[To] Maupassant...still belongs that supreme tour de force of surprise endings, ‘‘The Necklace,’’ in which the excellence and the limitation of the method can be perfectly seen. Maupassant's story of the woman who borrows a diamond necklace from a friend, loses it, buys another to replace it, and is condemned to ten years' suffering and poverty by the task of paying off the money, only to make the awful discovery at last that the original necklace was not diamond but paste—this story, dependent though it is for effect on the shock of the last line, differs in one...
Source: Short Stories for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 344 words.)
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