her life, and she was willing to allow her husband to spend the family's savings on a gown that she considered necessary for the function. Yet, that was not enough. Expensive accessories were also needed, so she took the step of borrowing what she thought was an appropriate necklace for the finishing touch to her ensemble. She could not focus on anything beyond the ball--it was to be her greatest moment. Ironically, the necklace, which proved to be paste, fooled everyone, including Mathilde. The loss of the necklace certainly brought both of the Loisels back down to earth, yet her own vanity would not allow her to admit to the loss of the necklace to its owner. A simple admission of truth to her friend would have solved the problem and saved them the years of toil that followed.

There are a number of lessons in Guy de Maupassant‎’s short story “The Necklace.” Two that are prominent are “all that glitters is not gold” and the best policy is to tell the truth. Mathilde grew up in a simple background but longed to live an upper class life. She married a working class gentleman who did his best to please her.

When her husband procures an invitation to a dance she is distraught by her lack of appropriate attire and jewelry. Her husband gives her his savings to purchase a dress and suggests that she wear flowers or borrow some jewelry from her friend. She borrows a sparkling necklace from her wealthy friend, which she assumes is diamonds and gold. Unfortunately, in a haste to leave the dance because she is embarrassed by her shabby wrap, she loses the necklace. Instead of telling her friend the truth about losing the necklace, she and her husband purchase a replacement which takes them ten years to pay off.

Mathilde and her husband lose their home and youth paying off what they thought was a diamond necklace. When Mathilde has a chance meeting with her friend after finally paying off the necklace, the friend reveals that is was a fabulous fake and not the real thing. If Mathilde had told her friend the truth when the necklace was lost after the dance, there may have been hurt feelings but it would have saved Mathilde and her husband ten years of turmoil.

One moral lesson for today's society that can be extracted from Guy De Maupassant's short story 'The Necklace' is that trying to emulate peers and raise one's status carries risks that may not be worth it in the end. Mme Loisel and her husband were not rich at the beginning of the story but they were 'free.'For example,   one presumes from reading between the lines that as the husband was lucky enough to be in employment, they may not have had fancy things but they had a roof over their heads and did not go hungry like so many of the starving thousands in that society at the time. They were free in the sense that they were not in crippling debt and had no obigations other than the usual one to any boss. They threw their freedom away and chained themselves in debt like many people have done in our various 'crashes' and 'downturns.'

To me, the moral of this story is that people should not be too greedy for material things.  Instead, they should be content with what they have and what they can afford.

I would connect this to some of the things that have gotten many Americans into financial problems these days.  The current economic crisis has its roots in the "housing bubble" which was caused in part by Americans trying to live in houses that were bigger than they could afford.  By trying to get bigger and fancier houses than they could really afford, many Americans got themselves into a position where now they can no longer afford to pay their mortgages.

You can see the same thing in cases where people have high-stress lives because both parents in a family are trying to have careers.  Often, this happens because people want more material goods than they can afford on one salary.  Because of this, they work too hard and their personal and family lives suffer.