《项链》简介英文版

This is a one-act play, which is based on Maupassant’s best-known story The Diamond Necklace.
There are three characters in the play:
Mathilde Loisel, a young woman;
Pierre Loisel, Mathilde’s husband, a government worker;
Jeanne, Mathilde's good friend.

中文介绍：
女主人公是一个小公务员的妻子。一次，接受了部长举办的晚会的邀请。罗瓦赛尔太太由于虚荣心作祟，向一个贵妇人借了一条项链。后来这条项链不慎在舞会上丢失，罗瓦赛尔太太为了赔给朋友一模一样的项链，落入高利贷的陷阱，就此开始了艰辛的生活，葬送了十年的青春。最后，当她在还清欠款后，偶遇那位贵妇人时，妇人却告诉她那条项链其实是假的。

英文介绍：The story takes place in Paris. One day, Pierre gets an invitation to a palace ball. He thinks it important to him, and decides to go to the party with his wife Mathilde. But Mathilde is worried, because she has no new dress and no jewellwey to wear. Her husband spends 400 francs on a new dress and she herself borrows a diamond necklace from her good friend Jeanne. The young couple go to the ball and has a very good time here. On their way back after the ball, Mathilde finds that the necklace is no longer around her neck. They rush back to the palace and look for it. But they can’t find it; it is lost.The young couple borrow a great deal of money and buy a necklace that is exactly like Jeanne’s. It costs them 36000 francs. So they have to work day and night to pay back the money they have borrowed. After ten years of hard work, they at last pay back all the money, but now Mathilde looks so old that Jeanne even can’t recognize her when they meet.When Jeanne hears the story, she tells Mathilde that the necklace she has borrowed isn’t a real diamond necklace. It isn’t valuable at all. It is worth 500 francs at the most.

"The Necklace"

by Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was the child of an unhappy marriage. His mother has been dessccrriibbeedd as neurotic and his father as a man who sought relief from his wife in the arms of other women. Perhaps the collapse of his parents' marriage engendered de Maupassant's pessimism, reflected particularly in his stories about infidelity and failed relationships. It certainly influenced his own attitude toward women, which, in turn, affected his creation of characters in stories such as "The Necklace."

Events in History at the Time of the short story

The purpose of women. De Maupassant's attitude toward women was ambivalent. He was one of few nineteenth-century authors to recognize and celebrate women's sensuality rather than regard it as a sign of corruption. He was also, however, devastatingly cruel to women, whether in his own life or in his fiction. He recommended that the French Academy commission a treatise on how to "break decently, properly, politely, without noise, scene or violence, with a woman who adores you and with whom you are fed up" (de Maupassant in Steegmuller, p. 178). He scoffed at monogamy, insisting that he could not understand how two women could not be better than one, three better than two, and ten better than three.