Power In The Necklace

Have you ever thought about where power comes from? Often times, the more money you have the more powerful you are. I have come to this conclusion by using Social Power Theory to understand the short story, The Necklace, by Guy De Maupassant. In the story the main character, Mathilde, is depressed because she doesn't have the same influence on people that a person with expensive things would. To cheer her up, her husband buys her a dress and takes her to a fancy ball. She decides she needs an expensive necklace to top it all off, so she borrows one from her privileged friend. She then loses the necklace and spends ten years paying it off only to find out the necklace she lost was fake. By looking at who has the power, how the power is
represented, …show more content…
One of the main themes of this story is wealthier people have a higher level of social power. This is shown to us in the story through Mathildes wealthy friend, Madame Forestier’s urgency to help Mathilde find a necklace to borrow. “Madame Forestier went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a large box, brought it back, opened it, and said to Madame Loisel: "Choose, my dear."”
It's seems like Forestier’s main reason to help her friend is to show her abundance of jewels. The more jewels she has means the more power she has over Mathilde.
Another use of social power theory in the story was to show how the power is represented.
The power is mainly represented by the fancy clothes and jewelry of the wealthy. Even Mathilde experiences this shift of power when she goes to the ball wearing her fancy dress and necklace.
“Madame Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all the other women, elegant, gracious, smiling, and full of joy. All the men stared at her, asked her name, tried to be introduced. All the cabinet officials wanted to waltz with her. Even the minister noticed her.” These people would have never noticed her without the display of wealth. Because they see she is wealthy, they