The Necklace and Desiree’s Baby

The main character in The Necklace, written by Guy de Maupassant, is a woman named Mathilde. In Desiree’s Baby, written by Kate Chopin, the main character is, not surprisingly, Desiree. Both central characters are female. In this essay I will compare these two characters and show to you how fate, a theme of both stories, has affected their lives. I will also try and explain how sympathetic I feel towards the characters because I believe that this affects how large the role of fate played in their lives is.

For example, if the author doesn’t try to induce that many feelings of sympathy for a character the reader is less likely to feel sorry for the character or like them and thus blame their misfortune less on fate and more on the character bringing it upon itself. Class and culture play an important part in both stories, class more so in The Necklace and culture more so in Desiree’s Baby. This is because Mathilde is a malcontent, a quality of her character that I have deduced from the fact that the whole of the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs are about the false dreams and aspirations she has.

I know they were false because The Necklace not being real diamond symbolised her dreams also not being real. Also when her husband came home with an invitation to a party she was still not satisfied. Her discontentment makes her wish she were of a higher class because she was pretty but born into a poor working class family. Mathilde’s dissatisfaction with her life makes class such an important part of The Necklace. You cannot study, analyse or even compare Desiree’s Baby to anything without taking into account its cultural setting because the culture of the story is so different to our own. It is set in South America in the 19th century.

During this time and in this area slavery was extremely common. It was unheard of for a white person, who was considered better, to come into contact with a black person for any reason other than work. You must not look upon them all as being terribly racist (even if they were) but understand that at that time it was not unusual for people to treat black people like that, it was just their culture, and even families not wealthy enough to own slaves themselves treated the black people badly. Whether it is class or culture, Desiree and Mathilde had a bad life because of one of them, because they were born in the wring place at the wrong time.

If a woman gave birth to a mixed race child, like Desiree did, nowadays, no one would think anything of it. And nowadays, whatever family you’re born into it doesn’t affect the type of person you can marry. But Mathilde, being born in the era she was, didn’t have that opportunity. I see this as the first instance of fate in the two stories. It is fate that they were born when they were which suggests that bad things were already destined to happen to them beyond their control. My interpretation of fate is that it is an abstract force which specifies a few unavoidable things that will happen in a persons life.

I think that if these were true stories it would be a matter of opinion whether or not fate had actually played a part in these women’s lives. But since the authors make particular reference to the presence of fate I think it’s fair to accept that fate does play an important part in both stories. For example, in Desiree’s Baby, Kate Chopin introduces the idea of fate very early on in the story when she explains how Valmonde thought that Desiree had been sent to her by ‘beneficent Providence’ meaning by a charitable act of fate.

And in The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant says right at the beginning how she was ‘one of those pretty girls who, apparently by some error of Fate, get themselves born the daughters of very minor civil servants. ‘ In both stories the central female characters are dealt a blow by fate. They both received odd blows which set them back in being what they’d most like to be. The blows they received were Mathilde being born into a poor, working-class family and Desiree not knowing her own origin thus not being able to prove to Armand she was still worthy of his love.

I think that the stories are describing the point in these two women’s lives when they receive major blows from fate which alters the rest of their lives in a considerably large way. The blow that Mathilde received in The Necklace was when she lost the necklace. Anyone can lose something down to absentmindedness but the fact that her and her husband retraced all their steps and still couldn’t find it meant that she was destined to lose the necklace all along.

The blow from fate that Desiree received in Desiree’s Baby is not as obvious as the one Mathilde received but more destructive as Desiree’s mishap led to her death and Mathilde’s did not. The blow that Desiree received was that she gave birth to a mixed race baby when she was unsure of her origin and parentage. During the time after her blow from fate Desiree went through an extremely unhappy period, as shown when she writes in a letter to Valmonde ‘My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God’s sake tell them it’s not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die.

I cannot be so unhappy, and live. ‘ This led to her going through an extremely irrational time. I can say that her behaviour was irrational because when she decided to end her life by walking into the bayou she took the baby with her. This was irrational because Valmonde had offered her a place to stay so it wasn’t as if she had nowhere to go and even if she’d still thought herself to be too unhappy to go on she could have saved the baby’s life. It could have just been selfishness that stopped her from saving her own baby but from the way she was presented by the author earlier on in the story I know this to not be so.

Desiree was described as gentle and affectionate by Valmonde and when Kate Chopin says that she was ‘the idol of Valmonde’ this shows that Desiree was idolised by someone. People who are idolised are not usually selfish or ungiving, if they were only horrible people would want to be like them. The author shows that Valmonde is not a horrible person by saying how she offered Desiree a place to stay with her. The increasing irrationality is also shown through the letter by the constant repetition, a technique used by the writer to increase tension and anxiety. It is also shown by the fact that she actually wrote the letter.

The Desiree at the beginning of the story wouldn’t want to have troubled anyone else with her problems. I can see this because of the favourable presentation of her at the beginning and that she is so cheerful when Valmonde comes to visit. I know that if she did have any worries she would have kept them to herself so as not to bother anybody else. Her writing the letter shows that the whole situation is tearing her apart. This explains how Desiree went through a very sorrowful period but it was only for a short while until she ended it all whereas Mathilde’s misfortune stayed with her for the rest of her life.

It is up to the reader to decide whether it is worse to have a lifetime of slight suffering or a short while of immense pain. I think that the way both characters are presented shows which the authors want to make the reader believe is worse. Both Mathilde and Desiree are strong characters. I know this because they are both interesting enough and have enough charisma to be main characters of a story. The authors do not put them forward as boring people and so feel that there will be enough interest in them for the whole story to stand on their tales alone.

Mathilde is strong in a wilful way. She is sure of what she wants from life and is true to herself in knowing what it is as shown when the author states how she felt she was ‘intended for a life of refinement and luxury’. She is confident in her appearance as shown when the author says how she believes that God had made her for things like fine dresses and jewellery. This shows that she thought that if given the chance to wear these things she would not be overpowered by their beauty, showing that she thinks she is just as beautiful as they are.

Desiree however, is strong in a different way. She is shown to be strong by believing in herself. For example, even when her own husband accuses her of having black blood in her she still goes over to him and says to him ‘It is a lie; It is not true, I am white! ‘ Mathilde was melodramatic as shown when Guy de Maupassant says ‘for days on end she would weep tears of sorrow, regret, despair and anguish. ‘ Desiree however was quite serene and tranquil as shown when the author describes her at a point in the story just before she realises that her baby is not white.

The author says ‘She sat in her room one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half-naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. ‘ The whole paragraph is quite dreamy and shows her calmness. It starts off quite simple and informative then the author starts using more flowery and descriptive language. This is also to show Desiree’s innocence and purity. Her long, silky brown hair associates her with beauty, which is associated with good.

Desiree is given almost angelic qualities whereas Guy de Maupassant presented Mathilde as quite cold-hearted. I know this from the way she treats her husband as shown when the author writes ‘she looked at him irritably and said shortly ‘And what am I supposed to wear if I do go? ” When Kate Chopin describes Desiree’s recovery she puts lots of images of innocence and purity in the reader’s mind. She writes ‘The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast.

This raises such images of purity because of the ‘white’ muslins. White has good connotations. The baby being at her breast also makes her seem very pure and motherly, warm and loving. Warmth is also shown from Desiree by the way she is even nice to the slaves. All these loving and practically holy vibes coming from Desiree do as the author had intended and evoke lots of sympathy in the reader. Guy de Maupassant however doesn’t use these techniques because I don’t think his motive was to make the reader feel too sorry for Mathilde. I think that the reason he wrote The Necklace was to show how superficial the human race can be.

By making Mathilde not too likeable and giving her some bad qualities she seems more human, much more so than the angelic Desiree. I think that the theme of The Necklace is more superficiality than fate. Fate is a theme of the story but it just isn’t the strongest theme. Guy de Maupassant is showing how trivial and fake all Mathilde’s dreams and aspirations were. He also shows at the very beginning of the story that he is sceptical about fate actually affecting Mathilde’s life by saying ‘She was one of those pretty, delightful girls who, apparently by some error of Fate, get themselves born to very minor civil servants.

His use of the word ‘apparently’ shows that he is trying to subtly put in the reader’s mind that she might not have actually been affected by fate. All in all, I think that fate played a much more important part in Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin than in The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. I think this was interely the authors’ intentions. Kate Chopin raised much more feelings of sympathy toward Desiree than Guy de Maupassant did toward Mathilde to show how Desiree didn’t deserve what she got and fate was more to blame, but Mathilde was just shallow and fate didn’t hurt her as much as she hurt herself by never being contented.

Mathilde was given the chance to move on from her blow from fate by being allowed to carry on living. Desiree wasn’t given that chance so I think that the reader is meant to think that being unhappy enough to kill yourself and your baby is worse than being poor for the rest of your life. The fact that the necklace wasn’t real diamond after all and the fact that in the end the reader found out that Desiree wasn’t the one who carried black blood, it was Armand, is the ironic twist at the end of both the stories.

It is meant to make the reader realise that although you cannot escape your destiny of losing the necklace or giving birth to a mixed race son it doesn’t necessarily mean there is only one way your life can go from there. It is saying that fate makes certain things happen but it isn’t all black and white, there are many paths to go down but even if you come to the end of a path, new paths will open and it’s up to you which one’s you walk down.