Mathilde Loisel is not a sympathetic character in Guy de Maupassant's short story "The Necklace". Despite having a comfortable home and loving husband, Mathilde is dissatisfied with her life and believes she is destined for wealth and high social status. She is selfish and materialistic, caring only about nice clothes, expensive jewelry, and associating with wealthy friends. Mathilde disrespects and complains about her hardworking husband, failing to appreciate his efforts to provide for her. After losing an expensive borrowed necklace, Mathilde and her husband spend 10 years repaying the debt, causing them great financial hardship, yet she remains self-absorbed and blames her husband for her misfortune.

1. Surname 1
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The Necklace
A family of Clarks raised Mathilde Loisel, and her utter conviction was that it is a
misstate of destiny to be in her station in life; thus, she lived a life of rebellion against her
circumstances in life. Despite having a comfortable home with a loving husband, it is virtually
obvious that she is not satisfied with everything, especially the wealth she does not have. This
essay aims at arguing that Mathilde in the short story Necklace is not a sympathetic character.
In the short story, Mathilde Loisel is not a sympathetic persona because of her selfish and
materialist motives. Financially she is not just poor, characters wise she is not a good person
since, in most instances, she is not satisfied with whatever she has in life. The only things that
give her pleasure are nice clothes, a beautiful house, expensive jewelry, rich friends, and more
furniture. Moreover, she has no respect for her hardworking and respectful husband. She never
stops complaining about him despite her husband being loyal, generous, and hardworking. Yet,
Mathilde is often focusing on herself, and she never realizes the nature of problems her husband
is going through to ensure that her need is provided. She throws the invitation ticket that her
husband gives her for having no good dress to suit the occasion. He purchase her the part dress

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using his saving, yet he saved the money for other things like the gun he planned to purchase.
While her husband extends his expenses to provide her with finer things in life, she still prefers a
husband with better prospects. She is born in luxury and often feels she is owed a life of luxury.
She equates her life to a mere Clark’s wife, something she believes is beneath her status.
After the party, her husband spends his ten years paying for the debts of a necklace lost.
While her husband is doing everything he can to make her life better and comfortable, she does
not feel the love and devotion the husband is giving her. She is too proud, especially when she
failed to tell Madame Forester about her lost necklace. Her lack of sympathy for her husband
leads to the family spending a miserable life. She has constant pain and turmoil for the desire for
wealth that she cannot visit her wealthy family fiend like Madame Forester without Jealousy
catching her. As such, she is a jealous raging woman who can do everything in her power to
reverse her “mistakes of destiny." She perceived her life as being plunged into wholly
inappropriate and inadequate. She particularly blames her husband for her mistake of destiny or
her miserable life despite her husband providing everything for her.
Only at one point does she show her happiness at the party when her husband bought her
the new dress and the borrowed jewelry. She believes that the items give her the appearance of
belonging to a wealthy family. At ease with her appearance at the party, she feels that her life
was meant to be like she feels, only if it was not a mistake for destiny. She completely forgets
her old life while that life makes her happy; she forgets that her husband zone in an empty room
for the most night, yet she immerses herself into a new one.
“She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triump
h of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal ho
mage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to

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her feminine heart” (Maupassant 3). Her joy was so acute for once, and she has complete
satisfaction that the ten arduous years and her compromised beauty cannot dull the party. While
she is completely immersed in her beauty, greed, and deception with her looks, she finally
forgets that her fate sealed her fate.
Mathilde Loisel is not a sympathetic character because of her selfish and materialistic
nature. She looks at her husband as contributing to her poor status in life, something she calls a
mistake of destiny. She is not satisfied with her life despite her husband working to provide
everything for her. A beautiful house, nice cloth, more furniture, and expensive jewelry are what
make her satisfied (Maupassant 1). When she fails to get them, she does not sympathize with her
husband; she blames her for failing to provide for her needs. Moreover, she is not a sympathetic
person because she does not respect her loving, hardworking and caring husband in spite of her
husband being generous and often working to provide for her needs. She does not realize the
problems her husband goes through to provide for their needs.

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Works Cited
Maupassant, Guy. The Necklace. (1884). P.3. Line 35