Loisel's Tragic Flaws

Attitudes have always been known as tragic flaws for most characters, from Macbeth to Frankenstein their attitude both leads them to their fall from grace. In the short story, The Necklace, Guy De Maupassant does just that. He writes about how a young woman's attitude leads to her downfall; thus leaving her worse off than before. Mathilde Loisel’s tragic flaws leads to both her and Mr. Loisel’s to fall from grace. Mathilde Loisel’s selfish and greedy attitude is her major flaw, which corrupts her life in the end. At the beginning of the story, Maupassant describes Ms. Loisel as a,“pretty and charming woman” (Maupassant 7), who ends up marrying a, “minor clerk in the Ministry of Education” (Maupassant 7). Ms. Loisel is a crestfallen house wife. She is disappointed with how her life has been so far. She ignores the fact that she has a house and a maid. The narrator states that Ms. Loisel was born,“as if by a mistake of destiny” (Maupassant 7). This gives the reader the sense that Ms. Loisel is not happy with her life. As the reader continues to read the narrator quotes,“feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the …show more content…
Loisel is a tragic hero, due to her hubris; which engenders her downfall. She ended up paying 10 years of debt because of her selfish attitude and her desire for more. She paid the price of being immature and arrogant. She was a jealous and greedy woman that brought gloom upon herself and her husband. Her behavior throughout,The Necklace, would be considered careless and reckless. From the beginning she considered her birth,“an error of destiny”(Maupassant 7 ). A woman who had to settle down with a minor clerk rather than a rich and handsome man. She dreams of the unruliest dreams that can’t be granted. Her hubris has doomed her in search of her dream to be wealthy. As a result, she is stuck paying the price for one night of satisfaction for 10 years. Ms. Loisel fails to realize this which, engendered her suffering and