The Necklace Guy de Maupassant Moral

The Necklace Turns Out The Fetter

   

      Some may know this story, "The Necklace". It was written by Guy de Maupassant (French author 1850~1893). There was a married couple who lived in France. But they were not rich. The wife was a very beautiful and charming woman, although she was born in a poor family...  So she unavoidably tied the knot with a similar poor man, even so, her husband was naive and loyal unlike her.

 

      She always cherished vanity and also wanted to enjoy extraordinary popularity from people esp. men. Because she could hardly be satisfied with her married life, moreover her poor husband was impossible to back that kind of her luxurious needs.

 

      One day the husband and wife received an invitation from a high-ranking government dignitary. Thus she was exceedingly happy in order to peacock her beauty and attractiveness at the party. The special invitation was a very rare opportunity for her.

      Despite she had no deluxe accessories such as earrings, rings, necklaces, etc. to adorn her appearance... Who would want to attend a party, showing a shabby or shapeless appearance...? No one will want to show miserable destitution as it is..., instead, everybody will want to veil the destitution with riches and honors...

The Movie, Marie Antoinette (2006)

      At last, she borrowed an expensive diamond necklace from her acquaintance then attended the party. Yes, she enjoyed incredible popularity and had the time of her life.  In the meantime, the twist of fate began in her life. 

      She got to lose the expensive diamond necklace somewhere!  After all, she and her husband had to dispose of all their existing properties, though those things were meager household items, and had to owe a huge debt so as to repay the expensive cost of the lost necklace, thereby they had to work a toilsome drudgery for ten years! As we know, debtors cannot feel comfortable as always due to the burden of a huge debt, and creditors will press them, so the heart of debtors will be weighed down all along... Although they repay the incalculable debt regularly, the rest of its debt looks endless..., who will know the dire hopelessness in them...? 

 

      Of course, this is not the end. What is more shocking is that the necklace was a "tacky imitation"!   As a result, they fully wasted their precious lives in order to repay the enormous debt. It means that they were thoroughly fooled by the futile vanity in that way...

      The lost necklace might be the same as the necklaces that slaves had to wear on their necks in the days of slavery.  The necklace of slaves demonstrated that slaves were simply merchandised for their owners as if a price tag (or product label) clings to merchandise so that each owner appraised the price of slaves. Wearing a slave necklace was meant that their identities were removed. And it symbolized a fetter ultimately. If that slaves want to be freed from that bondage, then they had to die. Candidly that slavery was vulgar and naked human trafficking. 

       Likewise, she could not escape from the invisible fetter of vanity, fame, wealth, and honor as if slaves who wore their necklaces... The expensive necklace was like an invisible "yoke" that enchained her life not to flee from it. How futile it was that she lived under the bridle of vanity, fame, and wealth and honor!

 Ripley Syndrome. 

      It has known as a sort of personality disorder in the field of psychiatry. This movieㅡThe Talented Mr. Ripley(1999)ㅡtells us more realistic what "Ripley Syndrome" is.

movie poster
 The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

       The protagonist Ripley in the movie lived like the wife who borrowed the expensive diamond necklace to pretend to be a rich man and to maximize her beauty and fame. Ripley also chased a false and futile vanity like the wife in this fictional story. By doing so, Ripley deemed himself as a rich guy, thereby he came to lose his own identity to the bone...  In other words, Reply identified himself with his rich friend who was killed by Ripley. Ripley had to kill his friend, for Ripley himself had to ape his rich friend; even he wore expensive dresses and accessories that his rich friend put on to make himself look like his rich friend and the rich.  By the way, his rich friend was too rude, so that he used to downplay Ripley, who was just a poor and negligible guy.

       If I were Ripley, I would feel abashed as much as Ripley was perplexed in face of his rich friend. The embarrassing situation is like this case: for example, if a rich girlfriend asks her poor boyfriend to read a book or to drive a car on her behalf, then she will no doubt that he could not read texts nor could he drive a car, however, he is none other than an illiterate and cannot even drive a car as a guy, that is his lifelong humiliation deep in his heart. 

      If guys cannot drive a car before women without any special reasons, then it will become an ignominiousness of guys. Because almost all men like cars themselves and like driving a car, moreover can drive a car, even they can fix a broken-down car on their own.  At the very moment, what would he feel? He will be so embarrassed before her so that he will wish he could crawl under a rock at once!  Ripley was like that before his rich friend...

      His lies deceived people and his counterfeit ostentation snowballed, accordingly, Ripley became a bald-faced criminal.  In the end, Ripley murdered his rich friend and other people who might be able to smell that Ripley was a poor guy serially, namely he became a serial killer to cover up his snowballing lies and his fake identity! 

     Similarly, the wife wanted to veil her original status by wearing the diamond necklace, that was her presumptuous show.  That day, people at the party would have known that she was one of the rich, but she was not. Never ever. She fooled people that way, but the phony diamond necklace fooled her like she deceived people. She never imagined that the diamond necklace would be fake, rather thought the diamond necklace would be enormously expensive, so she might have thought the diamond necklace was enough medium to show off herself.  The very intent people do like that is because of the desire of enjoying popularity and the desire of receiving admiration from other people. 

       People buy an expensive car, though they have no their own house or have no jobs. Plus people manipulate their educational background to pretend to be intellectuals and fill in their resumes at length, showing who they are. I saw one of the beauty shops, the hairdresser of the beauty shop has displayed her long-written profile in front of her beauty shop such as her careers and award-winning experiences, etc.  She seemed to make sure that lots of customers would visit her beauty shop therewith, but her beauty shop looked like a mom-and-pop store where was situated on the outskirts. Her beauty shop is too small as if a mousehole, unlike her long profile... 

     In other words, we people want to show off our ability that way... i.e. want to say this way: "I'm a competent person" with those things... Everybody might be the same as the wife who borrowed the diamond necklace because of vanity, ostentation, bluff, and wealth and prosperity, and the like... True be told, she was a poor woman and was a nobody who cannot even attend a party ordinarily...

      Frankly speaking, everybody might be the same as a chronic mentally-disordered person. For we humans have the incurable sinful nature in us, that is we humans are... Such a phenomenon has permeated our society. We people are like the wife and Ripley... For we people endlessly envy other people's lives, which looks better than our lives...  And we people want to peacock the things that we have but other people don't have; e.g. beauty, possession, job, ability, family, talent, achievement... etc.

 

   Meanwhile, we people might have to live as our given fates leadㅡ its status, its life,  etc. as it is, though it lets us live a lowly and poor life with a humiliation... To live like that way may be the very humility against vanity.

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