The most important literary term that is used most often out of all of the stories is situational irony. Situational irony is when the opposite of what one expects to happen occurs. The situational irony was all about Madame Forestier’s necklace that Madame Loisel lost. At the end of the story, Madame Loisel, who despised hard work and everything in the world that is not glamorous, finds out that she had given up her life to replace her friends necklace that she eventually discovers is only a fake. When Madame Loisel decided to tell Madame Forestier about how she lost her necklace, the reader expected Madame Forestier to be upset.
But, instead, we all found out that Madame Forestier’s original necklace was only a fake and was worth hardly anything at all. This is one of the biggest and most important parts of this story because it shows that honesty will always have a better outcome than lying. Another smaller situational irony that occurred in the beginning of the story was when Madame Loisel’s husband, Monsieur Loisel, got her an invite to The Minister’s residence, but Madame Loisel was embarrassed with the way she looked and she didn’t want to appear to be poor compared to everyone else.
Instead of being thankful for her husband for giving her a gift that she has always wanted, she was disappointed and embarrassed. Situational irony plays an important role throughout this story. Another important part that the story shows much of is round and flat characters. A round character in “The Necklace” is Madame Loisel. A round character is a complex person in the story that goes through a development in their personality that often shocks the reader. Through direct and indirect characterization, Maupassant described the way Madame Loisel looked and her personality through her actions and attitude.
The most important part of a round character is that the character changes their attitude and occasionally looks, as a result of the situations the character has had to deal with throughout the story. In the beginning, Madame Loisel is described as a gorgeous young woman who does not seem happy with the way she is living as a lower-middle-class housewife because she sees other women getting more than she has. She also believed that her looks should have brought her to better things. After losing Madame Forestier, she starts to change because she is hardworking and has a more serious and devoted attitude to her life.
She learns housework, and eventually, she and her husband’s hard work has paid off. At the end, Maupassant said, “Mme Loisel seemed old now. She had become strong, hard woman, the crude woman of the poor household. Her hair badly dressed, her skirts awry, her hands red, she spoke in a loud tone and washed the floors in large pails of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she would seat herself before the window and think of that evening party of former times, of that ball where she was so beautiful and so flattered” (165).
Monsieur Loisel is a flat character in “The Necklace”. Although Maupassant shows us his personality traits through indirect characterization, his attitude toward life doesn’t change throughout the story. The reader knows that Monsieur Loisel is a giving, selfless Clerk. He got Madame Loisel an invite to The Minister’s residence, which she has always wanted. Then, he spent the money that he was saving up for a new gun for hunting season on a dress for her to wear to the ball. He works really hard to make Madame Loisel happy and feel beautiful.
From the beginning of the story until the end, Monsieur Loisel was always working really hard to please his wife and give her everything she wants and needs to live a good life and be filled with happiness. Even when they lost everything, he never lost hope and only continued to work harder to make the outcome of their situation a good one. Throughout the story, there are a few conflicts, but mainly one conflict that changed the entire story. A conflict in literature is any struggle between two opposing forces.
The main conflict in the story was an external conflict which is a struggle between the main character and outside force. Madame Loisel lost the necklace, so she has to sacrifice her way of living to give back what she lost. Madame Loisel decides that she isn’t going to tell her friend that she lost her necklace because the pride that she has won’t let her. As a result of her dishonesty, she and her husband work off all of the money they borrowed to replace the necklace. Maupassant wrote, “Mme Loisel now knew the horrible life of necessity.
She did her part, however, completely, heroically. It was necessary to pay this frightful debt. She would pay it. They sent away the maid; they changed their lodgings; they rented some rooms under a mansard roof” (164). Many parts of this story involved mostly internal conflict with the way that Madame Loisel thought of herself compared to everyone else and her discontent with the way that she is living. When her husband thought that her cooking was spectacular, she was ashamed of how boring her cooking was because she was unable to afford anything else.
Monsieur Loisel thinks getting into a high-class party would be a wonderful thing; she only sees it as another chance to embarrass herself and show everyone what she doesn’t have. She is only happy with jewels when her husband sees her beauty with simple flowers. It is mostly Madame Loisel’s inner struggles that cause the rest of the conflicts in the story. In the end, the struggles that she put herself through only made her a better person. Every story has a plot, but in “The Necklace”, there is a plot that is dramatic yet is easy to find and follow.
The plot is a literary term that describes the events that make up a story. Madame Loisel is ashamed of how little she has and often dreams of having a bigger, better, and richer life. She doesn’t own any fancy clothes or jewelry, but those are the only things she wants. By not having these items, she feels useless. Madame Forestier is her wealthy friend, but she never wants to see her because she becomes embarrassed. Her husband then gets her an invitation to a formal party that is hosted by the Ministry of Education.
Everyone thinks that she would be thrilled to be able to attend this wonderful event, but instead only sees it as an opportunity to embarrass herself. Her husband buys her a new, expensive dress and she borrows nice jewels from Madame Forestier. When attending the event, she is the most beautiful woman there. She is satisfied by the attention that she is receiving. All of that was the rising action of the story, which leads to the main part of the story. When she returns home she is upset that the night is over and then realizes that her necklace had been missing.
This is the climax and the turning point in the story. Madame Loisel and Monsieur Loisel were unable to find it and decided to buy a replica that was too expensive for them to afford. The couple begins living a life in true poverty with her husband working three jobs and her doing all of the difficult housework. This lasted for ten years. That was the falling action which occurs before the resolution. At the end of the story, Madame Loisel decides to come clean to Madame Forestier and tell her about how she had lost her necklace, and the one she has now isn’t hers.
At first, Madame Forestier didn’t recognize her because she has aged a lot. Once Madame Forestier heard the truth, Madame Loisel finds that the necklace that she lost was a fake and worth hardly anything. This is the expedition and resolution to the story. As you can see, the plot was very easy to find throughout the story. Out of the four stories, “The Necklace” written by Guy de Maupassant was not the strongest when using situational irony, characterization, conflict, or plot. “The Monkey’s Paw” written by W. W. Jacobs was not the best written short story using literary terms including characterization in many ways.
For characters, it gives the reader hardly any details about the characters. This makes it difficult for the reader to make a good connection to the story. The reader only knows some of the relationships between the character’s, but barely any personality traits. “The Gift of the Magi” written by O. Henry was not the best written short story using literary terms such as conflict either. The conflict that was identified in this story was not very important. There were many other ways to solve their problem, and also avoid the situational irony that occurred at the end of the story.
Man from the South” written by Roald Dahl was not the best written short story using literary terms such as a strong situational irony as well. For situational irony, it wasn’t shocking that the old man was up to something suspicious. From the beginning of the story, you could tell that the old man was trying to mess with the young boy and trying to fool him and make him do something that he might regret later. It was no surprise to the reader that he was going to do something unexpected and that he would turn out to be hiding something.
