A New Unit Begins: The Formalist Theory

"The Necklace"-Guy de Maupassant

When looking at a piece of literature, formalists believe the form reflects its content.  This means they look at the conscious choices the author made while creating their piece of literature.  When looking at "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant and using the formalist Theory, there are a couple of choices the author made regarding character, point-of-view, and plot that can be further looked at.

Plot
When Maupassant wrote this story, he chose to start at the beginning.  He didn't begin the story in the middle, he gave us much needed back-story.  The way that the story begins is very flowing and not out of control.  If Maupassant had started his story in the middle of things before he gave us some background about the main character Madame Loisel, the story wouldn't have made much since.  We wouldn't have known why Madame Loisel was feeling the way she was about her appearance.

Character
The main characters of this story are Madame Loisel and Loisel.  The story starts off with background history about Madame Loisel.  Just at the very beginning of the story, Madame Loisel becomes from a flat character to a round character.  Maupassant throws a lot of background information about Madame Loisel right in the beginning, but without it the story would have been harder to follow.  Because Maupassant gave us so much information at the beginning, we know why Madame Loisel acts the way she does about material things.  Loisel, Madame Loisel's husband is a very dynamic character.  You don't see very much of him in the beginning until Mathilde begs him for a wonderful dress to wear to the party.  Also, he comes out a lot when Mathilde seems to get herself in a whirl of trouble by losing Madame Forestier's diamonds.  He shows the hard working man he really is, and how much he cares for his wife, especially how he gives her all his money for her dress when he had been saving up for a gun.  Madame Forestier is just a minor character, but she also plays a big part in the story.  She is the one who is nice enough to let Mathilde borrow her diamonds, and when Mathilde looses them, she feels horrible.  Loisel and Mathilde go through a lot of trouble to get the money to buy a new diamond necklace for Madame Forestier, and come to find out at the very end of the story the real diamond necklace wasn't worth more than 500 francs!  Madame Forestier is the barrier of both good and bad news.

Point-of-View
In "The Necklace," it is being told in third person omniscient.  This point-of-view gives the audience and unbiased view of the characters.  It also allows us to make our own assumptions of the characters.  If the story was told so we could only hear the husbands thoughts, it might have been a little more aggravating.  Although most of the story is seen through Alice's eyes, we also get to see what her husband, Marc is thinking.  There is dialouge with Madame Forestier, but I don't think we get to ever peek inside her head.