“The Necklace” is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant told in third person that focuses on themes of class, and the desire for it ultimately driving the plot forward. The story focuses on Mathilde Loisel, a middle class woman living in 1800’s France who only desires a life of wealth and excess. The setting is important to note because of the class structure in France at the time left many people in the lower classes as a result of inflation caused by the reign and exile of Napoleon (Napoleonic wars). Mathilde finds herself extremely unsatisfied with her middle-class husband and middle-class life.
The opportunity presents itself for her to go to a high-class party. She longs to go but worries about how she will elevate her appearance to match the status of those attending the party. In fact, she is so alienated by the inability to acquire a nice dress due to poverty that she weeps.
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Wordsworth uses the poem as a critical analysis of materialism and capitalism, the driving forces of class hierarchy similar to that presented in “The Necklace”. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours” (Wordsworth 2, 3) can be interpreted as a criticism of society's inability to appreciate life beyond what money can buy and see nature’s beauty at face value. Mathilde is the target of Wordsworth’s criticisms. Wordsworth longs for people like Mathilde to leave behind their desires for money, wealth and status and embrace the spiritual connection to the Earth we inhabit, lest we lose ourselves to an artificial industrial ‘humanity’. The necklace itself is a superficial object that has been taken from the Earth and been carved and sold for profit, and is representative of the consumerism Wordsworth- and possibly even Guy de Maupassant (based of the ending of “The Necklace”)-