The Necklace

Mme Loisel is pretty, young, and ambitious for luxury. She is dissatisfied with her simple life and always feels that she was born for wealth, elegance, and comfort. She is unhappy because she is not content with her poverty, her plain apartment, simple food, and lack of jewellery and fine clothes. Even when she has a loving husband, she keeps longing for a richer life.

Her husband is simple, caring, and contented. He is a petty clerk who tries to make his wife happy, gives her the invitation, agrees to spend his savings on a dress, and later works hard to repay the debt. He does not complain and remains devoted to her.

Mme Loisel is disturbed by the fact that she has no jewel to wear with her new dress. She feels she will look poor and shabby among rich women, so she wants something to adorn herself with.

They search everywhere for the lost necklace. Loisel goes back over the route they had taken, checks with the police and cab offices, and puts an advertisement in the newspapers. Mme Loisel stays at home in grief and writes to Mme Forestier as Loisel dictates, saying that the clasp has broken and the necklace will be repaired.

They buy a new diamond necklace from a shop in the Palais-Royal. It cost 36,000 francs after borrowing money from others and using the 18,000 francs Loisel already had.

The necklace completely changed the Loisels' life. Before the loss, they were poor but living normally. After it, they had to borrow money heavily, give up their maid, shift to an attic, and do hard manual work for ten years to repay the debt. Mme Loisel became old, hard, and worn out, and Loisel also had to do extra work at nights. Thus a single event turned their life from ordinary poverty into long suffering and ruin.