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The Necklace

Summary:   Answers to questions about The Necklace and a break down of the characters, the plot, and other aspects.

1. The beginning Mathilde is always thinking about how poor she is and how tortured she is for living a simple lifestyle with a clerk. Then she gets to go to the ball with her husband and borrows a necklace from her friend. She is so happy and so overjoyed that her friend would let her borrow such an elegant necklace. She is also excited that it looks so good on her, since, in the beginning she discusses how the only reason she doesn't lead a richer life is because she has no dowry. In the end Mathilde is withered and hardened. She realizes what a life she had before she lost that necklace. She had a servant, it wasn't the best type of servant, but she had one. She also had nice, simple clothes and a nice, simple home. She never did any labor or house work.

   In the end she was doing all of the shopping and evening arguing with the butcher, the fruiter, and the other sales men. She hangs her clothes from a line, she scrubs them herself. Once she goes to see her friend she realizes how beautiful her friend is after these last ten years, and her friend doesn't even recognize her because of how much hardship she has really endured.

9. Well the story describes Mathilde as such a beautiful woman whose beauty put her at the same level as women of luxury. But because of her dowry she married a simple clerk. Mathilde is upset with her lifestyle and jealous of her friend Mme. Forestier for the lifestyle that she leads. After she borrows the necklace and she loses the necklace, and doesn't tell her friend that it is gone. She ends up working harded then she has ever worked in her life after that to help her husband out while he works diligently to pay of her debt. Ironically enough, in the end, after all that hard work she finds out that the necklace was a fake and that it was only worth 500 francs as opposed to 34,000 francs.
10. Value isn't something that is known until you can see it or have to work for the object. Care and compassion can lead one to do anything for whomever they care for.