“Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.” This quote by Jane Austen explains the trouble that vanity often brings upon people who value their appearance over everything else in their lives. Accordingly, in the short story titled “The Necklace”; the main character, Matilda, is weak minded to an extent where her vanity brings her great suffering. Matilda suffers through a negative transformation of her social status which is due to: her excessive desire for luxuries she can not afford, her inability to appreciate what she has, and her need to present herself as someone she is not.
In the beginning of the story, Matilda is presented as a beautiful looking woman with a loving husband and little money. With this in mind, …show more content…
This can be seen when her husband asks her what’s wrong and she replies, “Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.” Matilda does not believe that any dress she already has would be enough to help her seem wealthy. She must maintain her carefully curated image of “high class”, no matter the consequences. This is why she insists that she will need jewelry to go along with the beautiful dress. Otherwise, wearing the dress would be a futile attempt at fitting in with the rest of the wealthy ball attendees. To fix this problem, Matilda pays a visit to her friend, Mine. Forestier, and asks to borrow jewelry. She settles for a diamond necklace described as “superb”. Once Matilda is at the ball, she successfully presents herself as the beautiful woman she is. More importantly, as the the wealthy and glamorous woman she has always felt she was meant to be. As she danced with men who were not her husband, she knew she seemed of high social status. She felt like she was on top of the world. Her dress was beautiful, her necklace was stunning and her face was a sight for sore eyes. Although she was beautiful, she was also everything she was
In the beginning of the story, Matilda is presented as a beautiful looking woman with a loving husband and little money. With this in mind, …show more content…
This can be seen when her husband asks her what’s wrong and she replies, “Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.” Matilda does not believe that any dress she already has would be enough to help her seem wealthy. She must maintain her carefully curated image of “high class”, no matter the consequences. This is why she insists that she will need jewelry to go along with the beautiful dress. Otherwise, wearing the dress would be a futile attempt at fitting in with the rest of the wealthy ball attendees. To fix this problem, Matilda pays a visit to her friend, Mine. Forestier, and asks to borrow jewelry. She settles for a diamond necklace described as “superb”. Once Matilda is at the ball, she successfully presents herself as the beautiful woman she is. More importantly, as the the wealthy and glamorous woman she has always felt she was meant to be. As she danced with men who were not her husband, she knew she seemed of high social status. She felt like she was on top of the world. Her dress was beautiful, her necklace was stunning and her face was a sight for sore eyes. Although she was beautiful, she was also everything she was