#5 Week 5 "The Necklace" pg.187

Summary

Mrs. Loisel is a middle class French woman who was born into the wrong life. She had always dreamed of being a rich debutant who wore the finest clothes and jewels and lived in a mansion with a gorgeous, rich husband and had several servants and the best and most elegant decorations around her mansion. She was never satisfied with her life until one evening when she found herself invited to a dinner by her husband’s bosses. At first mention of the dinner she refused to go having nothing presentable to wear among the high society people that were to attend. After a few crocodile tears her husband gave up his savings to buy her a dress, and as if an overly priced dress wasn’t enough for her Mrs. Loisel had to borrow jewels from her rich friend Mrs. Forrestier. Mrs. Forrestier gave Mrs. Loisel her pick from her collection, after borrowing a diamond necklace and wearing it to the event Mrs. Loisel was a hit but when she arrived home the necklace was gone. After a desperate search came up empty handed, the Loisel’s decide to replace the necklace taking out loans here and promising impossible thing there. After ten years the necklace has been paid off and Mrs. Loisel sees Mrs. Forrestier in the park and decides to tell her what happened so many years ago. After Mrs. Loisel finished explaining all Mrs. Forrestier had to say was that the necklace was a fake.

Reader Response

From the get-go I thought Mrs. Loisel was a selfish greedy, never- satisfied, ugly person. I thought that yes anyone dreams of a better more extravagant life but we don’t all obsess over it like Mrs. Loisel does. I thought that her husband was the sweetest man for putting up with her first of all and giving up money he had saved or himself to make her happy. I was upset to know that after her stupidity her husband was the one who suffered the most having to work extra jobs to pay off a debt that shouldn’t have been his to pay in the first place and all that happened to her was being even less happy with her life and having to learn how to clean and wash. I’m glad she learned a lesson though because what goes around comes around, she finally was able to have a nice piece of jewelry but never able to enjoy it because of all the pain it caused her. She got what was coming to her in my opinion.