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...
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