Some people say that telling the truth does more harm than good; yet if someone went around asking people whether they would want to know the truth rather than a lie most people’s answer would be truth. But why is this? Yes, the truth can bring peacefulness to one’s mind, but at the same time it can destroy a person completely. In “The Jewelry”, by Guy de Maupassant, through the marriage and death of M. Lantin’s first wife the reader sees the pros and cons of M. Lentin realizing the truth about his wife.
In “The Jewelry”, M. Lantin, the protagonist, is an honest hard-working man that falls in love with a girl, whom is not named in the story that he met at the house of the office-superintendent. The girl comes from a poor, but respectable family; …show more content…
M. Lantin ends up marrying her; he is very happy in his marriage and for six years all is going well. Mrs. Lantin loves fake jewelry and going to the theater—she even had a loge, theater box (Merriam-Webster), secured—which is something that M. Lantin does not enjoy occupying his time with. Mrs. Lantin begs him to join her at shows, but he refuses and suggests that she go with some friends. She does not like this idea, but eventually ends up going to the theater without him. She buys new jewelry almost every night. One day after she comes home from the Opera she feels ill and eight days later she dies of pneumonia. M. Lantin is obviously devastated and he becomes poor as his wife was in charge of the finances in the home. He, with much thought, decides to go sell her favorite pearl necklace, as he became hungry and was …show more content…
No one could find a nicer girl than that” (Maupassant 90). During a reader’s first time reading the story, he or she can see that the wife is a very good person to M. Lantin until one gets towards the end and realizes that the wife is as deceiving as anyone else can be. During the second time reading it, with the wife’s supposed lover in mind, one can translate the wife’s actions. For example, when she decides to go to the theater without M. Lantin one initially assumes that her friends join her, but keep in mind that she was uncomfortable being “unaccompanied by her husband” (Maupassant 91) and after learning about her lover the possibility that she was attending shows with him was very likely. The possibility of his wife having a lover never crosses Lantin’s mind because she has been nothing but kind towards him. One can also interpret this as the wife feeling neglected; Lantin does not want to do things with her, so she finds someone who will. Another way she was deceiving was when Lantin told her that if one cannot afford nice jewelry then one should not wear any jewelry at all; Mrs. Lantin quickly defended herself about wearing the jewelry as she fully knew it was real. She also seemed to rub in his face what a fool he was as “she would…make the facets of the cut crystals flash in the light…repeating…’You would swear it was real jewelry’”. She examined the jewelry very carefully, adoring its elegancy. She also would
In “The Jewelry”, M. Lantin, the protagonist, is an honest hard-working man that falls in love with a girl, whom is not named in the story that he met at the house of the office-superintendent. The girl comes from a poor, but respectable family; …show more content…
M. Lantin ends up marrying her; he is very happy in his marriage and for six years all is going well. Mrs. Lantin loves fake jewelry and going to the theater—she even had a loge, theater box (Merriam-Webster), secured—which is something that M. Lantin does not enjoy occupying his time with. Mrs. Lantin begs him to join her at shows, but he refuses and suggests that she go with some friends. She does not like this idea, but eventually ends up going to the theater without him. She buys new jewelry almost every night. One day after she comes home from the Opera she feels ill and eight days later she dies of pneumonia. M. Lantin is obviously devastated and he becomes poor as his wife was in charge of the finances in the home. He, with much thought, decides to go sell her favorite pearl necklace, as he became hungry and was …show more content…
No one could find a nicer girl than that” (Maupassant 90). During a reader’s first time reading the story, he or she can see that the wife is a very good person to M. Lantin until one gets towards the end and realizes that the wife is as deceiving as anyone else can be. During the second time reading it, with the wife’s supposed lover in mind, one can translate the wife’s actions. For example, when she decides to go to the theater without M. Lantin one initially assumes that her friends join her, but keep in mind that she was uncomfortable being “unaccompanied by her husband” (Maupassant 91) and after learning about her lover the possibility that she was attending shows with him was very likely. The possibility of his wife having a lover never crosses Lantin’s mind because she has been nothing but kind towards him. One can also interpret this as the wife feeling neglected; Lantin does not want to do things with her, so she finds someone who will. Another way she was deceiving was when Lantin told her that if one cannot afford nice jewelry then one should not wear any jewelry at all; Mrs. Lantin quickly defended herself about wearing the jewelry as she fully knew it was real. She also seemed to rub in his face what a fool he was as “she would…make the facets of the cut crystals flash in the light…repeating…’You would swear it was real jewelry’”. She examined the jewelry very carefully, adoring its elegancy. She also would