The Necklace Compared To The Star Essay

, Research Paper

The story "The Star", which was written in 1970?s, is trying to say that we need to understand the truth of our fate rather than put on blinders and quit refusing everything else that we don?t want to see. In the story "The Necklace" written by Guy De Maupassant the woman worked herself to the bone for ten years trying to pay off the debt used to pay for the necklace she lost at the ball. The woman in this story is a poor pretty woman who thought she deserved a better life than one that she already had. The main character in this story is a woman named Louis, the daughter of simple working class man. Both stories include a sub theme of a hope for a better life, in which all men were created equal and all the ugly injustices in the world would cease to exist. But the cold hard fact is that we humans have this innate sense of optimism, which blocks our thinking for reality, because without it we would have no reason for living.

In the case of the woman in the story “The necklace” the object being the necklace which she eventually loses and tries to replace. Instead of hiding the truth and facing the music, which was harder, to take than when she lied. The old adage which says,” What a tangled web weave when we first start to deceive.” We humans can’t handle the truth. We think we know what is the truth. What that really is just bullshit. It’s arrogance-playing tricks on our minds making us think we are in control of our lives. If we really were in control of our lives then why can’t we control every little aspect of it that gives discomfort? Because we can’t, because we don’t know how, and eventually the truth will show that is we don’t what the truth really is. Using the slippery slope logic one can conclude that the two stories are more similar than they are different but because the assignment at hand requires for me to compare and contrast in an illustrative manner then I guess I should start.

In the story the Star the setting is on a rocket ship with astronauts and the setting in the necklace is old France in the late 1970’s. The Star is a science fiction story while the necklace is an illustrative story. In the necklace the story is told from the third people point of view compared to the Star’s point of view is in the first person. The necklace discusses the social classes distinction in detail while in the star is describes the Astrology in detail. The person who wrote the necklace was French was illustrative the author of the star was clearly American. The main focus of the story is based on the importance of having money while the star is about the survival of the fittest.

The similarities in both stories include that both deal with theme of hope. One is more graphic in the account of survival as portrayed in the star but the details in how the girl had to work hard in how each detail in her work day was shown through words was illustrative. Both deal with the issue of false pretense that living a certain life would bring true happiness, which in both case should that it didn’t.

The dismal setting Star is in contrast with the grandeur at which the Necklace is played out. The false hope that we control our own destiny is both misinterpreted by everyone. That is why these two stories, which are about two different subjects, seem to have the same effect on a person, which is depression.