Abstract

Structuralism was a reactionary approach that concentrated on signs, structure, language, synchrony, and a unique technique while challenging the independent subject. The works of Gestalt, Saussure, Strauss, Barthes, Marx, and Freud all reflected the concepts of structuralism, but The Necklace by Maupssant is the first book to do so. The scholars used structuralist ideas advanced by Dosse, Sanders, Sturrock, etc. to study one of Maupssant's masterpieces within the framework of structuralism. The current study assessed the existence of structuralism's principles The Necklace's in a hitherto unstudied location. The aim of this research is to look into the principles of structuralism, The "words and phrases" of Maupssant's story were examined in the context of structuralism, the results of this qualitative investigation were examined using textual analysis. Binary oppositions of poverty and wealth, Id (irrational desire), Superego (sensibility), and synchronic and diachronic system in showing Matilda's life of a young beautiful and intuitive lady at one stage and his family background and character's comparison of Matilda and Forestier, components of the narrative's structure.

Key Words

Binary Oppositions, Cultural Determinism, Freud, Structure, Synchrony, Diachrony

Introduction

With the rise of structuralist critique in the 1950s, our approaches to studying a piece of literature shifted dramatically. The focus switched to the structure at that point rather than the author. Saussure's ideas were initially applied to literary criticism and other social science fields. His theories on sign, which he defined as the union of signifier and signified, langue and parole, synchrony and diachrony, and binary oppositions, helped to pave the way for new research in fields including sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and literature. In view of structuralism, human life occurrences are understood by their interrelationships, which form a structure (Blackburn, 2008).

Between structuralism and social sciences, there is a dialectical link. The French anthropologist Levi-Strauss (1966) employs structuralist linguist Saussure's binary oppositions such as raw/cooked, red/black, high/low, etc. to express disparities among social groups, men's and 

women's roles, and conceptions of nature and culture. The researchers will aim to analyse the dogmas of structuralism from Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, a French masterwork of literature, in the current study.

A conceptual and methodological approach known as structuralism is used to describe and analyse a wide range of objects of inquiry, such as cultures, economies, languages, literature, mythologies, politics, and societies. A structuralist analysis presupposes that these objects of inquiry can be classified according to underlying structures that are conceptualised as systems of interconnected parts and that they can be defined (at least partially) by the interactions between these constituent elements. According to Klarer (1999), short narrative prose constitutes a short story.

According to Shaw (1983), the short story is a hybrid genre that is both independent and connected to other forms of art at various points. Its definition is limited to the tensions and antitheses that it plays with. Short stories are the kind of literature that inspires aspiring authors to create their own works with the greatest chance of success. The term "literary text" refers to any written work, such as a poem or a book, with the intention of entertaining readers or telling a story, such as a fictional novel. It conveys political messages or worldviews along with aesthetic pleasure. Literature is a general term that refers to all literary works, including poetry, novels, drama, short stories, and prose. It also refers to anything that has been written and examined as if it had an artistic purpose rather than just being written to convey information. Literature is not always writing. The historical development of prose or poetry that amuses, informs, or instructs the reader, as well as the historical development of the literary techniques employed to convey these works, are both referred to as literature.

The current study assesses the previously unexplored research domain of structuralist 

tenets' existence in Guy de Maupassant’s' The Necklace in order to put it under the structuralist analysis of classical works umbrella. The current study has two goals: first, to investigate the relationship between structuralism and short fiction by looking at the tenets of structuralism in The Necklace; and second, to investigate the relationship between structuralism and short fiction by looking at the tenets of structuralism in The Necklace. ii. to recognise the tentacles of structuralism in a work of literature outside of the social sciences.




Research Statement

The present study focuses on the Structuralist features of The Necklace by the French Writer Guy de Maupassant. Before this study, the was not analysed from the structuralist point of view so the researcher would try to explore all the aspects of structuralism of the story. 




Research Objectives

1. To find the relationship of structuralism and literature.

2. To examine the story from a Structuralist perspective.




Research Questions

The following questions are answered by this study:

1. How do structuralism and literature relate to one another?

2. How does Guy de Maupassant’s' The Necklace reflect structuralism's tenets?




Significance of the study

The outcomes of this study will help students and researchers better comprehend structuralism and how to apply its ideas to famous works of literature outside of the social sciences. This study will help researchers analyse important questions that have lain unexplored in the fields of Structuralism, literary theory, and literature.

Literature Review

Because few experts have completed their research in this field, structuralist assessments of French works, particularly Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, are frequently overlooked and may be dismissed as irrelevant. Early in 1950s, structuralism began to take root in Europe thanks to Saussure’s structural linguistics, the Prague Linguistic Circle, and the Moscow Linguistic Circle. Despite the fact that various studies have been undertaken on Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, no structuralist study of the story has yet been conducted.

In the context of social sciences like sociology, psychology, anthropology, and education, structuralism has been the subject of several studies. Through the prism of structuralism, Goddard (1976) examined sociology. Frere (2004) looked at Pierre Bourdieu's writings to understand the roots of genetic structuralism, psychological sociology, and pragmatic social actor theory. El-Tawil and Aguirre (2010) looked at the exploration and saving of people trapped in collapsed structures from both an engineering and a social science standpoint. The structuralist approach to reasoning in education has been criticised by Matusov and Soslau (2010). Veraksa et al. (2013) completed their experimental research in psychology using the structural dialectical methodology. Gestalt psychology's central tenet was that all awareness is structured and functions as a whole, much like phenomenology (Sturrock, 2003). Structuralism was influenced by both Germanic movements.

There has not been much research in literature from the angles of structure and structuralism, but much work has to be done in order to examine structuralism in the context of Guy de Maupassant’s' short stories. Through recurrent forms, narrative structure, verbal symbols, and literary frameworks, Rothwell (1963) has investigated literary works that have a structure. Smithson (1975) defined structuralism as a literary critique strategy. Zhang (2003) has provided a structuralist interpretation of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Conrad's Heart of Darkness was structurally analysed by Omer (2014), who looked at the binary oppositions of civilisation and savagery. However, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant has yet to be analysed from a structuralist standpoint.

The linguistics of the twentieth century is synchronic and ahistorical. It concentrates on a language at a certain stage in its development and the operation of the language rather than on the etymological, lexical, and grammatical evolution of specific languages across long stretches of time (Bressler, 1993). A sign in this sense has two sides: the signifier and the signified. The thought is the signified, while the uttered sound is the signifier that the written mark introduces (meaning). The link between the signifier and the signified is artificial and conventional rather than being natural one. A word in the external world does not reflect a referent but rather a mental construct.

Saussure also distinguished between langue and parole. According to Culler, the former refers to a set of interpersonal laws and customs as well as a system, but the latter is the way the system is expressed clearly in speech and writing (Culler, 2002). Langue refers to the mental structure or system of language that all members of a linguistic community share. However, parole refers to an individual language user's real speech utterances. Someone who belongs to a language community can come up with endless examples of utterances, but they are all governed by the language's system or langue.

Structuralism puts literature and language together. According to A Glossary of Literary Terms, structuralist critique, the definition of literature employed in literary 

studies considers literature to be a second-order system that utilises the first-order structural system of language as it's medium and is to be evaluated primarily on the basis of linguistic theory (Abrams, 1998). This viewpoint claims that structuralism is a literary analysis that searches for language in literature.




Structuralism's Tenets

1. There is a structure to language. A language's structure, according to Saussure, is self-contained. It is autonomous in the sense that it exists independently of other objects or mental structures and is not a reflection or a representation of them. As Western philosophers were prone to do, explaining the structures of language to other structures was a cardinal blunder (Holdcraft, 1991).

2. A sign is created when a signifier and a signified are combined.

Figure 1

The sign in Saussure’s Course



3. Language is a sign system. The term "semiotics" or "sign science" accurately describes Saussure's work. Most of the philosophical theory and cultural criticism that characterised structuralism in its French and comparable incarnations are avoided by the scientific examination of behaviour and communication (Culler, 2011).

4. Language is divided into two categories: a. langue and b. parole. In contrast to the diachronic (historical study) view of language, Saussure stressed the synchronic (specific) view of language. The basic building block of language, according to him, is a sign (a given language at a given time). Each and every one of them is a complete sign language. A person's parole (speaking) is a manifestation on outside of the langue (Saussure, 1959). He goes on to claim that Language is a never-ending process in a single person, but only exists properly in the collective.

5. Rather than being diachronic, language is a synchronic system. Saussure believed that studying language synchronically (at any one time) was more important than documenting language evolution. Saussure's attention to the synchronic method had two advantages. It helped establish descriptive linguistics and the synchronic state as a system or structure (as demonstrated by the creation of the International Phonetic Alphabets by his and Meillet's student Passy) (Sanders, 2004). 

Figure 1



6. Symbols are linked to one another. Between signals, there is a syntagmatic and paradigmatic link. It is a huge illusion to believe that a linguistic sign lives in isolation, yet it is with the unified whole that we may analyse the pieces it includes (Godel, 1957). 

       A syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationship connects every word, term, or system unit, to the other units.

Figure 3



7. Because of the separate technique or binary oppositions, each term or unit of language has significance. According to Saussure, linguistic units are given value or meaning by binary opposition; each unit is described in terms of what it is not. For instance, ‘good’ is a ‘good’ because it is not ‘evil’ and /p/ is a /p/ because it is not a /b/.

8. Thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Levi Strauss, and Charles Darwin introduced structuralist views to their respective fields: through the process of natural selection, Darwin arranged all of life into a massive and branching tree. People are born into social and cultural structures and these systems shape who they are. Freud used the id, ego, and superego to structure the psyche's energies; Marx used the class struggle to structure history; Straus used the idea that people are born into social and cultural structures, and that these structures determine people; and Darwin used natural selection to shape life into a massive, branching tree.

9. In structuralism, texts embody the culture's standards and etiquette. There is the 'real' and 'granted' text that is socially supplied. The shared information is found in the broad cultural text and is acknowledged by the members of that culture. At this stage, purpose, personality, and significance are understood from descriptions of acts, clothes, and attitude, among other things (Culler, 2002). Parallel, contrast, balance, and symmetry are structural components of a structuralist text.

11. Semiotics is founded on structuralism (the study of signs). The concept of code is at the heart of semiotics. Since it is organised by and through conventions, which are made up of signs and indicating behaviours, our perception of reality is not just coded but also conventional. It's referred to as the "social construction of reality."

12. Marx, who divided society into the superstructures and the base (the actual or monetary channels of production and distribution), is a structuralist (the ideological, religious, legal, artistic, and political world of culture). The economy serves as the base and shapes the superstructures. The "Motor" is the economic underpinning for the base-superstructure concept (Carspecken, 1996).

Research Methodology

The present investigation is qualitative in natural and uses textual analysis as a research method. The Necklace by Maupassant is used to investigate the underlying patterns and ideas of structuralism using this qualitative research method. Data was gathered from books and papers that had already been published. There were several stages to the analysis technique. The first step was to look at the tenets of structuralism in various books. These tenets were investigated in the second step using The Necklace as a guide. With the use of many structuralist diagrams, a structuralist analysis of this story was completed in the third step. These phases of the analytical technique were applied to the study's findings.           

Analysis and Discussion

Binary oppositions, cultural determinism, the id, ego, and superego, the structuralist synchronic system, as well as the narrative codes and collocation structure of the story, are all examined using The Necklace as a case study.

The Necklace has been analysed in this study in light of structuralist theories of the id, ego, and superego, cultural determinism, structuralist theories of binary oppositions, structuralist synchronic systems, structuralist story elements, structuralist narrative codes, and structuralist lexical collocation structure.




Structuralism and Literature: What's the Connection?

Structuralism and literature have a long and symbiotic relationship. Structures can also be found in society, culture, language, myth, psyche, and literature. A structural critic examines the text's narrative patterns, signals, and binary oppositions. He or she makes links between literary texts, such as those that represent a certain genre, a group of intertextual relationships, a universal framework, or a collection of recurrent themes or patterns. (Barry, 2002). Finding the meaning or the key to a literary text is not the aim of a structuralist study; rather, the task of a structural critic, in Roland Barthes's (1971) words, is similar to peeling an onion:

“A construction of layers (or levels, or systems) whose body contains, finally no heart, no kernel, no secret, no irreducible principle, nothing except the infinity of its own envelopes – which envelop nothing other than the unity of its own surfaces” ( p. 10).

The aim of literary structuralism is to reveal numerous signals and better organise them to demonstrate how they operate. Rather than just affirming the existence of a system of conventions, structuralism attempts to formulate the rules of that system (Culler, 2002).




Plot of the Story

The story takes place in Paris, France, in 1880. A young woman from the middle class fantasises about a lifestyle that is beyond of her monetary range. When her husband one day comes home with tickets, she is overjoyed to go to the party but is concerned that she will look dowdy. At the ball, Mme. Loisel is a hit; everyone loves her. She realises the jewellery is missing as she starts to walk away and searches for it. She and her husband finally settle on replacing it with another after searching for days. They will need ten years to pay for the replacement, which costs more than they make. Although Matilda Loisel isn't wealthy, she longs to be. She receives funding from her husband to buy a dress, but she is dissatisfied with it and eventually asks a wealthy friend to lend her a necklace. After ten years of gruelling labour and hardship, the couple pays off all of their obligations. Falling Action: One day, Matilda meets the acquaintance she borrowed the necklace from on her way to the market. She decides to inform her of what has occurred. Mme. Forestier, Matilda's acquaintance, tells her that the necklace is "false" or a fake. The reader is left to reflect on the situation's irony.

Tenets of Structuralism in The Necklace

If the structure is the soul of structuralism, and structure is prevalent throughout The Necklace, multiple types of structure, such as narrative structure, are also present. The narrative is divided into five sections: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, but it's best renowned for its twist ending (ironic finale), which was a trademark of Guy de Maupassant's style. A plot twist is an abrupt, unanticipated development that causes the audience (or reader) to reevaluate everything they previously believed to be true about the story. In your story, it simply amounts to a "Fooled you!" moment. A great (and unexpected) ending to your story requires a solid plot twist.




Twist Ending of the Story

The conclusion of "The Necklace" is known as the "whip-crack" or "O. Henry" ending. In the late 1800s, author O. Henry was well known for the unexpected resolutions to his works. The implied central premise of "The Necklace" is turned on its head by the shocking conclusion. The ten years of hardship Matilda has endured can be seen by the reader as atonement for both her careless misplacement of the borrowed necklace and her robbed night of pleasure at the party. In the end, this illusion is dispelled, demonstrating how the ten years of suffering might have been avoided if only Matilda had told Madame Forestier the truth. Although Matilda's loss of the jewellery initially seemed to be her undoing, her inability to be honest with Madame Forestier was what ultimately brought about her demise. Even if Matilda's obligations have been fulfilled, this unexpected conclusion sheds new light on the earlier incidents and suggests that she won't have a very promising future.

The terrible irony that the Loisels had to spend years paying off a replacement for a necklace that was actually useless is one instance of irony in "The Necklace." Ironically, while making the necklace, Matilda's beauty, which was previously her only asset, is destroyed. She had removed the necklace to make herself look more attractive, but she now appears to be completely unattractive. The cruellest irony of "The Necklace" is how lavish Matilda's former life, which she so bitterly despised, seemed in comparison to the difficult life she is forced to live as a result of losing the necklace. In an effort to appear wealthier than she actually is, she steals Madame Forestier's necklace, but she ends up losing what little she has. She pays twice, with her money and her appearance, for something that never had any value.

One of the core ideas of structuralism, binary oppositions, is also expressed in The Necklace. Eagleton (2008) claims that structuralism loves binary opposition. Binary oppositions of poverty and wealth, happiness and desperation and agony, desire and distress, youth and old age, submissiveness and passion, and most important of all, appearance and reality are evident in the story.

In the story, poverty and wealth are presented with the help of the symbol of ornaments, the costumes of Matilda and the job status of her husband. The author abruptly introduced the status of Matilda as a member of "a family of clerks". Her poverty was symbolised by showing lack of her possession as the author quoted “She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known, appreciated by either rich man or distinguished." She, in spite of being the most beautiful woman in the society, was not appreciated without a borrowed necklace, by men of higher ranks at the ball. On the other hand, wealth, the binary of poverty, has been shown in the form of the possession of a necklace, even a false one.

The other binary of has been presented in the form of happiness and desperation. The happiness of Matilda is associated with the appreciation of her beauty by well-ranked men of the community, that is not possible to achieve without the possession of ornaments. We noticed that without "The Necklace" she seems she had nothing other than "regrets and desperate dreams" because "She had neither frocks nor jewels, nothing. And she loved only those things. She felt she was made for them." However, her desperation vanished when she visited her friend's house to borrow some ornaments to wear at the dinner. When she only saw the "superb necklace of diamonds", she was overjoyed and "her heart began to beat fast with an immoderate desire." When Madame Forestier lent her necklace, "She (Matilada) embraced her with passion."

Other apparent binary oppositions of the story are the two contrary aspects of human age, youthfulness and old age. The author has compared the two contrary stages of human life or age by presenting Matilda's ripe youth and her old age as well. At the start of the story, Matilda was described as "one of the pretty young ladies" and at the ball, during her enthusiastic dance, her beauty was victorious over all the beauties in the ball but at the end of the story, we notice that Matilda was "affected" and was even unrecognised by her friend Madame Forestier. On the hand, the youth of Madame Forestier is mingled with the decayed youth and beauty of Matilda Loisel by presenting Forestier as "still young, still pretty, still attractive" but Matilda's youth and beauty had vanished due to facing hard days of life. 

Another prevalent binary in the story is that of appearance and reality. There are many aspects of the story that differ in their appearance and reality. For instance, Matilda’s apparent beauty is not the reality of her inner self. Her apparent beauty is opposite to her agony and distress of herself. Another reference of the binary opposition of appearance and reality is the necklace itself. Apparently, the necklace is of diamond and very costly but in fact, it is a "false" one as when Madame Forestiee came to the reality from Matilda, she said, "Oh, my poor Matolda! Mine were false." We can also assume that the reality of Forestier's necklace symbolises that the ornaments, beauty and youth she has, are "false" and apparent, just like the necklace.

The Necklace reflects another concept of structuralism, namely the Freudian Id, Ego, and superego. The psychic apparatus, devised by Sigmund Freud (1923) and published in McLeod (2008), is a structural model of the human mind that includes the id, ego, and superego. Freud believed that they were hypothetical conceptualisations of crucial mental processes rather than actual physical regions of the brain. As a structuralist, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego are Sigmund Freud's three divisions of the human mind. The Id is a "animal" aspect of the mind, an instinct-driven component, and an unconscious motivator that prioritises pleasure over pain avoidance. It is also known as the "pleasure principle. "The rational and 'awake' half of the mind, the Ego, is a Conscious Motivator. It adheres to the reality principle (Freud, 1923). The moral and judgmental side of the mind is known as the superego, which examines all decisions and consequences critically and ethically. The 'interiorised moral consciousness' is what it's called (Freud, 1923).

Freud (1923) asserted that the id operates in accordance with the pleasure (gratification from satisfying basic instincts) principle on an unconscious level. The id is made up of the Eros and Thanatos biological instincts (or drives), as described by Freud. Eros, or the life impulse, aids in a person's survival by controlling functions necessary for breathing, eating, and having sex (Freud, 1925). Thanatos, or the death instinct, is perceived as a set of destructive energies that exist in all people (Freud, 1920). When the Id is immediately satiated, we feel pleasure; but, if this is not the case, we feel "unpleasure" or suffering. Reality, rationality, and the everyday world have no impact on the id. In The Necklace, the psychological conflict lies within its protagonist, Matilda, whose id prevails her superego most of the times. Matilda is entirely overwhelmed by her id, due to which she is dissatisfied, discontented and unhappy at large. She thought herself to be the poorest woman in the world. She was devoid of normal human status and had lost it all as "She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known", and she had "regrets and desperate dreams." But when she saw her basic desire nearer to be completed in the form of Madame Forestier's Necklace, she couldn't control herself and "her heart beat fast with an immoderate desire." When she found a chance to fulfil her id the basic desire to be noticed by the men of higher status she was overexcited, and "She danced with enthusiasm, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success." We can notice that at the fulfilment of her id she had totally lost ego and superego and danced violently to attract the attention of the elites.

In the course of her life, the conflict between her ego and superego widened and resultantly her superego overcame her id. With the sudden stroke of destiny she lost the necklace and did not even know about its reality of being a "false" one. In spite of their search, Matilda and her husband were unable to find the necklace so they decided to find the same replacement at any cost, and they did exactly the same. It was very difficult for them to pay their debts to the usurers with their interests. At that tumultuous times, Matilda could be noticed as an entirely different personality. Now she had overcome all of her weaknesses and had become a strong-willed lady. The author shows this aspect of her life in these words, "She had become a strong hard woman, the crude woman…….". She had regulated her id or even had lost it and become a strong lady.

Mme Loisel now knew the horrible life of necessity. She did her part, however, heroically.




Synchrony and Diachrony in the Necklace

The Necklace also exhibits structural harmony, symmetry, and repetition of recurring patterns. A system of recurring patterns or motifs is valued by structuralism (Barry, 2002). Analysing the story, we notice that the story has both the aspects of synchrony and diachrony.

At the synchronic level, it analyses a single trait of Matilda's life as a pretty youthful woman who is in search of her id's gratification. On the other hand, Matilda's life has been analysed diachronically by portraying her family's background, developing traits of her personality i.e. overwhelming id at one stage and then the growth of superego and its being stronger than her id.

The Necklace enjoys the structuralist components of comparison and contrast, parallelism in phrases and sentences and even among characters. However, the plot of the story is not altogether symmetrical; rather it is a twisty one.

Parallelism is evident at the level of phrases and sentences. The author uses parallelism to portray the constant poor life of Matilda, her husband's life and even the life of her class. Apparent examples of structural parallelism are; "She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known, appreciated……", "She had neither frocks nor jewels, nothing." Another example of parallelism is the repetition of the structure "She suffered…..".

Parallelism and comparison among characters of a literary work are also one of the basic tenets of structuralism. The story has this tenet of structuralist theory as well. In the story, the author paralleled the characters of Matilda and Madame Forestier by showing the aspirations of their personalities. As par the story, both the ladies are almost equally beautiful, but Matilda has no possessions unlike that of Forestier. In a comparative sense, Matilda's character has been compared with herself, the contrary aspects of her character. In the ending lines of the story, the author compares the youth of Forestier and Matilda in the following words. Matilda has been changed so much that her friend was astonished and could not even recognise her.

It was Mme Forestier, still young, still pretty, still attractive” however, "Mme Loisel was affected.

Another tenet of parallelism is the use of recurrent and repetitive patterns. The Necklace is full of such repetitive patterns. The use of these patterns was aimed to keep the plot tied around a single objective. The motifs of desire and clothing, and mirror are recurrent in The Necklace. In the story, Matilda desires each and everything which she hasn't and the others have. She desires "delicacy and luxury" of a rich life and a life of higher status like that of Forestier. Maupassant's mentioning of the character's clothing is also a representation of their social status. Early in the story, Matilda is described as, "not being able to adorn herself." To attend the party without suitable clothing and ornaments, she would have to face embarrassment. 

In The Necklace, the structuralist component of Marxism known as the Base-Superstructure is depicted. According to the Marxist social model, the base (the economy) determines the superstructures. Marxism, for instance, emphasises the characters' socioeconomic circumstances.

The Marxist lens has been employed in several interpretations since it is obvious in light of the historical setting and the economic condition in France in 1884; in contrast, the repetition of feminine motifs in Maupassant's works and his own personal experience have prompted many to apply a feminist lens. However, many academics stop there and don't examine additional lenses because of how evident it is. This study uses the four parameters to analyse the story, building on earlier analyses and opinions on these lenses to explain what the necklace symbolises when viewed via each lens. It also discusses how such symbolism conveys a positive message when used in combination.

If read through a Marxist lens, the The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant illustrates the flaws of the "Belle Epoque", and classes' growing disparity as the wealthy became wealthier and the destitute became poorer. The "Belle Epoque," which was characterised by high living standards and security for the wealthy from 1871 to 1914, an improvement and expansion of the chemical and electrical sectors would contribute to political stability and peace., a rise in the use of the telegraph and telephone, new agricultural equipment and fertilisers, and greater food production in both quality and quantity, was when the story was written in France. These developments allowed the upper class to enjoy a better standard of living, travel more, and focus completely on fashion trends. The wealthy individuals who could buy superior commodities were the beneficiaries from this magnificent era. Some people from the middle and lower classes were able to make more money or purchase specific things as a result of the trickle-down of previously desired things, yet because there were few socialist organisations, the vast mass of the classes was kept in the dark, had small dwellings, and received little pay (Wilde, 2017). Following the war, Maupassant enrolled in law school, began employment with various Ministries, and began to spend his free time boating and with prostitutes; all of these activities served as the inspiration for a large portion of his literature (Turnell and Dumesnil). Six novels and more than 300 short stories, many of which focused on women and sexuality, were written by Maupassant before his death in 1893. 

One could assume that interpreting his works would be best done via a feminist, woman-oriented perspective, given his frequent and regular utilisation of and attention on women. Given that she is a woman, it makes sense to see the main character in "The Necklace" from this angle. Even if there isn't any historical or biographical information to suggest that the story should be interpreted through a formalist or psychological perspective, both are frequently used on a variety of stories even when there aren't any details or other factors that might lead the reader to infer that they should. Dobie asserts that we are given a clear picture of a society where resources, including the means to obtain them, are dispersed inequitably in a Marxist interpretation. Madame Loisel can only utilise her youth and attractiveness to attract a marriage; she has neither a service nor a talent to market (Dobie, 2011). Being a member of the lower middle class prevents Matilda from achieving her goal of moving up to the upper class because "she has no dowry," highlighting the importance of money, whereas Mrs Forestier is a member of the upper class and possesses the goods that others enviously seek. Both women belong to the society Dobie is referring about. Despite being lovely and being able to find marriage, Matilda's husband was just a menial clerk and did little to advance her social standing. When Matilda doesn't have a dress or jewellery to wear and borrows the necklace she thinks is extremely valuable because it belongs to a person of the upper-clase, there is little doubt that the possessors of wealth and power are distinguished from those who do not by what they own, what they lack, and the extent to which they have access to riches and power (Dobie, 2011). 

Maupassant's culture exhibits classism in his urge to steal jewellery, fool people and pretend to be wealthy. Classism is a viewpoint that our level of human decency is based on the social class to which we belong and that our innate superiority increases with higher social status (Tyson, 2011). Because Matilda strives to be an upper-class woman because, as a middle-class lady, she thinks she is not very valuable, it is obvious that "The Necklace" displays classism. She worries about how other people would view her during the ball because she is not from the upper class. This demonstrates how classism causes the wealthy to only want to associate with other wealthy people. Dobie adds that the difference [between the classes] gets more evident and unbridgeable as they strive at progressively degrading occupations to obtain the money to pay off their loans as the pair spends a decade struggling to do so after Matilda lost Mrs Forestier's diamond jewellery (Dobie, 2011). When Matilda has completed the repayment, she realises that it was a false necklace and "not worth over five hundred francs." According to Maupassant, when we treat people and things like commodities, when we value something by how much money it is worth of, or when we somehow relate to them in this way, we are engaged in the practice of commodity thinking. (Tyson, 2011). Mme. Loisel and her wealthy companion are both victims of their society's reliance on symbol value, according to Dobie's Marxist interpretation of the story.

Dobie (2011), stressing the story's critique of society and commodification via a Marxist perspective, claims that "The former is so attracted by the glitter of diamonds and clothes and attractive people that she can find little enjoyment in the humble attentions of her husband-clerk." When considering the value of the necklace using these social dimensions, three distinctive possibilities may be recognised. The first is that the necklace symbolises money, particularly Mrs Forestier's, and how it is worthless while having been supposed to be valuable. The necklace may also stand in for commercialisation and its downsides because it was always meant to be a commodity and because it contributes to Matilda's miserable living. Not to mention, after the story was made public and the necklace caused Matilda's death, it was known to cause pain of the lower classes; therefore, it may represent the entire upper class.

Collocation Structure of Vocabulary of The Necklace

The association of one lexical item with another is known as collocation while studying the structure of the vocabulary. It refers to the horizontal syntagmatic link between lexical components.  



Structuralist Narrative of The Necklace

There are five structuralist narrative codes, according to Cohan and Shires (1988). 




The Proairetic Code 

Offers the foundation for occurrences and successions that propagate in a linear and irreversible manner; (the effects of known activities)




The Semic Code

Offers the foundation for personality attributes; (the area where signifiers draw attention to one another to create a string of recognisable meanings). 




The Hermeneutic Code

Offers the foundation for a macrostructure that is geared toward closure in a linear and irreversible manner; (it includes parallels, repetitions and so forth towards conclusion).




The Symbolic Code 

uses reversible binary oppositions to give the foundation for representation. 




The Reference Code

Establishes the foundation for what appears to be extra-textual referentiality (different fields of study that make up society, including law, medicine, morality, psychology, philosophy, and religion).

Figure 5

The semic code: a chain o signifiers relating to Matilda’s charater and themes of the story.



Figure 6

Matilda’s Personality



Findings

The study found that structuralism can help us fetch the hidden meanings of literary works. Structuralist theories help us delve deep into the actions, desires of the characters and, resultantly, to find out the meanings of the works. The research found that there is a deep connection between structuralist theories and literature like the social theories of structuralism like Marxism point out that how the economy influences the lives of the characters and how it leads the characters towards their actions, and the psychoanalytical theories of Freud tried to explore the hidden desires and their impacts on human personality. Moreover, the study found that the Saussurian way of interpreting the meanings also influences the writing style and themes of the author.

As it has already been discussed in details, Maupassant’s The Necklace has a lot of structuralist features. It portrays a prototypical character of late 19th-century society where the polarisation between the classes was increasing. It was an age of the rise of industrialisation and a lower middle class was emerging, having far reaching hopes that were usually out of their reach, that was the real cause of most of the problems of middle-class families.

Conclusion

As previously stated this research is qualitative in character and used the textual analysis methodology. The Necklace by Maupassant has been examined from the standpoint of structuralism's tenets, including binary oppositions, cultural determinism (Marxism), structuralist theories of the id, ego, and superego, structuralist synchronic systems, structuralist narrative constituents, narrative codes, and collocation structure of vocabulary. These structuralism principles from this French masterwork by Maupassant have not been examined in any of the earlier studies. Students and researchers alike would benefit from understanding the genuine purpose of structuralism and how it is applied according to the current study. Opening new research areas from a structuralist viewpoint on Maupassant's short narrative is the goal of this work. Therefore, the additional study may be required to enhance the integrity and trustworthiness of this initiative's outcomes. Future studies may examine the structuralist principles in Maupassant's other works, such as Ball Fat, Two Friends, and Mother Savage.

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