Views of Women in The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant AP by...

Views of Women in The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant AP by John Updike The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant, and AP by John Updike were written in two different centuries by two authors of very different backgrounds. However, each story expresses very similar views about women. The women in these stories are self-centered creatures who control men with their sexuality, and end up damaging the mens life. The main character in The Necklace is a lady named Mathilde who is extremely pretty. She is not a very wealthy person, and is married to a clerk. Mathilde is very unhappy with her life, and wishes she could have more luxuries. The author says : She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as†¦show more content†¦Mathilde has a wonderful time at the ball: She danced with intoxication, with passion, made drunk by pleasures, forgetting all, in the triumph of her beauty. In the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud happiness composed of all this homage, of all this admiration, of all these awakened desires, and of that sense of complete victory which is so sweet to a womans heart. (Guy De Maupassant 163) Her husband sleeps for four hours waiting for her to be ready to stop socializing. She is so ashamed of her coat that she rushes outside even though her husband wants to call a cab for her. She is very upset when the night is over, especially when she finds out that the borrowed necklace is missing. Mathilde has no inner strength. Her poor husband goes out in the middle of the night to look for the necklace, but she is worthless: She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress without strength to got to bed, overwhelmed, without fire, without a thought. (Guy De Maupassant 164) Ironically, when Mathilde and her husband replace the lost necklace, and must pay back the debt for ten years, Mathilde changes. She becomes brave and hard working, and the author says: What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved. (Guy De Maupassant 166) John Updikes story, AP was written almost 80 years after Guy De Maupassants The