She's a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie World

After reading “The Necklace”, a late 19^th century short story by French author Guy de Maupassant, a lot of attention is usually paid to the main character, an appearance-driven woman by the name Madame Mathilde Loisel.  While Madame Loisel may exude the personality of an affluent and sophisticated woman, she is quite the contrary. Her husband, a lowly store clerk, tries to do what he can to appease her materialistic needs, but alas cannot. When her husband comes home one day trying to energize a spark in his spouse by showing her an invitation to a party, she very hesitantly accepts it, under the condition that she gets all of the money her husband has been saving. In essence, Madame Louisel is consumed with materialistic goods, a concept all too familiar in the present day.

Louisel wallows in self-pity all her life about how she deserves better for herself, and is only happy when she pretends to be something she’s not; a well-off woman of means.  This is why I don’t sympathize with her at all, because karma bit her right in the you know where.  She tried to fool everyone at a party by spending all of her husband’s money in the process for one night of a glorified game of dress-up, just to "fit-in" like an outcasted high-schooler does. This need for materialistic possessions is what’s wrong with society, as Louisel felt she was “born for every delicacy and luxury” (pg. 1) At the party, her Cinderella story was in full affect, as “She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart. (pg. 5)”

This self-absorbed behavior represents just how appearance is an extremely overvalued part of life. Loisel can only be happy if she has on her gold and jewels (even if they’re actually fake), and on the other 364 days of the year she sobs in depression of her lack of possessions. Over 100 years later, nothing has changed. Everybody needs their 50$ designer jeans, 200$ sunglasses, etc. Not saying that I am any better than Madame Loisel herself, I just thought it would be interesting to delve into the fact that most people could probably relate to her… just maybe switch out her fashionable necklace for the new iPhone or Michael Kors bag.