Jake Schroeder
English 204
“The Jewelry” Paragraphs 67-72
Perspective and dramatic irony can be very effective tools for an author when trying to provoke deeper thoughts from their reader. For example in, “The Jewelry” Maupassaant uses the limited perspective of Lantin paired with the ironic knowledge gained by the reader to question the source of Lantin’s truly happiest point in the story. The wealth Lantin accumulates causes him to disregard the principles of not boasting, which he expresses to his wife earlier in the story. However this contradiction shines a light on the true discontent Lantin has for his new life. “Finding himself seated at the same table with a man who seemed to him quite genteel, could not resist…with a certain air of coquetry that he had just inherited four hundred thousand francs”(95). Lantin is so fixated on being accepted to this “table” of the “genteel” he is willing to not only boast his wealth, but also lie in an effort to belong. This fixation is what lead him to “shake hands with his fellow clerks” as to prove his “value” as he disembarks from their shared “career”. It seems that for Lantin having the money isn’t satisfying unless he can, “yell out to the passers-by: ‘I am rich too’”(95). Which is a point of massive contradiction when you consider the lesson Lantin proposes to his wife about her affinity for jewelry; “ones natural beauty…and grace…are the rarest of jewels”(93). As an averagely paid man Lantin seemed utterly uninterested in wealth and relatively disgusted in his wife’s interest in “tinsel and show”. The sudden accumulation of money reverses Lantin’s disgust into a madness in which he must prove his “value” to others.
He even begins to find pleasure in the “theater” which he had disliked going to with his wife prior to her death. Lantin’s new wealth provided him the ability to “pass the night in revelry and debauch” which he couldn’t have done prior because it would “tire him horribly after his days work”. It seemed as though he chose not to enjoy this type of life because he
