Glimmer and Burden: A Qualitative Feminist Analysis of Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace”

Abstract

This qualitative feminist textual analysis of Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” investigates how patriarchal gender roles, restrictive beauty standards, and marriage centered expectations shape the construction of femininity and constrain female agency. Through close reading of character portrayal, narrative voice, and symbolic motifs, especially the necklace as an emblem of appearance and status, the study showed that women are represented primarily in terms of charm, beauty, and domestic duty. On the other hand, men are depicted as pragmatic providers and decision makers, and it concludes that the main character’s suffering arises not from individual moral failure but from unequal social structures that tie women’s worth to appearance and marital position, thereby affirming feminist criticism’s claim that the story exposes and critiques the gendered oppression embedded in nineteenth century French society.