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ASSIGNMENT NO 02
(9066)

Submitted by
Name: Amina Mushtaq
Program /level: BS
Roll no: BY409418

Semester: Autumn, 2021

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Read the English text of the ‘The Necklace’ (short story) written by French
writer Guy de Maupassant (first written in 1884). Study in detail the text and
follow the following steps:
a) Enlist the types of Verb Phrases (VPs) used by the writer.
“The Necklace” is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that was first published in La
Gaulois magazine in 1884. It is known primarily for its twist ending and its
condemnation of greed and vanity. Protagonist Mathilde Loisel is a beautiful, vain
woman who aspires to a higher socioeconomic station. Her dissatisfaction with her
middle-class existence is tempered by her connection with her wealthy neighbor,
Madame Forestier. However, it is Mathilde’s fateful decision to borrow a seemingly
expensive necklace from Madame Forestier that results in her downfall. After losing
the necklace, Mathilde works tirelessly to pay back the loan she took out to replace it,
sacrificing her beauty and youth in the process. The tragic irony, revealed at the end
of the story, is that the original necklace was actually a cheap fake.
The Necklace Characters
 Mathilde Loisel dreams of being rich and is self-conscious about her middle-
class status. She borrows Madame Forestier's necklace to wear to a ball but loses it,
then spends the next decade working to pay off the replacement, sacrificing her
beauty and youth.
 Monsieur Loisel is Mathilde's husband and a government clerk. He procures the
invitation to the ball for Mathilde and helps to work off the debt for the necklace.
 Madame Forestier is Mathilde's wealthy friend. She lends Mathilde the necklace
and later pityingly reveals that it was a fake.
The short story "The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant takes place in France
several hundred years ago. Mathilde Loisel lives in a flat with her husband, who works
as a clerk for the Minister of Education. Their lives are not luxurious, but they are not
poor, merely simple. Mathilde, however, longs to be rich. She envies her friend
Jeanne who has a large house and lots of jewelry.One day her husband brings home
an invitation to a ball. He thinks his wife will be excited to attend such a fancy party,
but instead she is upset. She complains that she has nothing suitable to wear to such an
extravagant occasion. Her kind husband agrees to give her the four hundred francs
that he had been saving to buy a new rifle to get herself a gown.The week of the party,
Mathilde seems anxious again. When her husband asks her why, she frets that she has no
jewelry to wear with her dress. He suggests that perhaps she could borrow something
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from her friend Jeanne Forestier. Mathilde goes to Jeanne's house and picks out a
sparkling diamond necklace to borrow.She and her husband attend the gala and have
a fabulous time. She loves amazing and dances all night. Finally, they head home in
the wee hours of the morning. When
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they arrive home, Mathilde realizes that the necklace is missing. They wonder if it
fell off in the carriage that they took home, but neither of them noticed the number. Her
husband goes out to search the streets but returns empty handed. To stall for time,
Mathilde writes to her friend that she broke the clasp and is having it repaired. In the
meantime, they find another necklace that matches the missing one, but it costs
thirty-six thousand francs. Her husband fortunately inherited eighteen thousand
francs from his father, but they will need to borrow the rest of the money. Finally,
they have enough to purchase the replacement necklace and Mathilde gives it to
Jeanne who doesn't even look at it.The next ten years Mathilde's life changes
dramatically. They move to a smaller apartment where she has to cook and clean for
herself. She also does work on the side while her husband works multiple jobs to pay
back all the money they borrowed. After the ten years, the money is all paid back, but
Mathilde has aged a great deal.One day she sees Jeanne Forestier on the street. She
decides to tell her the truth about the necklace. Jeanne is stunned by Mathilde's rough
appearance. Mathilde explains that it is indirectly because of Jeanne since she lost the
necklace she borrowed from her and had to pay for a replacement. Shocked, Jeanne
confesses that the necklace Mathilde borrowed was a fake, made of paste, worth no more
than five hundred francs.Clearly, the lesson of the story is that honesty is the best
policy. If Mathilde had been honest with her friend from the start, she would have
learned that the necklace wasn't made of real diamonds and would not have wasted
ten years paying for a replacement. One night, her husband returns home proudly
bearing an invitation to a formal party hosted by the Ministry of Education. He hopes
that Mathilde will be thrilled with the chance to attend an event of this sort, but she is
instantly angry and begins to cry. Through her tears, she tells him that she has nothing
to wear and he ought to give the invitation to one of his friends whose wife can afford
better clothing. Her husband is upset by her reaction and asks how much a suitable
dress would cost. She thinks about it carefully and tells him that 400 francs would be
enough. Her husband quietly balks at the sum but agrees that she may have the money.
As the day of the party approaches, Mathilde starts to behave oddly. She confesses
that the reason for her behavior is her lack of jewels. Monsieur Loisel suggests that
she wear flowers, but she refuses. He implores her to visit Madame Forestier and
borrow something from her. Madame Forestier agrees to lend Mathilde her jewels, and
Mathilde selects a diamond necklace. She is overcome with gratitude at Madame
Forestier’s generosity.
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At the party, Mathilde is the most beautiful woman in attendance, and everyone
notices her. She is intoxicated by the attention and has an overwhelming sense of self-
satisfaction. At 4 a.m., she finally looks for Monsieur Loisel, who has been dozing
for hours in a deserted room. He
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cloaks her bare shoulders in a wrap and cautions her to wait inside, away from the
cold night air, while he fetches a cab. But she is ashamed at the shabbiness of her
wrap and follows Monsieur Loisel outside. They walk for a while before hailing a
cab.
When they finally return home, Mathilde is saddened that the night has ended. As
she removes her wrap, she discovers that her necklace is no longer around her neck.
In a panic, Monsieur Loisel goes outside and retraces their steps. Terrified, she sits
and waits for him. He returns home much later in an even greater panic—he has not
found the necklace. He instructs her to write to Madame Forestier and say that she
has broken the clasp of the necklace and is getting it mended.
They continue to look for the necklace. After a week, Monsieur Loisel says they
have to see about replacing it. They visit many jewelers, searching for a similar
necklace, and finally find one. It costs 40,000 francs, although the jeweler says he
will give it to them for 36,000. The Loisels spend a week scraping up money from all
kinds of sources, mortgaging the rest of their existence. After three days, Monsieur
Loisel purchases the necklace. When Mathilde returns the necklace, in its case, to
Madame Forestier, Madame Forestier is annoyed at how long it has taken to get it
back but does not open the case to inspect it. Mathilde is relieved.
The Loisels began to live a life of crippling poverty. They dismiss their servant and
move into an even smaller apartment. Monsieur Loisel works three jobs, and Mathilde
spends all her time doing the heavy housework. This misery lasts ten years, but at the
end they have repaid their financial debts. Mathilde’s extraordinary beauty is now
gone: she looks just likes the other women of poor households. They are both tired
and irrevocably damaged from these years of hardship.
One Sunday, while she is out for a walk, Mathilde spots Madame Forestier. Feeling
emotional, she approaches her and offers greetings. Madame Forestier does not
recognize her, and when Mathilde identifies herself, Madame Forestier cannot help but
exclaim that she looks different. Mathilde says that the change was on her account
and explains to her the long saga of losing the necklace, replacing it, and working
for ten years to repay the debts. At the end of her story, Madame Forestier clasps
her hands and tells Mathilde the original necklace was just costume jewelry and not
worth anything.
In this story the writer use verb phrase is a complete predicate: that is, a lexical verb and
all the words governed by that verb except a subject. A verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic
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unit composed of at least one verb and its dependents—objects, complements and
other modifiers—but not always including the subject. Thus in the sentence A fat man
put the money quickly in the box, the words put the money quickly in the box are a
verb phrase; it consists of the verb put and its
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dependents, but not the subject a fat man. A verb phrase is similar to what is
considered a predicate in more traditional grammars.
b) Provide certain examples for each kind of the Verb Phrases (VPs)
used by Maupassant.
From “The Necklace”
Her husband offers to give her the money for something
suitable. Step 1
Set down the basic pair of branches for two principal constituents - the Subject NP and
the predicate VP - at the top of the phrase structure

Label the syntactic category (part of speech) of each of the words that make up the
sentence distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs,
 transitive verbs have an active subject (i.e., an agent) doing something to an
object (i.e., patient),
Her Husband Vt something suitable obj.
 intransitive verbs don’t take a direct
object Her husband vj

Locate the boundary between the subjects NP and predicate VP of S

Connect the remaining constituents to the nodes they belong to: link them to the
constituents they relate to

The final tree: