The Loisels have a marriage based not on true love but on social standing.  Because Mathilde’s father was a clerk Mathilde was married to a clerk, as her father couldn’t afford an expensive dowry that would accompany Mathilde’s marriage into a higher class.  Mr. Loisel doesn’t really understand his wife and her aspirations to a higher station in life, as is proved by his confusion over her sudden tantrums and outbursts when he informs her of the invitation to the party.

            Mathilde doesn’t really evolve much as a person through the whole story.  At the beginning she is vain and proud, wanting to be more than her means.  She wants to be a member of high society and go to balls and parties, which she and her husband cannot afford.  It is sad to see that at the end, when her life has taken a turn for the worse and she has lived through a decade of poverty to assuage her pride, that she thinks it was all a cruel trick of fate and not her own vanity for going to the party and pride for borrowing the necklace and not telling her friend it was lost.  Even though Mathilde may change, growing old and coarse like other commoners of her social standing, she doesn’t really evolve as a person.

            Mathilde is a vain, proud person who thinks she is unsuited for her position in life.  She thinks herself better than her husband by the fact that he has no illusions about his standing in society.  She wants something and will whine and throw fits is she doesn’t achieve that goal (Guy de Maupassant obviously has a low opinion of women).  Instead of worrying for her husband, whose life is turned upside down by her careless loss of a borrowed necklace (which she never should have borrowed if she couldn’t replace it easily), she is more concerned about having to wash pots and scrub floors.  She is a selfish, arrogant person who regrets that fate has placed her in a position beneath what she believes she deserves.

            At the beginning of the story, it is said that Mathilde “was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her,” which tells us about her dissatisfaction about her husband and the life he provides her.  It provides the first glimpse into her character, that she is a dissatisfied person who isn’t as caring and thoughtful as she might be.

Word Count: 408