The Necklace and Marxism Theory

ENG3U

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

The Necklace and Marxism theory essay

The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant put a light on how the economic status of people in 19th century Paris. Its an excellent example of Karl Marx’s economic theory, because throughout the story it shows the different levels of society and how it affects peoples lives. The main character, Mathilde, is a proletarian. Which means she’s the lower, working class. Mathilde’s socioeconomic status affects her relationships because she feels she deserves better. This belief affects her relationships with her husband, herself and her best friend.

    Mathilde’s husband, Georges Ramponneau, loved her very much, and she didn’t love her at all. She was very livid because “she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction.” (De Maupassant 1) She didn’t have the chose to marry him, and she was mad that she couldn’t find a bourgeoisie man to want to marry her. She felt like she deserved all these nice things that her husband couldn’t afford to give her at his current salary. He did give her a fairly luxuries life, they had a maid and she didn’t have to work. But she didn’t have a huge house, and she didn’t own silk and “she loved nothing but that” (De Maupassant 1) proving that she never loved her husband. When he got the invitations to the ball he told her “‘There” said he, “there is something for you”(De Maupassant 2) he understood that she wants more and is trying to give her what she wants.

    Mathilde was born proletarian and her angry really makes no sense considering that. “she was unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station.” (De Maupassant 1) yet she didn’t really fall and she never had an introduction to the bourgeoisie lifestyle. When Mathilde and her husband won the tickets to the ball, she felt that “there’s nothing more humiliating than looking poor among other women who are rich.”(De Maupassant 3). Mathilde craved being rich so bad that she felt ashamed to be seen in flowers instead of jewels and her theater dress instead of an elegant ball gown. On the night of the ball, her husband bought her a wrap to wear with her dress. After he bought her a brand new dress with his gun money. When he put it on her shoulders, she “wished to escape” (De Maupassant 5) and disappear away from her husband and anyone that could possibly see her trying so hard to look rich when she wasn’t even close to the status she craved so much.

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