In the story “The Necklace,” by Guy de Maupassant, Mathilde was a stunning woman who was born into a low caste in France. Her whole life she spent wishing that she was wealthy and owned more than what she had. When Mathilde’s husband got her an invitation to go to a ball with lots of people from classes higher than hers, she wasn’t satisfied. Though this is what she had wanted for a long time, she was determined that she wouldn’t go unless she had a new dress and expensive jewelry to wear. Finally, Mathilde went to the ball wearing a costly new dress her husband had bought her, and a borrowed necklace of diamonds from her friend. She looked exquisite and had achieved her goal, so she was delighted. When Mathilde and her husband got back to their home, she found that the necklace she borrowed from her friend was missing. She didn’t want to tell her friend this so she bought a new one to replace the lost one. Since Mathilde was quite poor, she went into extreme debt because of this and she took the next ten years to pay back the money for the diamond necklace. After all of the debt had been paid off, Mathilde told her friend about the lost necklace, only to find out that it had been fake and cost less than 500 francs.
