Monsieur Loisel wants to please his wife, who he loves, whereas Madame Loisel is self-absorbed and indifferent to her husband. He has married a beautiful wife, who he sees as a prize, whereas she is frustrated by being married to a man of her own lower middle class status rather than a fabulous aristocrat. In short, Monsieur Loisel is satisfied with his life while Madame Loisel is tormented with discontent.
From what little we see of Monsier Loisel, his interests appear to be directed outward. He likes to hunt and looks forward to a hunting trip with a group of male friends. He make an effort to get an invitation to the ball with the intent of pleasing his wife. Madame Loisel's interest, however, are directed inward: her chief interest seems to be reading the romance novels that feed her discontent with her comfortable middle class life.
The two are alike in that they both work in an honest and dedicated way to pay off the diamond necklace they buy to replace the one of Madame Loisel's that they lost. It crosses neither one's mind to renege on that responsibility. Both show themselves to be honorable people, as it takes years of sacrifice and hard living to retire the loan that financed the new necklace.
Interestingly, too, Monsieur Loisel seems to be just as taken in by appearances as his wife is: They are alike in that neither one of them ever questions whether the diamond is real.
Mathilde Loisel and her husband share the same income, social status, and middle-class background. They are not wealthy aristocrats, but they live in comfort. They also have similar ambitious thoughts and lofty goals. Monsieur Loisel's dreams are grounded in reality as he hopes to work his way to the top of the Ministry of Public Instruction. Mathilde, on the other hand, has unlikely dreams of being a member of the upper class and feels entitled to experience a privileged lifestyle.
Mathilde and her husband are both deceived and believe that Madame Forestier's necklace is genuine. They also share the same reactions when Mathilde loses the necklace.
Mathilde and Monsieur Loisel also have significant character flaws. Mathilde is materialistic, delusional, and selfish while her husband is dishonest and impulsive. He instructs Mathilde to lie to Madame Forestier and does not question the necklace's authenticity when the jeweler states that he only provided the case.
Monsieur Loisel and Mathilde also have dramatically different attributes and character traits. Monsieur Loisel is a hard-working clerk who enjoys his life and appreciates everything he owns. He is also selfless and demonstrates his giving nature by offering his wife four hundred francs to buy a new dress. Monsieur Loisel is also naive and does not recognize the extent of his wife's materialistic nature. Mathilde Loisel is delusional and entitled. She is difficult to please and unhappy because of her social status. She also expects her husband to solve her problems, and anything he does never seems to be...
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Further Reading
In Guy de Maupassant's celebrated short story "The Necklace," Mathilde Loisel and Monsieur Loisel both occupy the same social status and attempt to fulfill their dreams of climbing the social ladder. While Mathilde dreams of becoming an aristocrat and enjoying a luxurious lifestyle, Monsieur Loisel is primarily focused on attaining a better position in the Ministry of Education, which is why he is excited about attending the ball and meeting influential people. Both Mathilde and Monsieur Loisel come from humble backgrounds and are forced to suffer the consequences of losing Madame Forestier's necklace. After Mathilde loses the necklace, Monsieur Loisel spends his inheritance and acquires a significant amount of debt in order to pay for a new, authentic diamond necklace. The couple is forced to move out of their home and struggles for ten years to pay off their debts.
Despite their similarities, Mathilde and her husband have different personalities and do not share the same perspective on life. Mathilde is an entitled woman who genuinely believes that she deserves to enjoy a luxurious life. She resents marrying a lowly clerk and is not content with her humble lifestyle. In contrast, Monsieur Loisel is depicted as an ambitious, rational man who is relatively satisfied with his current life. Unlike his wife, Monsieur Loisel does not feel entitled to live in luxury, does not constantly complain, and does not flippantly dismiss their invitation to the ball. Monsieur Loisel is excited to attend the ball and has no reservations about attending. In contrast, Mathilde insists that she wear a new dress with fancy jewelry before she agrees to attend the party.
The two main characters in "The Necklace" are Monsieur and Madame Loisel. These characters maintain some very poignant similarities and differences, the differences far outweighing the similarities.
Essentially, the only two similarities that the couple share is the fact that they are both to live within the constraints of being a family of clerks and they both strive for Mathilde's happiness.
Outside of that, the couple have many differences.
Mathilde is not happy with her circumstances. She believes that she should be living in a higher station (attending parties, spending lavishly, and admired by all). She is truly unhappy where she is.
M. Loisel, on the other hand, is happy with his circumstances. One can infer this based upon his comment made about dinner.
"Ah, the good soup! I don't know anything better than that."
As simple as soup is, M. Loisel is completely content (unlike his wife). She instead, seemed to detest the soup given she could only think of
dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestry that peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on marvellous 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 quail.
M. Loisel is happy with getting his wife an invitation to an exclusive, and much sought after, party. Mathilde, on the other hand, is not happy with the invitation. Instead, she is upset by it. Her lack of proper clothes and jewelry force her to be saddened instead.
Compare and contrast Mr. Loisel and Mrs. Loisel. Justify your answer with reference to "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant.
Mr. Loisel is far more thoughtful and levelheaded than Mrs. Loisel. He is content with his government job and his life.
He shows his thoughtfulness to his wife when he works to obtain an invitation to his Ministry's ball. He knows of her love and longing for the high life and is trying to please her. When she throws the invitation down disdainfully, he says, "I had awful trouble to get it." He notes that the event is "very select" and not many clerks like him could obtain invitations.
Mr. Loisel shows his goodness of heart, too, when he gives up the money he had been saving for a gun so that his wife can have a new dress for the ball. We know this is a sacrifice for him because he grows "a little pale" when he realizes the amount for a dress is exactly what he has saved.
Mr. Loisel shows his levelheadedness when he suggests that his wife borrow a necklace from her rich friend for the ball.
In contrast, Mrs. Loisel shows herself to be self-absorbed and selfish. She has unrealistic ideas of what her life should be. She is dissatisfied with a comfortable home and longs for a fantasy existence of "shining silverware, of tapestry" in a palatial setting. Rather than appreciate that her husband has gone to an effort to please her with the invitation to the ball, she reacts in a self-centered way, upset that she has nothing decent to wear. Rather than thanking him, she asks, "what do you want be to put on my back" while "two great tears" roll down her face. It never occurs to her that her husband is giving up his own pleasure when he offers her the money for a new dress.
Mrs. Loisel's vanity costs the couple dearly, but Mr. Loisel always behaves honorably, understanding that losing the necklace was a mistake. Both husband and wife are alike in honoring the debt they owe and doing everything they can, at great sacrifice to themselves, to repay it.
What is the relationship between Monsieur and Madame Loisel in "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant?
Mathilde Loisel, the protagonist, in "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant does not like her circumstances. Mathilde is a young, attractive woman who daydreams about living a stylish life. She dreams of serving tea on beautiful china and wearing fashionable clothing. Unfortunately, that is not Mathilde's life.
The Loisels were not poor but middle class. They did have one servant which obviously Mathilde did not appreciate. While Mathilde might have been enjoying her life, instead she choose to be miserable and whine away her time wishing for more and better things.
Mathilde describes her husband as a "little" clerk in the Ministry of Education. His personality is bright and pleasant. He loves his wife and knows that she is unhappy with her circumstances. Probably, thinking himself lucky to have married such an attractive girl, he tries to please her.
When he arranges for the invitation to the ball, Loisel thinks that his wife will be delighted. Mathilde is so immature and self-centered that all she can do is fuss about nothing to wear and no jewelry.
In an effort to please Mathilde, her husband gives her the money that he had been saving for her to buy a new dress. Mathilde still worries that she has no jewelry. She borrows a beautiful necklace from a friend.
The necklace is lost after the party. Poor Monsieur Loisel goes out alone and searches all night and day for the jewels but has no luck. Loisel comes up with a plan to buy another necklace and return it to Mathilde's friend.
This is quite a man. He takes his inheritance from his father; then, he borrows the rest of the money. They return the necklace. But that is just the beginning. For the next ten years, the Loisels work together to pay for the replacement necklace. Monsieur Loisel works a second job at night. They even give up their apartment.
Both of them age tremendously over the years. Mathilde is no longer beautiful. She has hardened:
She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she carried up the water.
The author never lets the reader know if Mathilde appreciated her husband for taking care of her. They did accomplish something together, and she did rise to the occasion and do the hard work of the home. In reality, the hero of the story is Monsieur Loisel who worked alongside his wife to pay back the money for her foolish whim.
Are we more like Madame Loisel or Monsieur Loisel from "The Necklace"?
Madame Loisel is beautiful but unhappy. Born in the family of a clerk, she had wished to get married to a “rich and distinguished” man. This doesn’t happen, however, and she becomes the wife of a simple clerk.
Her physical charm and beauty have always made her feel as though she has been deprived of the status and the society she deserves. She is highly dissatisfied with her simple lifestyle bereft of color and glamour. Her discontentment is well expressed in the following lines:
“She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the worn walls, the abraded chairs, the ugliness of the stuffs.”
She can also be called selfish, insensitive and careless.
On the other hand, Monsieur Loisel is happy and contented with whatever he’s got. He is a loving and supporting husband. To bring a smile to his wife’s face, he manages to get an initiation to a big party where only a few clerks have been invited. He is excited to disclose this piece of news to her. Madame Loisel’s response that follows shows her insensitivity and her selfishness.
Monsieur is a kind of person who wouldn’t hesitate to compromise with their own happiness to make their loved ones happy. Through several months he’s has saved four hundred pounds in order to buy a gun and go shooting with his friends. His selfless affection for his wife is seen when he doesn’t take long to give the same money to his wife to buy herself a “pretty dress.”
Moreover, when he learns about the missing necklace he doesn’t lose his temper or start screaming at his wife. Instead he consoles her and spends the rest of the night searching for the necklace in the streets. Not only this, when they fail to find the necklace, he undergoes a lot of trouble and suffering for several years in order to buy a real diamond necklace.
Thus, we find that Monsieur has got some of the most admirable qualities that we generally expect from others. His wife, on the other hand, is full of human weaknesses. Nevertheless, nobody can call her a bad or negative character. She nurtures a dream to live a luxurious and carefree life--one of the most common hopes of a man. Her longing and hopes and her inability to fulfill them and the resulting frustration make her a more real character.
Because of her weaknesses and frailties, I believe, we associate ourselves more closely with Madame Loisel than Monsieur Loisel. However, Monsieur Loisel is not altogether an unreal character. Men with qualities of Monsieur do exist around us.