To Lie or Not to Lie

To Lie or Not to Lie?

To lie, or not to lie? That's the question that will be focused on from reading the short story, The Necklace. People have different views on whether lying is the right thing to do. In The Necklace, the main character, Mathilde, was born into a family of clerks. Mathilde is also the protagonist of the short story. Mathilde was born into the wrong social class because she dwells about not being rich and being able to afford nice things. Mathilde was trying to become a different person for the night and it's just not reality. Mathilde was definitely not doing the right thing by lying to herself.

  

Being in a different social class made Mathilde try to be a different person for the night of the ball. She made her husband give her money so she can buy a brand new dress instead of the ones she already has. Then, she wanted jewelry and decided to borrow one of the nicest necklaces that her friend owned. It all went down hill when she realized she had lost the necklace. She should be a grown up and tell her friend that she had lost the necklace and couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, she bought a brand new necklace that was way out of her budget to give back to her friend. Lying about what really happened to the necklace, costed her 10 years of over working to recover from spending so much money. Not telling the truth to her friend wasn't the right thing to do because maybe if she would have told her friend, she wouldn't have cared or worried about it. It would of made her life easier by tell her because the necklace wasn't even worth a lot of money.



On the other hand, Mathilde was so worried about the necklace and just wanted to give it back. She was just trying to come up with a way to replace the necklace so her friend would never realize that it was lost. She came up with an excuse. Her excuse was to tell her friend that the clasp of her necklace was broken so Mathilde was having it mended at the jewelers.  But really, she went to the jewelers to go buy the same necklace to go return to her friend. Mathilde lied to her friend about losing the necklace at the ball. Mathilde had to work harder for 10 years in order to get their money back after spending it all on a necklace. Maybe if Mathilde told her friend the truth, she wouldn't have gone through everything she did for 10 years.

I feel that if I was in that situation, I would want someone to tell me the truth. Doing the right thing is not to lie because it can hurt you in the end. Honesty is the best policy. But, there are times when lying is okay to do in certain situations. In Mathilde's situation, she decided that the best thing to do was to lie.  Lying made her life more difficult because she would have never had to pay as much as she did for the necklace in the end. The Necklace should teach the readers that lying doesn't get you anywhere.