The tone of Guy de Maupassant’s short story The Necklace is tense, pessimistic, and ironic. Throughout the narrative, a bitter atmosphere prevails, matching the protagonist’s state of mind. The story’s tone brightens as Mathilde Loisel attends a ball wearing a borrowed diamond necklace. When the piece of jewelry gets lost, the atmosphere becomes even gloomier and more desperate.
Detailed answer:
Madame Loisel is a middle-class woman suffering from her inability to live a luxurious life. She craves a better existence and accuses fate of being unfair to her. The modesty of Mathilde Loisel and her husband’s living is even more evident in comparison to Madame Forestier’s wealth. The tone of the story is bitter and full of envy. The narrator of The Necklace remains detached and non-judgmental, but the conveyed mood is easy to interpret.
Madame Loisel attends a ball in an expensive dress bought by her husband and a necklace lent to her by Madame Forestier. The tone is brighter but only for a while until the woman returns to her modest apartment. The diamond necklace is gone. The couple spends the following ten years working hard to pay off debts for buying a new piece for Madame Forestier. The bitter irony in The Necklace is the fact that the initial necklace was fake.
To summarize, the tone of the short story is pessimistic throughout the narrative. Mathilde’s only asset, her beauty, is lost because of the strenuous work to pay for Madame Forestier’s worthless piece of jewelry. The irony is horrible in Madame Loisel’s life as she becomes even unhappier with her fate. The woman ends up lower down the social ladder. At the end of the story, the tone is depressing and bitter.
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