Madame Loisel feels that she was born for luxury. She is a beautiful woman and believes that she should be living an aristocratic life, draped in fine clothes, jewels and furs. She imagines herself to be living a life opposite of what her true destiny is, a life of meagerness.
It is because of Madame Loisel's deeply held belief that life has cheated her out of her due, that results in her reaction to the invitation to the fancy party. The party, Madame Loisel feels is where she should be, therefore, she must look the part. Madame Loisel is a Cinderella in reverse. She gets to go to the ball, and instead of losing a glass slipper, she loses her friend's necklace.
Her life is then turned into an existence of hardship and hard labor. She ends up in rags.
Monsieur Loisel is a hard-working man who loves his wife, but does not understand her. He wants to please her, and makes sacrifices to give her the luxury, if only temporarily, that she so craves. He is a simple man who is satisfied with his social standing in life. He has no aspirations to be among the aristocrats like his wife. He is content with his simple life.
Both these characters share some reponsibility for the hard work they endure to buy a new necklace. Individually, and together, they do not trust the rich, Madame Loisel, out of envy and jealousy, and Monsieur out of a sense of fear. He is afraid of the power of the rich
A character sketch is a brief synopsis of a character...a little bit about what a character is like and his/her background.
Madame Loisel is a young, beautiful woman who has married a clerk (she feels she has married "beneath" her) and who longs for the finer things in life. However, she and her husband cannot afford the extravagant possessions that Madame Loisel wants. They do, however, live a comfortable life; they even have a maid! Mathilde (Madame Loisel) does not appreciate this, however, and takes her comfortable life for granted. She wallows in self-pity and whines about her "meek" existence. She is motivated by greed and wanting more, which is her major flaw.
Mister Loisel is a down-to-earth, practical, loving husband who adores his wife and who tries his best to please her and make her happy. He goes above and beyond the call of duty to make her feel happy and loved, even sacrificing money he has saved up for himself to allow her to buy an expensive dress for the ball they attend. He suggests that his wife to to Madame Forrestier to borrow a nice piece of jewelry for the ball; he has no idea that when he mentioned his wife needing to do so that the both of them would have to work 10 long years to replace a borrowed necklace that was fake!
Write the character sketch of Madam Loisel from "The Necklace."
Madam Loisel is a nag. She is...
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concerned with appearances and what others might think. She is somewhat shallow and prideful. She is pushy toward her husband to get invited to dinner parties and make social appearances.
When invited to a party hosted by someone of some importance, she borrows a fancy necklace to wear from one of her old school mates. She doesn't realize the necklace is cheap costume jewelry and not worth very much. Mme Loisel shows that she really has no class or sense about what things are worth only what they appear to be worth. She might also have not borrowed the most expensive looking piece of jewelry offered to her.
She loses the necklace and works very hard to buy a "genuine" necklace for her friend. By this time, she is old and decrepit and broken down from all of the hard work. She is also very embittered against her friend who loaned her the necklace in the first place. After a time, she runs into her friend in the market who still looks young and pretty. She confesses the whole story to her and only then finds out that the original necklace was costume jewelry which had been replaced with real diamonds.