some days before the ball, after she had already got the new dress by spending the four hundred francs by which Mr. Loisel was going to “buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks down there, of a Sunday” (40), Mathilde began to worry about the jewel and “seemed sad, uneasy, anxious” (40). Apparently, Mathilde had been spoiled by her husband, and as a result, her vanity is never getting less.

Mathilde achieved what she wished. She followed Mr. Loisel’s advice to borrow a necklace from Mme. Forestier, and made a great success in the ball. “She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy” (41). Moreover, “[a]ll the men looked at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced” (41), and she even “was remarked by the minister himself” (41). Everything seemed OK, but no one had predicted that, the disaster was coming toward Mathilde and her husband, which was still decided by Mathilde’s vanity. Here are the evidence that Maupassant gave in the story.

First, “she danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these awakened desires, and of that sense of complete victory which is so sweet to a woman’s heart.” (41)Those descriptions show clearly that Mathilde was entirely immersed in the happiness that what she had long dreamed of realized eventually. But, only the vanity could lead to this kind of dream, and made Mathilde so intoxicated.

Second, Mr. Loisel “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” (41), but Mathilde “felt this, and wanted to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs” (41). If Mathilde could think that the wraps reflected Mr. Loisel’s true love, and forgot about all the vanity, what would happen instead? Would the necklace be lost? The answer is no, undoubtedly, because the necklace was much likely to be lost when Mathilde escaped from the wraps on her shoulders and neck. So in the final analysis, Mathilde’s own vanity is the direct chief criminal that should take responsibility for the loss of necklace.

There is a famous saying -- “character decides destiny”. Throughout the whole story, we can see that Mathilde’s own excessive vanity directly led to the ten-year hardship. Though we can ascribe the vanity to the society, to the class distinctions, but the author has told us that, those things “another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry” (38-39). That is the reason why I call Mathilde’s vanity “excessive”. After finishing that tough ten years, Mathilde lost her beauty, her juvenescence. But meanwhile, I believe, that she must have learned a lot from this punishment.

24.5.07 15:00