Greed In Guy De Maupassant's The Necklace

“We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed” (Hawking). Greed is a very powerful trait that can transform one’s life. When you have a lot of greed, you can never be fully satisfied with anything who have and crave more and more. Greed is an ongoing cycle. Once you have one thing, you desire another. You start to see people close to you as your competition and as obstacles that get in your way. As you possess more greed, the more you are detaching yourself from reality. You don’t think about others and just care about fulfilling your fantasies about wanting more. The longer you possess greed, the more you are changing yourself. In a short amount of time, you can turn into an entirely different person and that same greed that caused so much power could end up destroying you. In “The Necklace,” Guy de Maupassant uses the

Madame Loisel is a “pretty women” born and married into poverty. As she looked at all the poor items in her house, she felt “tormented and insulted” compared to the girls living in the upper class. Madame Loisel often kept imagining and wanting a luxurious life. When coming into face with the reality of her unhappiness, she drifted off into her thoughts of wanting “oriental tapestries,” “antique silks,” and “perfumed rooms for little parties of intimate friends.” One day, when her husband, a generous store clerk, tells Madame Loisel about an expensive ball, she refuses to go. She thinks there is nothing more “humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.” Her husband offers a suggestion to visit her “rich friend.” There, she finds a “superb diamond necklace.” When she tried on the necklace, she was in “ecstasy at sight of herself.” Wearing the necklace, Madame Loisel’s desires turned into reality and she forgot about the poor girl she is. To Madame Loisel, being wealthy was the most powerful