Explore the ways in which the narrative of 'The Necklace' contributes to the effectiveness of the story's ending.

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The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Explore the ways in which the narrative of ‘The Necklace’ contributes to the effectiveness of the story’s ending.

        

        The title of this story tells us little about what will be happening in this story. From that we would only be able to predict that the story would involve a necklace. Everything other than that remains a mystery. A short and simple title in this case has attracted the reader to read on. This is achieved because with this kind of short title, as it brings limited information about the story itself, the only way the reader could know about the content would be to read onwards.

“The Necklace” has been effective by the way it brings to the reader the sense of pity for Mme Loisel. The author used the plot, character, setting, point of view and the theme of the story to achieve this.

At the beginning of the story, Mme Loisel and her husband are presented as poor figures. Mme Loisel longed for a rich and decent life. In her dreams she dreamt of being admired, living in a house with big reception halls with fashionable dinner parties being held. All of these would surely not come true. This opening of the story is very normal. It presented us the background information, of both main characters. We were told that they were poor and would like a rich people’s life.

As the story continues, surprisingly one day her husband received an envelope from the Minister of Education and Mme Georges Ramponneau. After opening the envelope, they discovered that they had been invited to a party where all the important people would be there. In this part of the story there was a contradiction in the setting. The Loisel was said to be poor but was being given an invitation to such a rich party. Up until now, the necklace that only appears in the title still remained as a mystery. This was effective as it makes the reader continue reading.

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Of course, Mme Loisel really hoped to go, but unfortunately as in a poor living condition, she did not even have a suitable evening dress to wear. This problem was solved easily. Her husband had enough money to buy her a new dress. After that, she moaned again, not wanting to go, as she had no jewels to wear with the dress. No jewels to wear with an evening dress meant nothing to Mme Loisel because it looked plain. This unfortunately could not be solved as her husband had used much of his own earning on the dress already. ...

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