Analysis Of Guy De Maupassant's Short Story: The Jewels And The Necklace

Appearing better than you are is something that is expected in a day and age of social media. Every teen wants to have designer clothes, the best car, or the most followers on Instagram, which can be damaging to teens. Teens aren’t the only ones impacted by fake appearance; adults also will try and appear better than they are to give off a certain Image. This trend didn’t dawn during the past ten years, appearance versus reality has been around as long as humanity. Guy De Maupassant pushes the image of a false reality in both of his short stories, The Jewels and The Necklace. Bling is used as a route to talk about two couples whose appearance hurt their reality.

Jewelry is a long standing sign of wealth and prosperity, but in both of these …show more content…
Monsieur Lantin believes his wife to be the greatest woman on earth, from cleaning, to cooking, and everything else he is happily married. He says, “She governed his household with such clever economy that they seemed to live in luxury.” There was too much luxury in fact but he blindly trusted her like some happy husbands would do. He only had two issues with his wife, her love for theater and her taste in fake jewelry. Jewelry is an immediate death sentence in Maupassant short stories and stays true in this one. When his wife suddenly dies he starts realizing he can 't live luxuriously as he had with her, at first just thinking she was very smart with money. After poverty strikes, he thinks about the many jewels she had and decides they must be worth something. They are worth more money than he has ever made which at first leaves him in shock after shock comes reality and he realizes his wife was working a side job with a man or many men with deep pockets. He sells all of the jewelry, which could be him trying to get rid of her and the pain she brought him. He remembers back to all the times she showed him the jewels and put them on him all while mocking him with a laugh. When asked about her fake jewels she said, “What can I do? I am so fond of jewelry. It is my only weakness. We cannot change our nature.” Looking at this quote makes everything come together. …show more content…
In an ideal world, you shouldn’t have to choose, but both of these stories aren’t told in an ideal world, much the opposite. Would Madame Loisel rather not know she wasted ten years of her life paying off a debt that wasn’t real or is she glad she knows? I would be very hard pressed to know that the necklace was a fake after all that time, some things are better left unknown. Maybe the past ten years was good for her since she finally became the middle-class wife she was intended to be all along. I think this question is much different than The Jewels. Lantin was already grieving the loss of his seemingly perfect wife only to find out she was cheating on him for most of their marriage. In this case, I would much rather know because it is such a personal thing, while at the same time he may have been happier thinking his wife was his only love up until her death. I think this is the saddest decision to have to make since all of those years could now be looked at as wasted. I think ignorance can be bliss in mid-size, but something that big I would want to know even if knowing would crush me. The appearance of a lovely wife and the harsh reality of a prostitute is a situation that could push most men into a battle of whiskey and then over the edge. I enjoyed both of these short stories because they make the reader believe one thing and then dropped a shocking reality on them, all while leaving clues along the way. Not everything is as it seems which makes