| The three stories that this essay will embrace are | | | | in full while working to pay the debt off. Maupassant |
| "The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant, "Bartleby, the | | | | criticizes such understanding of happiness and makes |
| Scrivener" by Herman Melville and "The | | | | the lady rethink her values through misery and poverty |
| Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. All of these stories | | | | that she never knew before that unhappy evening. |
| are concerned with the societal problem of perceiving | | | | Clearly the ending of the story when Loisel meets her |
| the world through the materialistic prism. Those stories | | | | old friend with a child proves the point that the author |
| are depicting the problem in different ways through the | | | | found joy in different things other than money. |
| examples of people suffering in situations they find | | | | "Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still |
| themselves in. | | | | attractive." was walking with a child and this child was |
| The lawyer in the famous story by Melville is a | | | | a source of her wealth and beauty not jewels that |
| representation of the bourgeois part of the society, | | | | were hidden in the boxes. Ironically enough the author |
| who speaks of himself in such a manner "All who | | | | makes her a rich one and Madame Loisel a "poor" |
| know me consider me an eminently safe man" | | | | friend, in this manner showing his attitude toward those |
| meaning that he chose a safe path in life and endures | | | | who seek material wealth. |
| a profession that will definitely bring him profit and | | | | Society's rules and orders oppose human desire to |
| stable position in the society. There is a scrivener in his | | | | remain free and untroubled in the story by Franz |
| firm who is of a different standing, a rather | | | | Kafka. A strange metamorphosis happens with a |
| existentialist one who is not willing to confirm to values | | | | young sales man one morning when he is about to get |
| of society in the face of his boss. The two of them will | | | | out of bed. He become a vermin, a horrible and |
| never find a common language, as one is surrounding | | | | defenseless insect. The manager who comes to |
| himself by the walls of egoism and material things in his | | | | Gregor's door to find out why he didn't show up in the |
| Wall Street office while the other is trying to find | | | | office says "I thought I knew you as a calm, |
| meaning in nonexistent imaginary things. Bartleby also | | | | reasonable person, and now you appear suddenly to |
| builds walls from the outside vicious world that's not a | | | | want to start parading around in weird moods". He |
| safe place for those who do not confirm, in this way | | | | proves the fact that everyone expects certain |
| Melville states that whoever is unwilling to agree will | | | | behavior from everyone else in order for the system |
| have to leave, which it true because poor scrivener | | | | to function properly, people to make money and be a |
| dies unable to survive. Non-conformity to the | | | | part of the machine. The demands of the bourgeois |
| materialistic values does not serve good for the hero | | | | society are high and strict and being a vermin will not |
| and neither explains anything to the selfish lawyer , | | | | be appreciated by anyone else especially those who |
| thus leaves things as they were and only the writer | | | | are paying you salary. Kafka is taking a radical step in |
| makes his point of view clear. | | | | portraying a pitiful insect hinting on the imprisonment |
| Another story with an ironic and cruel ending is "The | | | | that norms of the materialistic world causes people |
| Necklace". Madame Loisel "had no clothes, no jewels, | | | | who are sooner or later to become those bugs |
| nothing. And these were the only things she loved" , so | | | | without choosing so. Gregor wasn't able to control his |
| the author sets the main idea of the story in those | | | | transformation he woke up being a vermin and there |
| lines. Madame was a very unhappy woman with a | | | | was no way back, he was sucked in by the norms |
| loving and caring husband whom she didn't notice | | | | and pressed down by expectations. |
| however. The light of the diamonds and warmth of | | | | These stories are illustrating sad picture in which |
| expensive furs were the only things she was striving | | | | people are supposed to live, because system is |
| for but could not receive as she was poor. Her | | | | supposed to use man force and enrich those who are |
| understanding of happiness was brutally laughed at by | | | | already rich. Illusion of material happiness does not |
| the author in the course of the story. He makes he | | | | appeal to the authors as they criticizing popular values |
| rethink the meaning of her life when she loses a cheap | | | | in their works. All three of them are statements of |
| necklace but has to repay thousands of franks. The | | | | author's positions on problems of the material model |
| borrowed necklace in this story represents wrong | | | | and although they are not offering any rational solution, |
| treasures that Madame Loisel is eager to get, it costs | | | | they are making the reader think and rethink their |
| nothing and the diamonds are fake although they are | | | | personal values. Therefore the ultimate goal of |
| sparkling as real. Materialistic pleasures bring only | | | | literature- making readers contemplate over their lives |
| suffering and despair which our heroine is experiencing | | | | if fully accomplished in those three masterpieces. |