Where Did the Jewels Come From?
The short story “Jewels” by Guy De Maupassant tells the story of a middle class French couple, Lantin and his wife. The story begins as M. Lantin meets a young girl at a party and falls madly in love with her and they get married. She had a love for the theater and collecting jewels. One evening the wife died and M.Lantin unraveled what was really going on with his wifes jewels. The husband struggled financially and he started to sell her jewelry to be able to afford food. M.Lantin found out that the jewels were real and discovered that his wife was having an affair with a wealthy man who bought her jewels.
When a charming, modest, and honorable young woman moves to Paris with her mother in hopes of getting married, M. Lantin instantly recognizes her as a great catch and marries her. They live together happily for many years, and he adores her loving playful personality. In addition, he also is impressed with how talented she is with the family's economics. “The young girl seemed to be the very ideal of that pure good woman to whom every young man dreams of entrusting his future”. (Maupassant, 7). The wife's character is shown in a positive light by the way the narrator describes her caring and naive personality. She had a love for jewelry and would come home each and every day with a new piece of extravagant looking jewels. He loved her dearly, but was exhausted after his long days at work and did not have the energy to go to the theatre with her. Nevertheless, he was completely and utterly happy with her as a wife. At first, she would drag her husband to the theatre whether or not he wanted to go. Eventually, he begged her to go with one of her friends who would bring her back home to him after the show. One cold evening in the winter, she came back home trembling from the cold. She began to have a cough and eight days later died from pneumonia, with her lungs being inflamed. Mr.Lantin was ove...