The Necklace

The first time I read “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, I was in eighth grade. At the time, I closely related it to that Christmas story where the lady chopped off all her hair to buy her husband a pocket watch chain and her husband sold his pocket watch to buy her a comb for her hair. Sure, the main character in “The Necklace” was a lot more vain, but the circle of work that is required for no reason just depressed me. How was the whole hair story supposed to make you feel good about Christmas? “It’s the thought that counts” never sufficed for me in that story.

Anyway, “The Necklace” follows Mathilde, a woman who was “pretty and charming” but was born into “a family of clerks” and had “no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, and wedded by any rich and distinguished man” (887). Even without ever having experienced the luxuries the rich can afford, the woman still suffered “from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn out chairs, to the ugliness of the curtains” (887). She dreamt of jewels and delicate meals and parties.

Her ridiculous fantasies are not please when her husband finally does find a way for her to go to a party of which she had always dreamed. Instead, she complains that she has no dress to put on her back. Greedily, she asks for four hundred francs that her husband with which he had meant to buy a gun. When her dress is finished, she is still not satisfied. She needs jewelry.

Her solution? Running to her rich friend, Mme. Forestier. She finds a “superb necklace of diamonds” which makes “her heart…beat with an immoderate desire” (889). With her outfit complete, she happily attends the high brow social event.

At the end of the night however, she loses the necklace. Both Mathilde and her husband Loisel search in vain, retracing the path of the carriage ride and trying to remember the cab number. In the end, they come to the conclusion that they must simply buy a new one.

Of course, the price of the necklace is absurdly high, but they borrow money from friends. Every month, more money was due to multiple people. It took ten years of hard labor to repay every penny. Her looks change so much that her friend Mme. Forestier does not recognize her at all. Mathilde tries to blame her for causing her so much pain from losing the necklace at the ball ten years before. Mathilde confesses to giving her a real diamond necklace back. The catch? Mme. Forestier’s necklace “was paste” and was “worth at most five hundred francs” (893).

I suppose it’s good that Mathilde’s vanity wears off, but the suffering of ten years without any break whatsoever? Living in a constant fear of debt and bankruptcy? The story is written well enough to feel like the ending was not completely out of the question, but who would torture their characters so harshly?

Fate is not kind to the characters at all. Mathilde was born into poverty with strikingly good looks and yearns for acceptance from the upper class. In that way, she has no say in the matter. However, when she loses a fake necklace and replaces it with a real one, she could have easily avoided the mishap by telling Mme. Forestier in the beginning. Surely if they were friends enough, she would have been angry but fine if the necklace was real and Mathilde offered to buy a replacement! Anyway, in the latter case, Mathilde just did not think the entire situation through.

I haven't been there, that's not where I'm going

Connie reminds me of every middle school student who was lucky enough to skip the awkward stage of their growth… one of those people of whom I was jealous. And she ditched her friends! All combined, I did not like the protagonist of the story. Actually, I do not like any person in the story, though as a whole, I enjoyed reading through the piece. It was disturbing, but interesting nonetheless.

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is written in third person. Despite the potential to be an omniscient narrator, the story is told with a close connection with Connie. There is some insight into what she is thinking but a lot of her feelings are ambiguous. Since everything is biased towards Connie, the views of her sister and mother are slighted. Connie’s overpowering self-confidence is a sharp contrast in her mind toward her sister, June, who is plain and homely. Nine years Connie’s senior, June is viewed as the dumb older sister. When going to a simple barbeque, Connie dresses “up as if she didn’t know what a barbeque” is (1024). The mother is viewed as a bitter woman past her prime; the reader is led to believe that June is the favorite, but in keeping with Connie’s self-esteem, Connie later states that “her mother preferred her to June just because she was prettier, but the two of them kept up a pretense of exasperation” (1024). Even poor old Dad is not safe from the reader’s judgment; his disinterest in his own child makes him a prime candidate of dislike.

Nothing could keep Arnold Friend from being completely abhorrent, however. Connie’s self-absorbance is nothing compared to Arnold’s overall stalker-like behavior. The irony behind his name itself is indication of his two-sided nature. I personally believe he added an extra “R” in his name, because he is anything but friendly.

Several questions popped into my head as I read through Oates’ short story. For example, what is the secret code of numbers written on the car? Are those the ages of the women he’s raped? Are those the ages he has pretended to be? How can a voice be a “bright monotone?” (1025). Where did he get all the information on her and her family? This guy is just generally creepy! After the narrator reveals his real age—which is over thirty—the whole story just comes crashing. She wants to call the police but he threatens to come into the house only if she picks up the phone.

When she does try to call the police, all she does is scream as Arnold comes in and takes her away. Does he literally stab her or just jolt the breath from her lungs? The narrator keeps pointing out that her back is wet; is that from sweat or blood? I was thoroughly confused. Does she die? He talks about going to the country; is he going to leave her out there? He already tells her that she isn’t going to live in that house ever again.

The last thing he says is “my sweet little blue-eyed girl” though Connie’s eyes are brown. Clearly Arnold has gone insane. My mind ran rampant through the possibilities of back stories for Arnold Friend. He must have had a wife who left him or a girl in his past who slighted him—and she must have had blue eyes. Connie’s resemblance made her special to him, as he pointed out in the beginning.