She wants the fairy tale.ĭoes her wish to live the fairy tale life make her "greedy"? Well, you ever notice how throughout the first part of the story, Mathilde's never satisfied with anything? When her husband brings her the invitation all she can think about is the dress she wants. For Mathilde, being wealthy amounts to living in a fairy tale. A lot of the objects Mathilde wants are magical, like the "tapestries peopling the walls with ancient figures and with strange birds in a fairy-like forest" (4). The glamorous life has a certain kind of magical allure to it. No, for Mathilde, the rich life is attractive because it's glamorous, beautiful, exciting, fine, and unlike the dingy apartment in which she lives. Now why does Mathilde want all of these expensive, material possessions? It doesn't sound like she just wants it because she's money-obsessed. She let her mind dwell on the large parlors, decked with old silk, with their delicate furniture, supporting precious bric-a-brac, and on the coquettish little rooms, perfumed, prepared for the five o'clock chat with the most intimate friends… (3) She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury… She let her mind dwell on the quiet vestibules, hung with Oriental tapestries, lighted by tall lamps of bronze, and on the two tall footmen in knee breeches who dozed in the large armchairs, made drowsy by the heat of the furnace. The most obvious thing she wants out of life is: expensive stuff. When it all comes down to it, Mathilde's kind of a material girl. She dreams day after day about escaping it all. ![]() She weeps "all day long, from chagrin, from regret, from despair, and from distress" (6). Cooped up all day in the house with nothing to do but cry over the chintzy furniture and the fabulous life she's not having, Mathilde hates her life, and probably her husband too. Instead, she gets married to a "little clerk" husband and lives with him in an apartment so shabby it brings tears to her eyes (1). ![]() Unfortunately for her, she wasn't born into a family with the money to make her dream possible. She's obsessed with glamour – with fancy, beautiful, expensive things, and the life that accompanies them. ![]() Mathilde Loisel wants to be a glamour girl.
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