On December 7, 2007, Maupassant, the great 19th-century French critical realist writer, dedicated his popular short story "The Necklace" to the world with his outstanding literary talent. It is not only an article that exposes the nature of capitalist society. The short story is also a novel that exposes the weakness of human nature. The delicate and profound psychological description, as well as the meticulous and unique artistic conception make it a unique flower in the short story garden in the world. The vivid artistic image of Mathilde created in it is more like a bright pearl shining in the corridor of world literature, shining brightly and exuding eternal artistic light.
1. Image perspective.
Mathilde is vain. The word "dream" is used seven times at the beginning of the novel, introducing Mathilde to us statically. Precisely because she loves vanity, she is troubled by the cold reality all day long. "The shabbyness of the house, the dimness of the walls, the shabby furniture, and the roughness of the clothing all made her distressed." Because she loved vanity, she fancied all day long, dreaming of "quiet halls", "spacious living rooms", " Fine dinner” and “gleaming silverware”. Mathilde's reality is obviously cold and desolate, but her vision is beautiful, warm and sweet. One of the greatest pleasures she could ever ask for was to have women who were less fortunate than herself look at her with envy and jealousy while she was in the limelight. This sharp contrast and huge contrast between reality and dreams drives her to work hard to realize her dreams, reflecting the protagonist's ideals and pursuits, and also effectively portrays Mathilde's love and vanity. The invitation from the Minister of Education brought her the opportunity to realize her dream, so she forced her husband to reluctantly spend 400 francs to buy clothes for herself, and personally asked Mrs. Fleischer to borrow a necklace to satisfy her vanity, which eventually led to tragedy occurred. It was no accident that she lost the necklace after the ball. The root cause was her vanity.
There are two reasons for the tragedy of Mrs. Louvacai: First, Mrs. Louvacai’s vanity character paved the way for the tragedy; second, it comes from society, which is the fundamental reason, based on her dress and appearance. In a capitalist society where people and money are everything, the corruption of money worship is everywhere, and ordinary people cannot escape. If the initial foreshadowing of the novel focuses on showing the vanity side of the heroine, then the development of the novel focuses on showing the other side of the heroine who abides by morality and faces misfortune. Therefore, the character of this character is full-bodied. While criticizing her, the author did not shy away from his sympathy and appreciation.
Mathilde is also kind, honest and simple. When she bought clothes and asked for 400 francs from her husband, she was careful and hesitant, only threatening her husband or putting too much pressure on him. This shows that she is considerate and reasonable. In normal times, I only have a little bit of grumbling and resentment, and I don’t do anything inappropriate. I don’t let myself down and do dirty things just because of my appearance. After the necklace was lost, she has been in a "state of shock and fear" and resolutely compensated. She did not have any bad thoughts such as refusing to return the necklace, or buying a fake one, or running away. She faced the disaster and abided by morality. , using her own 10 years of hardship to repay, this is Mathilde's virtue. This is also the internal reason for the fundamental change in her character. Faced with heavy debts, she fired her maid, moved her residence, and resolutely lived a hard life as a poor person, which highlighted her strong, patient and hard-working spirit. "Repaying debts" has become the highest goal in her life. Her days are no longer spent in vain dreams and dissatisfaction with reality. Her material level has declined, but her spiritual life has been enriched. After 10 long years, During the years of repaying debts, she gained mental peace and tranquility, and these 10 years tempered her entire attitude towards life. "A smile appeared on her face because she felt a kind of proud and innocent happiness." The author said to Ma While ruthlessly criticizing and ridiculing Tilde's vanity, she affirmed and appreciated her kindness, sincerity, and unyielding spirit.
Mathilde is enterprising. Judging from her current living situation, she can hire cheap maids and drink broth, so her life should be pretty good.
For the average petty bourgeois woman, she may be content with such living conditions, but she has a strong sense of dissatisfaction, is unsatisfied with the status quo, desires to change her life, and boldly pursues a relatively high-quality life. This just reflects her persistence and pursuit of life, which is a concrete manifestation of her enterprising spirit. At the same time, her pursuit is not only material, but also spiritual and personality. "She has always wanted to be liked by others, be envied by others, be attractive and be pursued by others." Isn't this a manifestation of her desire to be respected by others for her personality? Because of this, she doesn't want to see her rich girlfriend anymore, which hurts her self-esteem. In a capitalist society, petty bourgeois women generally succumb to fate and take things as they come, without asking for anything else. However, she dares to challenge fate and desires to be respected. This is also worthy of admiration.
Mathilde is also lucky. The loss of the necklace was like a bolt from the blue to the Luwazai couple. Fortunately, Mathilde has a good husband who can cope with her difficulties and difficulties. After losing the necklace, Luwa Zai did not blame his wife, nor did he abandon her. Instead, he maintained the stability of the family with a broad mind, created a warm family, and shared the huge pain and disaster with his wife. When his wife was helpless because she lost her necklace, he immediately searched everywhere non-stop. When it was confirmed that the necklace was difficult to recover, he took the risk to sign everywhere without any blame, and worked tirelessly to copy accounts and manuscripts for others. During these ten long years, he worried about his wife's worries and thought about her thoughts without any regrets. Just like a big mountain, he shielded his wife from wind and rain and gave her selfless love. The couple performed together A rare true love in adversity in this world. Therefore, Mathilde is lucky again.
It is often said that "there are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers." The reason why a masterpiece is a masterpiece lies in the diversity of its themes and the multi-interpretation of its images. Many literary images themselves contain a lot of ambiguity and ambiguity. Art cannot pursue unity. If it achieves unity, it will fall into mediocrity. Therefore, as long as our interpretation of Mathilde can be self-supporting, it will be a reflection of our understanding of the world that is more wise and rational, and more mature and profound.
2. Image inspiration.
The reason why the image of Mathilde is so vivid and vivid, infecting and impressing readers from generation to generation, is not only because she is tragic and worthy of sympathy, but also because she has profound warnings. and educational significance.
We admit that everyone has vanity, and having vanity is not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, vanity is, to a certain extent, a sign of a person's ambition. Indifference in the face of adverse circumstances is not praiseworthy. But everything has a degree. If it exceeds a reasonable degree, things will develop in the opposite direction. If you pursue beauty and pleasure beyond your own economic conditions, you will often fail. Mathilde had an unfortunate ending precisely because her vanity was too strong. The plot of the story is driven by this strong vanity and reaches its climax step by step.
It also reminds us how to correctly understand and pursue beauty. One-sided pursuit of appearance beauty without paying attention to improving one's own quality will not last long, nor is it true beauty. Only beauty that is in line with one's identity and status is harmonious beauty, and there will be no sense of nondescriptness or beauty. Therefore, the necklace is actually a chain. There are many such "necklaces" in our lives, which we need to discern and take off.
The heroine Mathilde was born in a poor burgher family. She felt that she was beautiful and smart, so she thought she had the capital to climb up. Her dream is to get rid of the bleak and mediocre life of the petty bourgeoisie, and to be in the so-called upper class society, to become a "lady" who has a good material life and is flattered and pursued by men in social circles. One of the greatest pleasures she could ever ask for was to have women who were less fortunate than herself look at her with envy and jealousy while she was in the limelight. This kind of vanity is caused by capitalist society’s requirements for women (that is, treating women as commercial playthings). In capitalist society, people who adopt this attitude towards life are very common, and there are even more bourgeois and petty-bourgeois women who have the same dream as Mathilde.
Mathilde's situation was not as smooth sailing as she had hoped. First of all, she was very frustrated when it came to marriage. With her beauty and intelligence, she was originally qualified to marry a rich and status man, but she ended up being the housekeeper of a shabby and mediocre clerk. "So she was constantly in pain" and full of grievances.
In capitalist society, people often regard life as a gamble, as if everything depends on luck, and accidental factors can determine people's misfortune. The plot of "The Necklace" seems to prove this bourgeois secular philosophy: "How strange and unpredictable life is. A very small thing can destroy you or make you perfect!" It seems to be saying to Mathil Virtue is so unlucky, how it is manipulated by accidental encounters and small accidents in life. Doesn't the plot of "The Necklace" consist of Mathilde's series of so-called bad luck? Marrying a shabby clerk was the beginning of her bad luck. She finally got the opportunity to attend a decent party, and was very popular at the party. However, she was extremely happy and sad at the same time. She lost the borrowed diamond necklace. This was another time she was at the mercy of bad luck, and she became obsessed with something that happened by chance. Suffering. But the most unfortunate thing was that a necklace of fake diamonds was mistaken for real diamonds to compensate, and it took ten years of hard work to pay off all the debts. As if the ruthless fate had not teased her enough, it also wanted to ridicule her further, causing her to know by chance that the necklace was actually a fake diamond, so the ten years of hard work turned out to be a misunderstanding. Her efforts were in vain, which really made her extremely frustrated and regretful.