Reading Log
Name: JoJo.Chan
Date: May.12.2007
Reading log of the Necklace
Firstly I was impressed by the wording of the author. Although quite unfamiliar and too formal for me, it still has silhouetted the sentiment of a woman's heart and the twist of her fate: humble but eager to step into the upper class, beautiful with vanity but lack of financial support and changed from charming to messy and rough. I am quite taken up with the style of Maupassant who is notable of describing women's subtle mentality.
But deep down, the story shows a vivid side of the society, ruthless but true. When Mathilde knew she could attend the ball , instead of being of delighted, she was totally trapped in grief and disdain:
By violent effort, she had conquered her grief, and she replied, with a calm voice, while she wiped her wet checks:”Nothing. Only I have no dress and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.”(40)
The first idea came into her mind was surprisingly that she's no proper dress. This personality of her determined her miserable ending. Committedly, she was sorrowful by working ten years and becoming impoverished, but after all, it is she, whose vanity makes grace, elegance and a shining diamond necklace a must and whose pettiness held back the inquiry whether the diamond is true, to lead the story to such a conclusion. If she had dressed a four-hunderd-franc dress with out a single jewel or a single stone, how would the story develop? If she had told her friend honestly that she had lost the necklace, would she pay ten years repaying the debts sou by sou? To me, she is only a character whose meaning is to picture a living example in the lower class of old French society, like a reflecting mirror, rather than to be sympathized.