We should be happy with what …

The story 'The Necklace' teaches us many lessons which form the crux of human values. The very first thing it teaches us is the need to be content in life. Matilda, though born into a family of clerks and married to a petty clerk with the Board of Education, remains unhappy. She suffers from the feeling that she is born for all delicacies and luxuries, but has to live miserably in 'poverty'. So, when she has to attend the office party with her husband, she asks him for money to get a new dress. Her husband sacrifices the money he has saved to buy a gun to get her the dress. Then also she is not content. She feels that she could look still more beautiful with a jewel. She thus borrows a necklace from her friend, thinking that it is made of diamonds. At the party, she remains elegant, gracious, smiling and absolutely happy. She was thus the prettiest of all. But this vanity is short-lived and is the beginning of all troubles in her life. She loses the necklace and she gets a new diamond necklace as its replacement by borrowing heavily. Subsequently, she is pushed to live in poverty as she slogs for ten years to save money to pay back the huge debt. Then the horrible reality frightens her. She realizes how her false pride has taken away her otherwise happy contented life. The story thus discusses the negative effects of pride and vanity and stresses the importance of being satisfied with what one has honesty, love and sacrifice.