"The Diamond Necklace" Review

If there was a chart of the progress of the plot with the symbols/themes, it would look like this:

Matilda is unhappy because she believes that she is too beautiful to be in rags (This means that there will be a rich versus the poor theme).

The husband expects her to be happy to go to a lavish party, but the exact opposite happens.  Matilda is unhappy because she does not have a fancy dress and jewels to wear among the rich women (Matilda believes that the only way she can ever be happy is to have fancy materialistic things).

The husband gives her money that he saved for himself to his wife so she could buy a fancy dress.  Matilda is still not satisfied, so she borrows a necklace from her friend (Matilda does not appreciate her husband’s gift and presses further because greed is coming in).

When she goes to the party, she feels like she is the life and queen of the party.  When her husband puts a wrap around her, because he cares for her well-being, she runs away because she would look bad with it.  All the rich ladies have fancy shawls (This scene shows through the images of a lavish party and the sounds of music that this was what Matilda was hoping for.  She believes that someone as beautiful as her should deserve this type of lifestyle.  This is where the theme of beauty makes a powerful entrance).

 Along the run, she loses the necklace and writes to her friend that she will give it back to her after fixing a clasp that broke from it (She loses the very thing that made her beautiful).

Matilda and her husband spent a fortune on buying a new diamond necklace after they found one like it.  They had to work hard for ten years to pay off the debt (Here, through the descriptive narration, it is shown that Matilda has worked hard for ten years.  This is a parallel to what society must learn.  Money does not come easily.  Hard work is involved).

After the ten years, Matilda became the opposite of a beautiful woman and was crude.  Her friend, when she ran into her, was still beautiful and young.  She even had a child.  Matilda told her friend the true story, only to find out that the necklace was a fake.

                                                        

The ending of the narrative symbolizes that Matilda’s thirst for materialistic objects made her the exact opposite of the beautiful women that she once was.  Her friend, with the fake diamonds, remained young and beautiful because she did not care for real diamonds and materialistic objects.  This is the irony at the end of the story.  Since the story is told in Matilda’s point of view, it gives an insight to why she was feeling the way she is.  The denouement in the plot is not satisfying, and it does not provide closure to the narrative.  The story was sad but hilarious at the same time.