Examples Of Pride In The Necklace By Guy De Maupassant

In The Necklace, by Guy de Maupassant, Mathilde lives in a comfortable and simple house. Her husband, M. Loisel is a very contemptuous person while Mathilde is a greedy person who wants everything. When M. Loisel tries to cheer Mathilde up, he only makes it worse for her by showing her what she doesn’t have. Whenever M. Loisel makes the problem better, Mathilde only finds another problem to complain about. When Mathilde hasn't learned her lesson after ten years of hard labor, she still gets drownded in pride through what she has, doesn’t have, and her ingratitude.
The first way Mathilde displays pride is by what she already has. She receives an elegant ball gown to go to a ball and loves showing the gown off to all of the rich people there.

All the men looked at her, asked her name, and sought to be introduced.” (page 5-6) She told herself that she had to be the most elegant woman there, and so she took the money that they had, and bought a majestic gown. She wanted to be the best above everyone else, and she did that by buying the best dress. “She Danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of success…which is so sweet to a woman’s heart.” (page 6). She enjoyed herself tonight because she was finally the best of the best and needed not worry about what she looked like, because she knew. Mathilde displayed pride by needing the perfect and best ball gowns, ornaments and looking at herself in the mirror. “Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat,

It is like heaven for her right now, trying on diamond necklaces, looking into the mirror. She finally gets to do a thing that she has been dreaming of. “She removed her wraps before the glass so as to see herself once more in all her glory.” (page 7). She already loves to look into the mirror. She is in a new ball gown, a giant diamond ornament, and was the prettiest lady and the ball. Mathilde has to look into the mirror one last time.
Mathilde displays pride again though what she does not have. Mathilde thought she was married into the wrong caste and deserves better. She “let herself be married to a clerk.” (Page 1). “She thought of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, … and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates, and of the whispered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinxlike smile while you are eating the pink meat of a trout, or the wings of a qual.” (page 1-2). Mathilde was discontent with what she already had, which was “The good soup…” (pg 1). She needed the best of the best. She was greedy. “ She had no gowns, no jewels,nothing. And she loved nothing but that.” Even though she had everything that she needed and most likely more than