Comparing The Necklace And The Pedestrian, By Ray Bradbury

482 Words2 Pages

Everyone in life wants to fit in because why would anyone want to be left out? However, the fact that we want to fit in ruins some people's lives because of the limits they go to to accomplish our common goal. On the contrary, some lives are ruined by trying to stand out and not staying with the crowd. This is very clearly stated in two very different ways by Guy de Maupassant in the story “The Necklace” and by Ray Bradbury in “The Pedestrian”. In both of these stories we are shown that you should not get caught up in what others are doing. In both of the stories the theme is expressed differently, in “The Necklace” it is expressed by a women trying to fit in and having her life ruined. In the story Mathilde Loisel is invited to a ball and she wants to fit in. However, she is poor so she borrows a necklace from a friend. She did this instead of wearing flowers for a cheap 15 francs. Mathilde lost the necklace and had to pay it off over the next 10 years. She did this because she wanted to fit in and no one else would be wearing cheap flowers. The theme is also shown in this story by the fact the Mathilde wanted to wear jewelry. This expresses the theme because she could very easily worn flowers but then she would have stuck out like a …show more content…

However, the theme is shown in the opposite way. In the story Leonard wanted to see the world instead of sitting inside like everyone else. So he goes on a walk every night for years. Eventually he was arrested for this because he was considered suspicious for not acting like everyone else. This shows my theme because Leonard did not want to be like everyone else and it got him arrested. Another spot in the story where this theme is shown in the story is that he did not want to just sit around and watch television. The only other thing for him to do was go outside where he could get some fresh air and be away from all