'The Necklace’, by Guy de Maupassant, does not describe the main female character, instead, she is described by her self. She describes herself as 'one of those charming girls who had been born by an unlucky twist of fate into a lower middle class family', this shows that she feels 'above' her class, she feels better than others and is always striving for more than she has. She calls herself 'pretty and charming’; this shows her superficial side and her confident side, showing that she may come across as arrogant to others. She also describes herself as 'suffering intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury’, this shows that she cannot accept that she has a life that is not full of rich fabrics, delicate jewellery and wealthy friends. She adds to this that she had been ‘born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees’, showing that she resents the fact that she is born to her class and blames other people for the misfortunes that she feels this shows that she is very selfish and extremely ungrateful.
One common link between all the stories is the setting in which the story takes place; the setting and time help to highlight what the main characters wants and highlights how and why the characters are motivated. In 'Tony Kytes', the story takes place on the way back from town to the small village of Long Puddle in Dorset (Wessex) and takes place in the late 1800's. In the late 1800's women marry to the man they feel can provide for them the best as the want to avoid working. As they all come from this small village shows that there isn't a large number the women have to choose from to marry. In 'The Vendetta', the constant reminder of her sons killers helps to motivate widow Saverini. There are three windows on the front of the house facing the island opposite, 'On the other side of the channel she watched from morning till night a white speck on the coast. It was a little Sardinian village, Longosardo, where Corsican bandits fled for refuge when too hard pressed.' This quotation shows her determination to fulfil her vendetta for her son. She is described as 'watching from morning till night' this also highlights her determination to help as she knows that ‘Nicolas Ravolati', her sons murderer 'had taken refuge in this very village'. 'The Vendetta' takes place in Italy during the late 1800's, the idea of revenge was very strong throughout Italy and as widow Saverini had no other family to fulfil this revenge she took it upon herself to. In 'The Necklace' Madame Loisel lives in Paris. Paris is very stylish place and as she was always surrounded by these rich, stylish, glamorous surroundings, this reminds her of her wants and therefore motivates her to almost become like the surroundings; glamorous, stylish and rich. 'She was taking a turn in the Champs Elysées, as a recreation after the labours of the week, she perceived suddenly a woman walking with a child. It was Madame Forester, still young, still beautiful, still seductive,' as she walks down the street she sees her old friend who in contrast to Madame Loisel is 'still young, still beautiful, and still seductive.' 'The Necklace' is set in the late 1800’s, during this time divides between classes were much larger, Madame Loisel was not lower class neither was she in the top class as she wanted to be; she desired to own the expensive clothes and jewellery because she was surrounded by these things.
All the stories are all written in third person, this allows the reader to sympathise with different characters. 'The necklace' is written in third person and is written from Madame Loisel’s point of view, 'Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid up, she would tell her all. Why not?' This helps the reader to sympathise with Madame Loisel and how she feels at each point in the story. Even at the start where Madame Loisel is complaining about how she does not have that much to complain about, we feel for her through the way we can see how see feels and how certain things affect her, rather than how they might affect her from somebody elses point of view. The emotive language the narrator uses such as 'She suffered intensely' and 'she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress,' emphasises her feelings and also adds to the reader feeling sympathy for her. At the end of the story the point of view changes and is written from Madame Forestier’s point of view, this change is to emphasis how much Madame Loisel has changed; she has changed so much that her old friend, Madame Forestier's, does not recognise her. We can understand this because we understand the changes from somebody else’s point of view, whereas if it were told from Madame Loisel's then we would not see such a contrasting change.
'The Vendetta' is also written in the third person, this allows us to fully understand Saverini's state of mind. However, this switches when the murder happens, this separates us from understanding fully what is happening but this also enables us to understand that Widow Saverini is disconnected from her feelings and blocks out her feelings and almost turns inhuman; she is distant and does not seem to care about how she has just killed someone. This enables us to fully comprehend how she was so determined to fulfil the vendetta, that she blocks out every feeling just to accomplish the vendetta to her son.
'Tony Kytes' is also written in third person; however the point of view does not differ at any point of the story. Tony is quite a narrow minded and looks at things in a simple way. This is shown in the way that the point of view does not change; as there is only one view we can understand why he thinks he can act the way he does. This also emphasis how narrow minded he is, as the story only gives one point of view, this echoes how Tony Kytes only sees things from his point of view and does not consider others.
Another method the writer uses to present the strong willed women is through the settings of the stories. In both 'Vendetta' and 'The Necklace' the setting surrounding the strong willed woman motivates her even more because she can see and is constantly reminded of what she wants. In ‘Vendetta’ the Widows house had windows that faced across the channel 'On the other side of the channel she watched from morning till night a white speck on the coast. It was a little Sardinian village, Longosardo, where Corsican bandits fled for refuge when too hard pressed.' Widow Saverini is constantly reminded of the island each time she looks out of her window. The windows almost 'surround' her with the constant reminder of her son and the vendetta; this motivated her even more because she knew 'Nicolas Ravolati had taken refuge in this very village'. She sat and 'she looked over there and pondered revenge'; from her windows she could always see and was constantly reminded about the island that her son’s killers were she 'could not forget' and therefore promised a vendetta and saw it through. Widow Saverini believed that she must fulfil her vendetta and because she had no husband or any other family member that could, she took it upon herself to get revenge on her son’s killer.
'The Necklace’ is set in lives in Paris which is very glamorous. Madame Loisel always wanted to be like Paris, glamorous, exciting, the setting echoed this as she was always surrounded by the glamorous surroundings, this motivated her to almost become these surroundings and to become an important person in the social circles. 'She was taking a turn in the Champs Elysées, as a recreation after the labours of the week, she perceived suddenly a woman walking with a child. It was Mme. Forester, still young, still beautiful, and still seductive.' As she walks down the street she sees her old friend who, unlike Madame Loisel, is 'still young, still beautiful, and still seductive.' In the 1800’s when this story is set the divides between classes were bigger, and although Madame Loisel was not in the bottom class, she was not as high up as she wanted to be; she wanted to be the best that anyone could be, she wanted people to envy her and want to be like her, rather than her wanting to be like someone else. But Madame Loisel was jobless and her husband made all the money for both her and him, he did not make much money, this frustrated her; he could not give her all she wanted, riches. This, therefore, shows that the surroundings motivated and frustrated Madame Loisel. If Madame Loisel was around nowadays she would probably be working and earning money or would marry a man who earns a lot of money for her to have a luxurious life without putting a lot of effort in. However, at the end of the story she shows a high level of persistence and works everyday to earn money back, therefore I feel she would probably be more likely to be working hard if she were around today. Maybe nowadays people would be more likely to tell the person they had lost their necklace than in the 1800’s.
Although both in both of these stories the strong willed characters are motivated by their surroundings they are affected in different ways. In 'Vendetta' Widow Saverini is motivated by the hatred and vendetta for her sons killer, and in 'The Necklace' Madame Loisel is motivated by her want for riches. These two motivating ideas contrast but both motivate each strong willed character to complete what they set out to do.
I feel that the setting in 'Tony Kytes' does not motivate the strong willed women as much, but the time and small village does. The women are from a small village and this makes them feel pressured to find a good, well-off husband to look after them. I do not feel that direct surrounding have as much impact on their behaviour compared with 'Vendetta' and 'The Necklace'.
In both 'Vendetta' and 'The Necklace' another method is used to show motivation; symbols. In 'Vendetta' the blood sausage is used to show Widow Saverini’s motivation to kill her son’s killer; she kept giving the blood sausage to the dog. This was to train him into killing and when as he finally kills the man, he gets a sausage again; as his reward for killing. Imagery is another method used in 'Vendetta'; the setting is shown as being very wild, dangerous and isolated, this echoes how the widow feels about getting revenge on her son’s killer. Her house is isolated; this is exactly how she feels. This isolation highlights her determination and shows how she is cutting off everything else just to fulfil the vendetta to her son. In ‘The Necklace’ the main symbol is the necklace. The necklace represents her desire to be wealthy, and it is carried through throughout the story. She is continuously reminded of the necklace (her determination to become wealthy and live the luxurious life she wants to lead) because of the debt she must pay off. When she pays off the debt, she finds out that the necklace was worthless and all the work she done was just to please her friend. This changes her as a character and proves that there is more to her than the symbol of the necklace. It also proves that the symbol of the necklace from the very beginning of the story was fake; it was worthless in the beginning and the whole symbol of fortune is false and what she wanted from the beginning was also pointless and worthless. She was happier without the fortune in the beginning than when she finally accomplished what she set out to do.
In 'Vendetta' very little dialogue is spoken. The main dialogue spoken is when Widow Saverini is talking to her son’s killer; she says 'Hello Nicholas' and gets her dog to kill him. This emphasises how isolated she was from the rest of the world and how she kept herself to herself with nobody else to talk to about what is going on. The small amount of dialogue in the story also makes what this line more significant because it is the only thing she says, the only person she talks to.
One more significant method that the writers illustrate the determination of the women is through the resolution of each story. The resolution of each story shows that the characters changes significantly, either for the better or worse. At the end of 'Vendetta', widow Saverini is alone; all her family are dead, in one way this could be perceived as a story where she ends off worse of than at the beginning. However, to Widow Saverini she is better off; her son’s killer is dead and she has fulfilled her vendetta to her son.
At the end of 'Tony Kytes', the strong willed women all end up alone, which is worst off than they wanted to be. However, none of the women wanted to marry someone who would not treat them fairly, and felt it would be better to leave him than to stay with him and be put at risk of being made a fool of in such a small village. So for the women, however they feel worse off at the end than the beginning, they are better off compared with if they stayed with Tony Kytes.
At the end of ‘The Necklace', Madame Loisel has a lot less than what she started out with. When she finds out that ten years worth of hard work to pay off her debt was unnecessary and the necklace was worthless, she realizes that the friendship and honour was more important to her than being wealthy. By the end of the story she is worn down and old, this shows she has lost her youth and her want to be young and glamorous, but she has gained her want and determination to give her friend back the necklace. This shows that although Madame Loisel has lost 10 years of her working life to pay back for a worthless necklace she has gained respect for herself and gained the appreciation for what she already has.
I think that most successful story for making the determination of the strong willed women more obvious is 'The Necklace'. I think this because I feel that the setting is the most significant in highlighting Madame Loisel's determination without over powering the actual story line. I feel that it successfully echoes both the feelings of Madame Loisel and her motivation. I also feel that the symbol of the necklace was also very successful at motivating Madame Loisel. Also the changes in point of view show how each character feels without making the story too one sided.
