Being ungrateful is bad
Jay Carter
[email protected]
Michelle Ozmun
Why should you be grateful? Because it will get you a better life. The Necklace was written by
Guy de Maupassant. The book is about a selfish lady named Mathile. She always wanted to be rich and
have fame but her selfishness got her in trouble. Mathile might have had a poor family but she didn’t
appreciate what she had. She always wanted more.
1.In the story the necklace the moral lesson is to be happy with what you have. Throughout the
story Mathile desires wealth. She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as if by an error of
fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of becoming known,
understood, loved or wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and so she let herself be married to a
minor official at the Ministry of Education. She dressed plainly because she had never been able to
afford anything better, but she was as unhappy as if she had once been wealthy. Women don't belong to
a caste or class; by their beauty, grace, and natural charm take the place of birth and family. Natural
delicacy, instinctive elegance and a quick wit determine their place in society, and make the daughters
of commoners the equals of the very finest ladies. She suffered endlessly, feeling she was entitled to all
the delicacies and luxuries of life. She suffered because of the poorness of her house as she looked at
the dirty walls, the worn-out chairs and the ugly curtains. All these things that another woman of her
class would not even have noticed, tormented her and made her resentful. The sight of the little Brenton
girl who did her housework filled her with terrible regrets and hopeless fantasies. She dreamed of silent
antechambers hung with Oriental tapestries, lit from above by torches in bronze holders, while two tall
footmen in knee-length breeches napped in huge armchairs, sleepy from the stove's oppressive warmth.
She dreamed of vast living rooms furnished in rare old silks, elegant furniture loaded with priceless
ornaments, and inviting smaller rooms, perfumed, made for afternoon chats with close friends - famous,
sought after men, who all women envy and desire.
Then her husband is able to get an invitation to a party. To her husband's surprise, she is not at
all pleased. Instead, she says that she cannot go because her lack of a dress. Still wishing to make his
wife happy, her husband gives Mathile 400 francs to purchase a dress that he was saving for rifle. After
buying the dress, Mathile is still not happy she lacks jewelry. Upon her husband's suggestion, Mathile
asks a friend to borrow a necklace. And her friend give her the neck lace. Mathile is the "belle of the
ball." Everyone wishes to be introduced to her and dance with her. Unfortunately, at the end of the
night, Mathile comes to discover that she has lost the necklace in order to replace the necklace, Mathile
and her husband must work for tens years to pay off the debt (34,000 francs). At the end of the story,
Mathile has aged and is unrecognizable. By chance, she comes across the friend who loaned her the
necklace. Mathile admits that she had lost the necklace, but replaced it. She also tells Madame Forestier
(the friend) that she has spent the last ten years repaying the loans to replace the necklace. Forestier
tells Mathile that the necklace was not real diamonds. Mathile and her husband worked for 10 years to
replace a 500 franc necklace. Mathile was greedy and I think that being greedy is bad. greed is bad
because it makes you want to be better than other people. For example Mathile wanted better stuff than
the other people at the ball and wanted to be the best at the ball she didn’t want anyone to be better than
her. Greed also makes you become jealous of what other people have. And it also make you not be
your self. Like Mathile she was a normal person but wanted to be more she wanted to act rich when she
was not she should have been her self because the rich people would probably liked her for who she
was.
3.“The Necklace” is most famous for its “whip-crack” or “O. Henry” ending. O. Henry, who
wrote during the late 1800s, was famous for his twist endings that turned stories on their heads. In “The
Necklace,” the surprise ending unhinges the previously implied premise of the story. Until this point,
the reader has been able to interpret Mathile’s ten years of poverty as penance for her stolen night of
pleasure at the party and for carelessly losing the borrowed necklace. The ending shatters that illusion,
revealing that the ten years of misery were unnecessary and could have been avoided if only Mathile
had been honest with Madame Forestier. Losing the necklace had seemed to be Mathile’s fatal mistake,
but it was actually Mathile’s failure to be truthful with Madame Forestier that sealed her fate. This
shocking realization sheds new light on the previous events and suggests that Mathile’s future even
though her debts are now repaid will be none too easy. The horrible irony of the fact that the Loisels
spent years paying off a replacement for what was actually a worthless necklace is just one instance of
irony evident in “The Necklace.” Also ironic is the fact that Mathile’s beauty, which is what had gotten
her in trouble in the first place.
Being thankful is to be glad for what you have and not wanting more than what you have cause
most likely you have it better than other people like Mathile she had clothes, food and shelter. That’s
all you really need to survive. Some people probably didn’t have all the stuff she had and wanted it.
But Mathile wanted more than she needed. Greediness is also bad because it makes you want more
than you need and eventually you don’t want it anymore for example you want a new toy then after a
while you don’t want it any more because there’s a newer toy that coming out. And then your just
going to have a lot of stuff and you don’t know what to do with it. Not all greedy people have a lot of
stuff but some do and those people become hoarders. Like Mathile she wasn’t a hoarder but she didn’t
really care for other people like her husband she took his money he been saving for a rifle and spent it
on a dress just to go to the ball.
2. been her only valued asset, disappears as a result of her labor for the necklace. She had
borrowed the necklace to be seen as more beautiful and winds up losing her looks completely Perhaps
the most bitter irony of “The Necklace” is that the arduous life that Mathile must assume after losing
the necklace makes her old life—the one she resented so fully—seem luxurious. She borrows Madame
Forestier’s necklace to give the appearance of having more money than she really does, only to then
lose what she does have. She pays doubly, with her money and looks, for something that had no value
to begin with.
Her family were clerks but they didn’t really care but Mathile did she was the only on who
really cared about it and all her other family probably lived a good life because they didn’t really care.
And was probably jealousy that made her want to be rich wanting to be better than every one else
because she had a rich friend and she probably got jealous of her. Why is jealousy bad? being jealous
is bad because you should not want what other people have and focus on what you have and not be mad
for what you don’t. like Mathile she didn’t have good clothes but she should have been happy that she
had clothes. And she was upset that she didn’t have a good house but at least she had a house. And I
think it doesn’t matter where you live at least you have a house so be thankful.
Being rich is not the importance on live. Money is just to buy stuff to survive and Mathile
didn’t even have a job her husband was paying for stuff and she did appreciate. money is not
everything, but money is something very important. Beyond the basic needs, money helps us achieve
our life's goals and supports — the things we care about most deeply — family, education, health care,
charity, adventure and fun. It helps us get some of life's intangibles — freedom or independence, the
opportunity to make the most of our skills and talents, the ability to choose our own course in life. With
money, much good can be done and much unnecessary suffering avoided or eliminated.
4.Honesty could have made Mathile life much more easier. So, why do people lie? The reasons
are countless. People lie to make themselves look better, steal the credit, cover up poor performance,
conceal mistakes, deflect the blame, protect their reputations, and deceive and manipulate people.
Regardless of the motive, the ultimate results are the same. As someone once said, “The worst thing
about being lied to is knowing you’re not worth the truth.” How many times have you heard this? Lots
of times, I am willing to bet. Our culture sends us two very conflicting messages about money. The
first, a message that tells us money is everything. Celebrity culture, the rich and famous, Wall Street
greediness, the twinge of jealousy we feel when we see a house bigger than ours, a car newer than our
car. Then, there’s the completely opposite message, the one that treats wealth – and the wealthy – with
suspicion, that works hard to teach us NOT to envy them, to see the limitations that wealth has and the
potential trouble it can cause. In some families, it gets to the point of feeling that money is somehow
dirty, that it’s not a proper topic for conversation, that flaunting what you’ve got is tacky and that being
poor is almost a virtue.
Guy de Maupassant's story is one of my favorites because the irony was not expected and was
shocking. And it teaches you not to lie or be greedy.
1. http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/Ubooks/Neck.shtml, accessed December 12, 2016
2.https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-moral-lesson-this-story-what-similarities-304503,
accessed December 13, 2016
3. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/money-is-important-but-how-much-do-youneed/article81435.ece
4. http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-necklace/section2.rhtml