please, please help? i have no idea what this means, can you help me please????

Question

please help, i have just read this story called 'The Necklace' in school. the story is kind of long so i cant explain it right now, it is too long to explain. so, when my class read this story in school, i was absent and the teacher kind of explained what it was about and when i came back, she had no time to explain it. and she gave me the story and i read it, and then i had to do this essay on this thing that says ' the perfect expression of and age which had lost itslef amid things' this has to do about the characters in the story, and i have no idea what it means. so can someone please give me an idea of what this means, please??????? please?????. thanks.

oh yeah, i forgot to tell you that one of the characters from the story is materialistic-a person who is more concerned with material thins than spiritual, interectual, cultural values. it has to do with the saying i told you about. and that saying has to do with the characters too, and i still dont know what it means.

Answer 1

The saying means that the "thing" shows how an entire generation or culture ("the age") had become caught up in material concerns ("lost itself amid things") (emphasis on "things"). The saying is "the perfect expression of AN age which had lost itsELF among things".

Answer 2

The Necklace" tells the story of a nineteenth-century middle class French couple, Monsieur and Madame Loisel. Monsieur Loisel is a clerk in the department of education. Madame Loisel is a beautiful young lady, who might have been married to a richer man, if her family wasn't poor. Monsieur Loisel is invited to a distinguished party, and wishes to take his wife with him. Madame Loisel, however, is hesitant to attend, complaining that "there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women." In addition to acquiring a new dress, at her husband's suggestion she borrows a diamond necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier, and attends the party. She was the wonder of the night, and all the men wished to dance with her. Disastrously, Madame Loisel somehow loses the necklace during the evening.

Monsieur and Madame Loisel decide they must buy an identical diamond necklace from the 'Palais Royal' as a replacement for Madame Forestier. Unable to bear the shame of this, they do not inform Madame Forestier of the change and spend the next ten years of their lives paying off the debts, which costs them about thirty-six thousand francs, a fortune at the time. Both Monsieur and Madame Loisel are forced to take on extra jobs and live in abject poverty. At the end of the ten years, Madame Loisel, now older, tougher and less graceful from years of hard manual labor, has an opportunity to tell her old friend of the lost necklace. Madame Forestier is shocked and informs Madame Loisel that her original necklace was, in fact, an imitation "...worth at the very most five hundred francs!..."

this is the summary of the story..so i guess the essay should comprise the message in the story..u know abt wanting to be rich..then showing off that u are rich by borrowing other persons jewels..then losing it..then have to pay for what is imitation..well u can see that all this would never happen if the lady wsnt sorry for herself for being poor...

Answer 3

The interpretation which is valid should consider the noteworthy characterizations of the plot development. Moving forward also examine the dramatic style in the story while studying the undercurrents of the action byline. Then one must take in account the rhythmic innuendo versus the conflict between the anti protagonist and the main plot device. Finally analyze the relationship between what the author is trying to project as to what has occurred during the systematic organization of the interval.