Necklace Oh! -- My Poor Term Paper

Loisel feels that she has no dresses worthy of the elite party. Rather than appreciate the material goods she and her husband do have, she laments what she lacks and thus seems bitter and ungrateful. Her life filled with fantasy and longing causes quite severe mental and emotional impairment, even depression: "she wept all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress." Madame Loisel was depressed before she lost the necklace, mentally, emotionally, and physically weak. Her weakness is expressed physically in her trembling hands, her "boundless desire," and her artificial sense of "ecstasy" when she first lays eyes on Forester's strand of diamonds.

Her artificial ecstasy continues while she experiences a brief moment of fame and attention at the party: "Mme. Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest of them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy." Alive for the first time since the beginning of the story, "she danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure." Her "intoxication" is reminiscent of her being out of touch with reality before she donned the necklace.Immediately after losing the necklace, Mme. Loisel's emotional expression becomes more mature, more grounded in reality. From downright need, she delves into hard labor as a cleaning lady. The trembling hands that once held the diamond necklace have been transformed into the hardy hands of a working woman, a "woman of the people." Moreover, whereas Mme. Loisel once thought only of herself, she must now think also of her husband's finances and reputation. She is responsible and accountable at her job as well, a job she never would have had to take had she not lost the necklace. The woman who was once described as charmed, graceful, and elegant, has now become "a robust woman, hard and rough." Thus, Mme. Loisel's physical transformation mirrors her psychological changes since losing the necklace: because she lost the diamond necklace she discovered an inner strength and a solid, dependable, mature character borne of real….....