Abstract: In the story, there is a girl Mathilde who is a poor girl but feels inside her that she should have been born into a family of wealth. She married a clerk though. She was very unhappy with her life because she did not have all the luxurious things that she wished for. One day her husband returns home, and he has an invitation for her. It is to a party held by George Ramponneau who was very well known and rich. Mathilda then says how she does not want to go to the party because she has no good clothes to wear and the people at the party were rich. Her husband then says that he will buy her a new gown to wear to the ball. He gives her four hundred francs to buy a dress. Mathilda then went out and bought a nice dress to wear. She then wanted jewelry to wear. Her husband then tells her to ask Mme. Forestier if she can borrow some jewels. Mathilda then went and chose a diamond necklace to wear. When she went to the party, all eyes were on her. She was extremely happy during this party. When she left though, she did not put her coat on because she did not have good furs like all of the other women. She and her husband then took a carriage home. When they got home, Mathilda realized that she was not wearing the diamond necklace anymore. She looked everywhere for it, but she and her husband could not find it. They then had to buy a new one to replace the one she had lost. They paid 36,000 francs for it and had to take out numerous loans in order to buy it. She and her husband had to move, and she had to get a job. It took them 10 years to pay off the loan, but they were able to. One day she came upon her friend and she finally told her friend that she had lost the necklace. Her friend then revealed to her that the necklace was paste and was worth 500 francs.
Response: I found this story to be depressing because Mathilda worked so hard to pay off the loans for the diamond necklace she lost and it wasn't even real. Mathilda was obviously obsessed with material things and her image. The story showed that greed can ruin a person. Mathilda wanted everything to make her outfit perfect for the ball in order to impress others, so she borrowed her friends necklace which turned into a horrible fiasco. Her greed and desire to be envied by others ultimately lead to her destruction. She was no longer the person she once was. She lost all of her looks and looked very old and overworked. Its kind of twisted how the one time she was truly happy lead to her life being ruined. The story shows how being greedy and getting what you want can hurt you. Mathilda's husband was also kind of push-over. Even though he didn't really have the money to buy her the dress, he gave her the money anyway. He might have just wanted to make his wife happy though. The story also shows that images can be deceiving. Mathilda looked like she had it all at the ball, but she really did not. Some other woman could have looked at Mathilda and thought how she wanted to be like her. In reality, Mathilda didn't have it all and by her trying to fool the world that she did, her life turned into a complete mess. The story could also be seen as a a stereotype for women and how women are obsessed with image. The story depicts women not being happy with what they have and always wanting more. It infers that women are materialistic and not happy with their lives. It shows how women are concerned with outward appearance and the image that they portray to society. The story shows how you truly can't judge a book by its cover because at the ball you would have thought that Mathilda and her husband were very rich, but in reality they weren't and they got into more trouble by Mathilda wanting to portray that image.
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