Torrance 3

     Still, Mathilde is so unhappy in her current life that she believes she is displaced and that she was really "born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" that are noticeably lacking in the Loisels' grim apartment. She is made miserable by "the wretched look of the walls, . . . the worn-out chairs, . . . the ugliness of the curtains" (55). To escape her misery, she indulges in escapist fantasies:

She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long salons ["drawing-rooms"] fitted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire. (55)

Mathilde also "had no dresses, no jewels, nothing" (56), although the last word sounds suspiciously extreme in the context of what we are told about the life she does lead in the Street of Martyrs. That she supposedly has "nothing" is less an accurate description of her circumstances than evidence of her obsession with appearances and material objects. Such an interpretation is made clear when the narrator adds the crucial comment, "And he loved nothing but that" (56)—that is, the dresses, jewels, rich settings, and exciting experiences that she longs for.

Torrance 4

     Mathilde's relationship with her husband is further proof that her character, and not just her position as a nineteenth-century woman, is flawed. Loisel is admittedly not an attractive character. He has simple tastes (the plain beef stew, for instance), and he sleeps at fancy-dress balls (58). He is also insensitive to his wife's unhappiness. But he has at least made an attempt to please her by securing, with some difficulty, an invitation to an important social occasion. Mathilde's response is characteristic: "she threw the invitation on the table with disdain," then "looked at him with an irritated gland and said, impatiently," that she had nothing to wear (56-57). Even after he gives up his plan to buy the gun so that she can have a new dress, she complains that she needs jewels to avoid looking "like distress" (57). Not once in the course of the story does Mathilde ever thank her husband. She is exclusively and constantly concerned only with herself.

     Mathilde's selfish materialism is also revealed in her attitudes toward other people. She has one wealthy acquaintance, Jeanne Forrestier, whom she knew when she was a child. She still visits her and thus has available to her something of the experience of the kind of life she covets. Her egocentrism is so strong, however, that she is incapable of drawing any sustenance from Jeanne's hospitality. On the contrary, she gives up her visits because they remind her only of what she lacks: "she suffered . . . when she came back [from visits with Jeanne]" (56). Such a detail further reinforces the reader's impression of her egotism.

Torrance 5

     Mathilde's envy of other people is one of her most characteristic features. Most damning, however, is her wish, not just to share the life of the wealthy and privileged, but to be noted for her association with them: "She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after" (56). She gets her wish for a moment at the soirée, where "she was prettier than them all" and where "[s]he danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasure, forgetting all" (58). She fully savors "that sense of complete victory which is so sweet a woman's heart" (58)—a woman, that is, who shares her vanity and superficial values. The hollowness of her "triumph" is exposed with devastating irony when, having returned home, she stood before the mirror and removed the simple shawl "so as once more to see herself in all her glory" (58). What she really sees, of course, is the loss of the false diamond necklace.

     The origin of Mathilde's materialism can be explained by the influence of a culture that failed to encourage women to develop abilities and assets beyond "their beauty, grace, and charm," and their "[n]atural instinct for what is elegant, [and their] suppleness of wit" (55). It is not true, however, that she has no choice in the way she responds to this injustice. Other women in the same position were able to cope with the limits placed on them (55). Even after the reversal she suffers following the loss of the necklace, she continues to dream about and to value the evening of her transient glory. She has learned nothing from her ten years of hardship. For Mathilde, sadly, there is no tragic wisdom.