Maupassant learned much from his godfather and mentor, Gustave Flaubert, displaying in his short stories the same precision and sobriety of language. Maupassant is particularly good in creating atmosphere by describing sights and smells, places and things. He likes to describe his characters through the way that they view their own surroundings:She dreamed of hushed antichambers cushioned with oriental fabrics and illuminated by tall bronze candle sticks, with two imposing footmen in knee breeches, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the radiators, dozing in large arm chairs. She imagined great rooms bedecked with ancient silk, with splendid furniture decorated with expensive knick-knacks, and of smaller intimate perfumed rooms, intended for five o’clock gossip with the closest friends, the men well-known and sought-after enjoying the envy and attention of every woman.

Although Maupassant tried to suppress his own passions to achieve that objectivity of description for which the realists were known, his sententiousness, nevertheless, shines through:Women have no class and no breeding. Their beauty, their grace, their charm are substitutes for birth and family. Their instinctive shrewdness, their predilection for elegance, their suppleness of spirit are their only system of rank, and in this way the daughters of the common people are the equals of the great ladies.

In this rather pessimistic view of women, Maupassant has descended to the level of the cliché, something that he is rarely guilty of doing, but he also gives his main character a deterministic slant, making her more a victim of forces beyond her control than he undoubtedly intended.

In this cruel tale about ridiculous social pretensions, the main characters obviously get the fate they deserve. This is the world of the Parisian lower middle class, but it could well serve as an allegory for French society as a whole, or at least those elements of French society where ambition, materialism, greed, and petty meanness are the main dynamic. Mathilde bears a striking resemblance to Madame Bovary. Both feel trapped in a provincially dull existence, made worse by the solid mediocrity of their husbands. Both long for deliverance, but the deliverance that only money can buy. The party attended by the Loisels at the town house of the minister is not unlike the soiree that the Bovarys attend at the chateau of the count. Even the descriptions of the opulence of both settings seems interchangeable.

Both heroines pay a terrible price for their inability to come to terms with their situation in life. In the case of Emma Bovary, the cost is her own life, ended by suicide; with Mathilde Loisel, the torture is more prolonged. She has thrown away her youth and will have to live with her misery for the rest of her life. The grand party whose pleasant memory has sustained her even while she has been drudging to pay off her enormous debt now becomes a hideous nightmare.

This, in one way or another, is the price to be paid for crass materialism and false pride. Had the characters been less superficial and been willing to admit the loss of the necklace, all of their misery would have been avoided. In accepting a code of conduct that befits their ambitions, not their real situation, they courted disaster. In this the husband is as much to blame as his wife. Although Guy de Maupassant seems to be saying that such people are the victims of the society in which they live, dominated by the status-conscious in the early days of the Third Republic, he never prevents his characters from exercising their free will. It is precisely their ability to make such choices that leads to their own damnation. Maupassant shows how the Loisels are imprisoned in their loneliness and their lack of self-worth. Their pathos is their inability to speak to avoid a whole lifetime of misery.

Maupassant crafted this story in a time and place he was intimately familiar with: Paris in 1880. During this period, a Breton could secure honest employment as a government clerk, while individuals of modest means or those in dire circumstances could witness the opulent lifestyles of the wealthy, just out of their grasp.

Through Maupassant's vivid descriptions of Madame Loisel's envy and fantasies, along with the depiction of a grand ball at the Minister's residence, readers gain insight into the luxurious life of Parisian elites. His portrayal of the Loisels' modest and frugal apartment, their theater outings, and Monsieur Loisel's desire to go hunting with friends provides a clear picture of working-class life in Paris. Their existence, while not luxurious, was comfortable and far from desperate.

Yet, those burdened by debt shared a lifestyle with the uneducated, unskilled, and unfortunate: the poor. Living in cramped, inexpensive rooms under a mansard roof meant enduring extreme heat in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. Without running water, the exhausting task of hauling buckets up four or five flights of stairs for cooking, cleaning, and bathing was a daily ordeal. Preparing the cheapest food, cooking, cleaning up, and hand-washing laundry was more than a modern full-time job for one person.

The office work performed by Loisel would have been monotonous, repetitive, and unfulfilling for a literate man who enjoyed occasional theater visits. Working conditions in 1880 were neither modern nor classical; Loisel would have toiled in a dimly lit, poorly ventilated room among colleagues who bathed infrequently. Furthermore, he could have been dismissed without cause, notice, or recourse.

Narration and Point of View

Similar to many of Maupassant's short stories, "The Necklace" is narrated by an omniscient third-person narrator who avoids passing judgment on the characters or their actions. This narrator has insight into the characters' thoughts and notes that Madame Loisel is discontented because she feels she married below her status. However, the narrator primarily focuses on describing the story's events, leaving it to the reader to infer the nature of the characters from their actions. The main focus is on Madame Loisel. Although the story centers on the events surrounding the ball, the narrator also recounts her humble beginnings, her marriage, and the years of poverty they endure after losing the necklace. This skillful narration allows Maupassant to span many years within just a few pages.

Symbolism

The necklace stands as the central symbol in the story. Madame Loisel "had no clothes, no jewels, nothing," and while her husband can afford to buy her a dress, they cannot purchase jewelry. The necklace thus represents Madame Loisel's greed and superficiality. She judges herself by her possessions and believes others will do the same. The necklace of fake diamonds symbolizes her insincerity. Those who admire the necklace for its perceived value are deceived. Its appearance of authenticity does not equate to its reality. This symbolism extends to Madame Loisel herself: just because she appears to be an upper-class lady in her ball gown and jewels does not mean she is one. The men at the ball who are captivated by her charm and appearance can also be seen as valuing appearances over reality, having been enchanted by a woman whose allure is enhanced by artificial means.

Fable

Many critics interpret "The Necklace" as a Cinderella story told in reverse. Similar to Cinderella, Madame Loisel lives a life of perceived hardship and cannot attend the ball until a fairy godmother figure, Madame Forestier, lends her a stunning necklace that transforms her into one of the most beautiful women at the event. As Madame Loisel exits the ball, the illusion of her elegance begins to fade. Just as Cinderella's gown turns back into a servant's dress, Madame Loisel must don her "modest everyday clothes" to shield herself from the cold night air. Embarrassed, she "rapidly descends the staircase," likely losing the necklace at this moment—much like Cinderella loses her glass slipper in her rush to beat midnight. The carriage that takes the Loisels home is old and dilapidated, resembling a pumpkin more than a grand coach. While Cinderella eventually marries her prince and gains entry into high society, Madame Loisel's fate moves in the opposite direction from "happily ever after." In Cinderella, truth and beauty are intertwined, but in "The Necklace," Madame Loisel is dishonest with Madame Forestier about the necklace's fate. Consequently, she loses her beauty over years of hard labor as a punishment for her deceit and greed.

Irony

"The Necklace" explores the gap between appearance and reality, focusing on issues born from ironic situations. In a society that prizes appearance, it is ironic that the beautiful Madame Loisel is excluded from high society due to her lower social standing. The story's most profound irony lies in the necklace itself; while it seems to be a valuable piece of jewelry, it is actually a fake. The Loisels sacrifice their modest but adequate home to replace an imitation with an expensive substitute. Readers may also find irony in the main character's name. "Madame Loisel" sounds much like "mademoiselle," the French term for a young, unmarried girl, which is what Mathilde wishes she could be.

Hamartia

In tragic tales, hamartia refers to an error in action or judgment that leads the protagonist to a downfall. In "The Necklace," this critical mistake is not Madame Loisel borrowing her friend's necklace, but her failure to confess to Madame Forestier what actually happened to it. By not telling the truth, Madame Loisel remains unaware that the necklace is a fake. As a direct result of their dishonesty, she and her husband are plunged into lives of poverty.

With just a few words, Maupassant could capture a character, and in just a few pages, he could outline a destiny. His translated stories have inspired short story writers worldwide.

Maupassant's name is often linked with the "trick ending" in short stories, a technique that his admirer O. Henry took to great lengths. However, it is unfair to associate Maupassant solely with the "trick ending," as he seldom used it. This connection likely stems from the frequent anthologizing of his story "The Necklace." "The Necklace" is probably included so often because it lacks any overt sexual content, making it suitable for books aimed at young students.

"It is a grave error, and a greater injustice, to associate Maupassant with the naturalists, that all too easy label of the manuals of literature," wrote Professor Artine Artinian in his introduction to The Complete Short Stories of Guy Maupassant. "He shared Flaubert's burning aversion to 'schools,' and he deplored Zola's noisy proclamation of esthetic theories. His was the craftsman's cult of art in practice rather than in theorizing."