"The story of an hour" and "The necklace" Write a character study of each of the main female characters in the stories. Which one do you feel most sympathetic towards and why? :

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“The story of an hour” and “The necklace”

Write a character study of each of the main female characters in the stories. Which one do you feel most sympathetic towards and why? :

“The necklace” and “The story of an hour” both feature two nineteenth century women and the fleeting attainment of their respective dreams. Both women are, to an extent, victims of social circumstance.

           In the story of the “The necklace” Madame Loisel, a lady who was born into a lower middle class family, had always wanted more than she had. She dreamed of being married to a wealthy gentleman of good family but instead she allowed herself to be married to a junior clerk in the Ministry of Public Instruction. In this situation she could not have the marvels of life in which she had always hoped for; she was dressed plainly, having no money to spend on herself. It was a simple life and made her miserable. She knew that she had the good looks to make it in society, for in that time ‘women had no sense of caste or breeding; their beauty, their grace, and their charm taking the place of birth and family’. She was frustrated that she was trapped in this poor life when she felt that she was worthy of much greater things ‘born for the refinements and luxuries of life’. Madame Loisel made herself miserable dreaming of riches and luxury. She was materialistic. The ‘bareness of her flat, the shabbiness of the wall, the worn upholstery of the chairs, and the ugliness of the curtains’ all brought her pain and grief, ‘the sight of the little Breton maid doing her simple house-work’ simply aroused in her passionate regrets and hopeless dreams.

     Although Madame Loisel was unhappy with the way things turned out for her, M Loisel seemed quite happy with his place in society. It shows this simply as he comes home from work and sits down for dinner; he takes the lid off the casserole with the delighted exclamation: “Ah hot-pot again! How lovely! It’s the best dish in the world!” To me it seems that M Loisel only makes such a fuss over the hot pot to make his wife feel better about having it again. M Loisel seems a kind man and I think that Madame Loisel takes him for granted a lot of the time as she is always expecting more than he can give out.  This is shown to be the case when her husband proudly presents her with an invitation for them both to attend a grand party at the ministry where he works. He has put himself out to get this invitation thinking she will be delighted and he will make her happy. But Madame Loisel shows no gratitude or thought for his feelings. She is selfish and thinks only of her own position. She throws it back in his face declaring “What’s the good of this to me!”. She is cross and impatient with him saying “What do you think I’m to wear?”. Feeling sorry for herself she starts to cry and makes M Loisel feel sorry for her too. As always he tries to make his wife happy and puts her before himself. He gives her the money to go and get a new frock for the party, the money he saved for a gun so that he could enjoy some shooting the following summer on the Naterre plain with some friends. This act of unselfishness shows how much he loves her. Madame Loisels’s actions show how selfish and pettish she is. She always thinks of herself before her husband and does not seem to love him as she should.        

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        Throughout the next part of the story it shows Madame Loisel living out her dream of being noticed as a first class woman of culture. After all the trouble of getting a frock she complained to her husband about not having a single piece of jewellery to wear to complete the image. Her husband reminds her of her old and rich friend Madame Forestier who she went to school with. Madame Loisel was envious of her friend because she had all the things Madame Loisel wanted. She did not like to visit her because it made her even more miserable ...

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