Madame Loisel from “The Necklace” Essay

Madame Loisel is unhappy because she is ashamed of her social standing. Madam Loisel has always dreamed of a luxurious life with servants and such, and is unhappy because she is not wealthy. She becomes even more upset when she is invited to a ball. It upsets her because she thinks she has nothing to wear which is appropriate for the occasion. Then she is upset because she doesn’t have appropraite jewelry. However the base of both of those complaints is that she is unhappy in her social standing. She was a pretty and charming girl, who thought that she should have been born into a life of luxury. But instead, she was born with parents who were â€Å"employees.† Because of this, she was dissatisfied with everything about her life. She did not like the way her house looked, she did not like the food they had. She was not even satisfied with her maid because she wasn’t high class enough either. She thinks that if all her stuff were high class, she’d be happy. It is perfectly natural for people to want what they can’t have, whether it is an expensive item of some kind of forbidden fruit. Such is the case with Madame Loisel in Guy de Maupassant’s shortMme. Loisel was envious of her friend and anyone else who had more than what she had. She felt that she deserved these things. My first example of Mathilde Loisel’s selfishness is â€Å"She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them.† (p.133). These sentences show how materialistic Mathilde is and how selfish she is for caring only about gaining these things for herself. She didn’t show any care for her husband who despite their humble living, seemed to be a caring and loving husband who kept a positive attitude about things. She held her love for materialistic objects so high that it consumed her and occupied her mind. My second example of Mathilde’s selfishness is â€Å"Nothing. Only I haven’t a dress and so I can’t go to this party.