Unit 18 The necklace

扩展资料

Guy de Maupassant (1850 - 1893)

　　Guy de Maupassant (莫泊桑1850-1893) is a well-known French novelist and short-story writer. He was born in Normandy, France, on August 5, 1850. As a schoolboy, he was very much interested in literature, and won a prize for one of his poems. So his writing began at an early age, and he became a famous novelist in his thirties. He wrote in the tradition of the 19th century French realism (现实主义) . Most of his works were about everyday life of the simple humble people. As he had worked in government departments since 1871, he became familiar with the life of government workers. And this experience helped him create his best short story The Diamond Necklace. He had a fine use of irony (讽刺). His style was direct and simple, with attention to realistic detail. All these can be seen from the play we are going to learn.
Maupassant suffered a great deal from illness in his later life. He only lived for 43 years and died in Paris on July 6,1893. He had a short life, but his works will last forever.

The brief story of the necklace

　　The story happened in Paris in 1860. One evening Mathilde’ s husband, Pierre Loisel came home from work with great joy because he not only had been invited to the palace ball but was the only person in his office that was invited. He told his wife the wonderful news. Mathilde was so excited that she couldn’t believe what she was told. When she realized it was true, she thought she couldn’t go because she didn’t have an evening dress or jewellery for the ball. She was afraid of being laughed at. At last Pierre decided to spend all the money they had to buy a dress for her and advised her to borrow jewellery from Jeanne, her friend, who married a man with much money.
　　The next day Mathilde called on her friend, Jeanne and asked if she could lend some jewellery to her. Jeanne brought out all her jewellery and let Mathilde choose the one she liked best. Mathilde noticed a lovely diamond necklace with a big blue stone in the centre, wore it and was very satisfied.
On the evening when the ball was held, Mathilde was wearing the dress on which she spent 400 francs and the necklace borrowed from her friend and went to the ball with Pierre. They had a very good time at the party.
　　But it was on that night that she found the necklace was missing on their way home. They went back to the palace and looked for it everywhere. 　　　　Unluckily, they couldn’t find it. “What’s to be done?” Both of them were in deep thought.

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