The Necklace [Short Story Review]

[I spoil the main points of this story.]

"The Necklace" is a short story written by Guy de Maupassant. It was published in 1884. I have never heard of this guy. He's apparently a prolific French author.

This is a story about a woman named Madame Mathilde who is not satisfied with her life. She actually has a decent life with a decent husband. They are not poor, but they are also not extremely wealthy either. She is constantly fretting over how wealthy all of her acquaintances and friends are.

Her husband, who honestly barely deserves her, goes through a lot of trouble to get them invited to a fancy party, but she can't imagine going to it without a new dress. Her husband gives her a lot of money that he had been saving so she could get a new dress, but then she is still unsatisfied because she doesn't have any jewels to go with it.

Sooooo... The husband advises her to go borrow something from one of her rich friends. She does this and immediately locks on to a diamond necklace. This necklace provides the woman one hell of a good night at that party, but when she leaves, the necklace is somehow lost and cannot be found.

In order to save face, the couple goes into crippling debt to replace it with one that looks similar, although they do not tell the friend that it is a different necklace. Meanwhile, their lives are horrible. They are living like peasants now, and Madame Mathilde is working hard and soon looks like an old woman.

Now, later on, she decides to just confess to her friend what happened. Her friend is shocked but then explains that the necklace she had lent her was actually a fake and barely worth anything at all. She just liked how it looks.

And that is the punchline.

And sometimes stories like these end up with a real kicker of an ending, and in this case it works. Madame Mathilde's covetous nature ultimately led to her downfall. It is also important to note that she found value in beauty where there was very little actual worth to it. It shows that perception is not reality. We can think what we want, but reality is what it is. She really should have just been content with the actually good life she had... as well as one of the best husbands ever.

I totally recommend this story. It is a good cautionary tale. It is sad to think that there have been a lot of people like Madame Mathilde in the world since the beginning of time. And yes, I know I keep saying that the husband is great, but I do think he should have put his foot down a bit more. His desire to please her serves to show that she did not really take his love as seriously as she should have. She really just wanted the diamonds.

This blog was written on July 8, 2026.

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