The value of money and material things in life is a moral concept that is seen in many short stories. Having money in your life does not necessarily mean that you have everything or your life is happy but living a good life and appreciating what you have is the most important lesson. In two particular stories, The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara and The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, the main characters are subjected to how living a life based on having money and material items is not actually living, it only leads to unhappiness.
In the story, The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, the story revolves around young children who are guided by a woman who was affected by the unjust economic differences of the past. The setting of the story implies that the children live in poverty because they live in a small apartment complex. The places that the children socialize are littered and filthy, again emphasizing the poverty in which they live in. The woman that guides the children is Miss Moore and she takes them on a journey to understand the hardships of life and the value of life beyond looking at just status and money. On their journey, Miss Moore takes the children in a taxi which is significant because their family is not able to afford to travel in them and it is considered a luxurious thing in life. Upon traveling in the taxi, Miss Moore takes the children to a store where many families would shop and purchase toys. She wanted the children to look at the window first so the children could see the prices of the toys. She also wanted the children to emphasize the amount of money that some Americans spend on items that are purely for leisure. On their way back home Miss Moore takes the children on a ride home using the subway to compare the taxi and the subway after they have seen what they dont have. The choice of transportation is an effective type of transportation because it allows the children to begin a comparison of their circumstances with those of the people that have money for the luxuries that they are exposed to on the trip. They reflect on the money that others spend on toys and games, and how it is scarce for the people of the community.
In the other story, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant also emphasizes the value of life over materialistic things. This story focuses on a woman who loves valuable things and in the end turns to poverty and turmoil by only valuing those types of items and not understanding what life really means. The main character, Matilda Loisel lives in terrible poverty with her husband, a clerk of equal standing to her own family. The difference between Matilda and her husband is that Mr. Loisel is content with his life, and does everything he can to make his wife happy, because he loves her purely and fully. Matilda is never satisfied with the life her husband offers for her and the incredible effort he puts forth to make her happy.
Matilda longs for the life of the rich, where everything is decadent and perfect. This story can be interpreted to largely symbolize the dynamics of a love between a man and a woman, set before a backdrop of life's monetary wants and needs. Mr. Loisel loves his wife and just wants her to be happy, he manages to secure for the two of them invitations for a ball being held by his boss. He wants to give her the kind of magical night that she daydreams and gives money to buy a dress but Matilda is unsatisfied and she turns to a rich friend of hers, Madame Forestier, to borrow some beautiful jewelry to wear to the ball. Matilda and her husband attend the ball. Matilda dances with all the richest and most socially powerful men, she is so intoxicated with bliss that her surroundings almost don't seem real. However, like all dreams, this magical night must end, and with that ending comes the ending of Matilda's happiness. Matilda's rushing away so that the person at the ball does not see that she is poor and her necklace ends up falling off and becoming lost in the street, as she discovers when she and her husband arrive home.
Matilda and her husband decide that they must save up and borrow a large amount of money to buy Madame Forestier a new necklace. Mr. Loisel takes on long hours at his job, even taking on a second job to make more money he works as much as he possibly can, to earn the money to pay for the necklace. However, Mr. Loisel is for once not the only one who will suffer for Matilda's superficiality. Matilda has to give up her servants and do all of the household chores, and brgain over the price of her food at the market, so she can help her husband earn the money to pay back all the lenders and colleagues he has borrowed money from to pay for the cost of the necklace, which is not covered by the eighteen thousand francs his father left him as an inheritance. It takes Mr. Loisel and Matilda 10 years to make the money they paid for the necklace which they are sure is as close to identical to Madame Forestier's necklace as they could find. The necklace they purchased ended up costing thirty six thousand francs, and to scrape up this much money while still getting by on the most meager allowance for living was harder than anything Matilda had ever experienced much harder than the modest life she once lived, which then she had seen as so unbearable. All the hard work Matilda had to endure aged her greatly.
One day, Matilda is walking down the street and she recognized her friend Madame Forestier, and called out to her in greeting. Matilda lets out her suffering by admitting that the necklace she gave to her friend 10 years ago was actually a replacement, and revealing all the trouble she and her husband had endured to pay the money back. The final moment of the story is filled with irony- Madame Forestier reveals that her own necklace which Matilda lost was actually made of false diamonds, and the whole necklace was not worth more than five hundred francs. The fake diamond necklace is the ultimate symbol in this story. Matilda's borrowed necklace was fake, and her borrowed experience of one night of riches was just as unreal. A love of the extravagance of others is not real love Matilda can own, but the love of Matilda's husband for her, a love that slaved away for 10 years to preserve her dignity, purchases the real diamond necklace that ironically, both Matilda and her husband can never enjoy. If only Matilda had accepted her lot in life, as her husband had and if she had loved him just as much as he loved her, she could have been content, but her unrelenting desire for all that was not hers consequently left both her and her husband with even less than they started with.
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