The ones Who Walked Away

Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace” includes three literary elements that are mainly dominant. Although the author uses all of the elements, he focuses on three of them.

The one element that is above all important is irony. The author uses many examples of irony in his short story. In the first paragraph he uses irony, “With no dowry, no prospects, no way of any kind of being met, understood, loved, and married by a man both prosperous and famous, she was finally married to a minor clerk in the Ministry of Education.” This quote is situation al irony because when the author uses the words prosperous and famous, the reader would expect the husband to be much more then just a minor clerk. The largest use of irony was used in the last sentence of the story. “Mme. Forestier, quite overcome, clasped her by the hands. ‘Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine was a fake. Why, at most it was worth only five hundred francs!’” The author surprises the reader very much by having the twist at the end of the story. The reader would expect Mme. Foreister to be angry with Mathilde, for not telling her the truth earlier, but she is surprised to hear that Mathilde and her husband had spent ten years repaying their debts for buying the real, thirty-six thousand francs necklace to replace only a fake.

Another main element of the story is character. The author intends Mathilde to be cruel and demanding. When they receive the invitation to the dance, Mathilde wants everything to look wonderful even though they do not have the money. She even uses the money her husband has been saving for a long time to go hunting with his friends. “’I’m not sure exactly, but I think with four hundred Francs I could manage it.’ He turned a bit pale, for he had se aside just that amount to buy a rifle so that the following summer, he could join some friends who were getting up a group to shoot larks on the plain near Nanterre. However, he said, ‘All right. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But try to get a nice dress.’” She always acts innocent and sneaky to get what she wants. “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a gem- nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper. I’d almost rather not go to the party.” Her husband always ends up giving in and buying her what ever she wants.

The last main element the author focuses on is conflict. The conflict in this story