Analysis Of The Jewelry By Madame Maupassant

The story, “The Jewelry” is a short story of a mere seven pages, however it still contains all of the plot elements necessary to make its mark on the literary community. All seven of the elements are represented by one event or another. This usage has given the short story an artistic value it would have otherwise lacked.

The first plot element used by the story was exposition. It used this to introduce the characters and their backgrounds to lay a groundwork for the rest of the story. It talked about how the girl- who was to become Madame Lantin- was, “...poor and respectable, quiet and gentle.” (Maupassant 67) She was portrayed to be the perfect woman. M. Lantin was said to be a man of small income who fell head over heels in love with her. It went on to say that the two got married, and then it mentioned what became the basis for the rest of the story. The exposition tells of the only two faults that Lantin finds in his new bride, her fondness of theater and her infatuation with fake jewelry. Those faults are later revealed to be the origin of the conflict to come. Lantin doesn’t like the jewelry because he thought that his wife should dress according to their means instead of putting on an appearance …show more content…
That day is the falling action in the story. The author uses it to show how quickly he overcame his grief when money was involved. Lantin went out to eat breakfast at a fancy restaurant and ordered expensive wine. His abrupt entrance into the high life was shown through his sudden, casual spending. Maupassant shows that Lantin kept building up his wealth in his head to be worth more and more as he bragged to people of his inheritance throughout the day. The sum he said that he inherited kept growing larger every time he said it. He was so confident in his newfound wealth that he left his job to live solely off of the jewelry