Academic Writing Class, Fudan University, Spring 2007
| Age: | 25 |
Blog
To whom it may concern:
Hello. I am Natalie Yang, a junior student in Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and majored in Optical Science and Engineering.
I started writing in English since my ninth grade; unfortunately, not until my entering college did I realize the significance and difficulty of writing, which already becomes my weakest part among the integrant English skills. For I always find myself boggle down in the situation where I have thousand things to say while don’t know how to express it. The agony did grow during my preparation for the Analysis Writing in the GRE test.
I am very lucky to register this Academic Writing Class on the last minute although I missed the second lesson, because after the audition of this class, I barely believe there will be anyone intend to step aside, leaving me the chance to register it. I have to say to anyone who gave up this class at the very beginning: what a lost, because you could learned a lot in this class. During this magic journey of writing class, I’ve got tons of opportunity to read, to write and more importantly, to think. The free-writing section, the routine of every lesson, likes a desert to warm us up. During the first ten minutes of lesson, we could think and write freely on the subjects Pro. Corio gives us, which, sometime, are related to the content of the story we are going to discuss, sometimes hint us where we are now of the “journey”. The reading story and the response section could be my favorite part, (although I missed the first time because of the “last minute luck”.) In this part, I could not only actually read into the story, analysis the characters, but also get the opportunity to read my peers’ thoughts and appreciate their beautiful language. To tell the truth, I dare not say I read all of the response, but I did my best to read most of them. The essay-writing is the most effectiveness part for the improvement of my writing skill, the part I will state below.
So here, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Pro. Ron Corio who provides us such an opportunity to improve our writing skill and to involve in a vivid US class. For, taking this class let me truly understand the essential of writing---express the ideas efficiently rather that make the language as beautiful as one can. So what we focused on in this class is the controlling idea which functions like a seed through which the paper, and the languages, will grow.
I would like to give introduction to the paper I’ve selected.
The reason I choose the Necklace for my essay is that the plot of this story is attractive enough for me to read repeatedly without been bored, and the imagination of the writer is so phenomenal that the ending of the story is very impressive and I can’t guess before hand. Bang! The draft one came. It is my first essay about analysis a story, so I was a little bit confused it with a reading log. Although it has a thesis statement--- what causes the tragedy of Mathilde, the body is more like a development of my comparatively free thought rather than the support to the thesis. Almost every paragraph lacks a focus. You could also see some grammatical errors which I always make and could find by myself.
Draft two is based on the work of peer revise. I would like to thank Young Running’s patient. Thanks to his help, I revised most of grammatical errs such as fragment, and changed some of the sentences into more native ways of expressing.
Draft three was changed a lot from draft two after I read Ron’s constructive suggestions. Since then, I realized my thesis was ill supported, and begin to work on my content. I reorganized my paragraphs to make sure every paragraph has a centre and the sentences are developing relatively and in a cogent way. Also, I add something about the background to indicate that my thesis is sound. If I call the draft one is the direct reflection of free analysis, then the draft three is the reasonable expression, at least I hope so.
I think my Final-time writing is the best among the free time-writing, partly because I am a lucky girl writing an essay about necklace, partly because after the whole semester of training I could make less errs. The reading log about the Grass Eater shows some of my unique thoughts, I believe.
I quite enjoy this class and will not stop practicing my writing.
Thanks for you patient and hope you can enjoy the paper below.
Sincerely,
Natalie Yang
June 14, 2007
The origin of Mathilde's Misery Life
In “The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassant sets a stage for a nineteen-century French ironic play, in which the main character Mathilde pays the debts of one night glory at the ball for ten years of hard living, because of a necklace. The necklace, borrowed from her “friend” to go with the dress she has bought for the ball, turns out to be a paste one. The common idea is that the woman deserved it because of her excessive vanity. However, equipped with the context of the story that French society was organized on a class basis even after the French Revolution when class distinction remained an integral part of the society(38), it is natural for readers to wonder whether the purpose of the writer was only to depict a pretty women with excessive vanity. Was the debt to be paid, the wearing out of her beauty, the misery life of ten years hardship truly rooted in her vanity, or something deeper?
Some people suggest that attributed to her excessive vanity, Mathilde reaps as she had her own sown, basing on the fact that Mathilde regards herself as someone who “had really fallen from her proper station”, and felt herself as someone who “born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries” (38). The writer did spare no effort on portraying a vanity girl who has always been complaining how unfair her life is; however, everybody has peacockery, especially for a charming girl, why Mathilde’s was so deadly and resulted in “compromise all the rest of “her husband and her lives? (42) It is not entirely her fault to have vanity under the social environment when what society advocated were aristocrat’s elegance, ‘upper class’ luxury life, and maximum exterior fineness. While, “excessive” vanity she might have, could also unsurprisingly derive from her prettiness and charm, rendering her having many fantasies such as being equal with the very greatest ladies. And what’s wrong with her “natural fineness”? Thus, vanity is not, at least the fatal reason which leads the misery life afterwards.
Nevertheless, Mathilde is not totally innocent; her fault is the misinterpretation of natural fineness as the sole hierarchy with women (38), which gives rise to her “ceaselessly suffering from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls.”(39) In her mind, her “natural fineness” should provide her all the facility to get things she dreamed. Sadly, her “natural fineness” blinded her eyes so she underestimated the rigidity of social hierarchy. Actually, she knows that it is a world for girl to have “no dowry, no expectation.”(38) All she does all her life is deceiving herself in order to live in a fantasy world. Thus, it is the huge disproportion between her pretty looking and low social class that made her dream some dream she should never dream, buy the dress she should never buy, and more lethally, borrow the necklace she should never borrow.
Since her vanity resulted from the big gap between ideality and reality, it was the social hierarchy rather than her vanity fundamentally resulted in her tragedy. The ideality is what she intends to match her “natural fineness”, and the reality is what she couldn’t get according to the rigid social hierarchy which means it is extremely difficult for people to change or move from the class into which they born. (38)“By a mistake of destiny,” Mathilde, born to be a pretty and charming girl, was raised in a family of clerks, whose expectation for an upper way of living is cut by an invisible line which she had no ability to cross. After all, a man often chooses a wife on the basis of how large her fortune is at that time.(38) Then when her time comes, she would do whatever she could--buying dress, borrowing jewelry--to shine, only for one night, because she can not believe the beauty like her could not have what she supposed to have. So after what she’s gone through--the losing of the necklace, the hardship of pay the debt, she could only sigh that “how life is strange and changeful!”(44); she could only see how she was manipulated by destiny. So what is destiny? It is the rigid social hierarchy, due to which she should only do within her rank boundary. Thus, she is manipulated by rigid social hierarchy.
And another dramatic factor, the necklace was paste one, also proves that Mathilde’s misery life is rooted in the social hierarchy. If the necklace is a real diamond, what she has been suffered for years was only the simple paying back of serious mistakes she made ten years ago. However, the cruel truth that the necklace was a paste one made her ten years of hard work amounts to nothing. Forestier even gives a gesture of dissatisfaction when Mathilde return the replaced one. “You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it.” (43) True friend never do that. It is warranted to say that under that atmosphere, in the different classes, it is luxury for Mathilde to make real friends with Forestier, who didn’t bother to tell the truth beforehand, which, to some degree, caused her “friend’s” ten years of misery life.
Admittedly, the definition of vanity does include excessive pride in one's appearance, and, Mathilde processes a lot; her misery life does not root in it. It is much sound that “thanks to” her natural beauty wrenched by the strict social class, her vanity was so excessive on the surface that it is difficult for reader to dig out what is the essential reason of her misery life. In fact, the tragedy of Mathilde was rooted in the rigid social hierarchy.
Work Cited
Guy de Maupassant. “The Necklace.” 1884. Rpt. The International Story: Anthology of Short Stories.
The origin of Mathilde’s Misery Life
In “The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassant set a stage for a 19 century French tragedy play, in which Mathilde paid the debts of one night glory for ten years of hard living, resulting from her losing the borrowed necklace. At the very beginning, I just feel the woman deserved it because of her excessive vanity. However, after I’ve read the dramatic ending of the story again and again, a question comes to my mind: what causes the tragedy of Mathilde?
Some people think that Mathilde ate her own bitter fruit, attributed to her excessive vanity, basing on the fact that Mathilde regarded herself “had really fallen from her proper station”, and “born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries”(38). This idea does make some sense at the first glimpse, and honestly, I feel the same way at first. After having read the story thoroughly and then dug into the story’s essence, granting that everybody has peacockery, I begin to realize that the vanity is not the deadly reason which leads the tragedy of Mathilde. After all, everybody likes “to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after”, especially under the social’s atmosphere when the sociality advertised the aristocrats’ elegant, ranks people’s luxury life, and exterior fineness. While, “excessive” vanity she might have, I admit, could also naturally derive from her prettiness and charm, rending her having fantasy to be equal with the very greatest ladies. But what’s wrong with her “natural fineness”? After all we can not blame someone only because of one’s beauty. From my point of view, her fault is the misinterpretation of “Natural fineness as the sole hierarchy”(38); she should never underestimate the unbreakable strength of social hierarchy. So, it is the huge disproportion between her pretty looking and low social hierarchy that made her dream some dream she should never dream, buy the dress she should never buy, and more fatally, borrow the necklace she should never borrow.
Since her vanity resulted from the big gap between ideality and reality, it was the social hierarchy rather than her vanity directly resulted in her tragedy. In my opinion, the ideality is what she intended to have matched her “natural fineness”, and the reality is what she couldn’t have according to the rigid social hierarchy. Let us see some details to support my opinion. “By a mistake of destiny,” Mathilde, born to be a pretty and charming girl, was in a family of “neither caste nor rank” (38), so she had no expectation, for she knew there was an invisible line she would never have ability to cross. Then when her time came, she would do whatever she could, buying dress, borrowing jewelry, to shine, only for one night, because she can not believe the beauty like her could not have what she supposed to have. So after what she’d gone through--the losing of the necklace, the hardship of paying the debt, she could only sigh that “how life is strange and changeful!”(44); she could only see how she was manipulated by destiny, I guess. So what is destiny? It is the rigid social hierarchy, due to which she should only do within her rank boundary.
And another significant factor which also made the story more dramatic is that the necklace was paste one. Let us simply suppose the necklace is a real diamond, what Mathilde had been suffered for years was only the simply paying back of a serious mistakes she made ten years ago. However, the cruel truth that the necklace was a paste one made her ten years of hard work amounted to nothing. As far as I see, under that atmosphere, in the different classes, it is luxury for Mathilde to make real friends with Forestier, who didn’t bother to tell the truth beforehand, which, to some degree, caused her “friend’s” ten years of misery life. And she even gave a gesture of dissatisfaction when Mathilde return the replaced one. “You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it.”(43)
In conclusion, the tragedy of Mathilde was rooted in the rigid social hierarchy. More accurately, she was manipulated by the hierarchy.
Title
In “ The Necklace”, Guy de Maupassant sets a stage for a 19 century French tragedy play, in which Mathilde pays the debts of one night glory for ten years of hard living, resulting from her lose of the borrowed necklace. After I read the biggest turning point at the end of the story, which is that the lost one was a paste necklace, a question came to my mind: what causes the tragedy of Mathilde?
Some people think that Mathilde ate her own bitter fruit, attributed to her excessive vanity, basing on the fact that Mathilde regarded herself “had really fallen from her proper station”, and felt herself “born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries”(38). This idea does make some sense at the first glimpse; granting that everybody has peacockery, however, I do not agree that the vanity is the deadly reason which led the tragedy of Mathilde. After all, everybody likes “to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after”, especially under that circumstance when what social advertised was the aristocrats’ elegant, rank people’s luxury life. While, “excessive” vanity she might have, I admit, could also reasonable attribute to her prettiness and charm and misinterpretation of “Natural fineness as the sole hierarchy”(38), rending her many fantasy such as be equals of the very greatest ladies. But what’s wrong with her “natural fineness”? It is the huge disproportion between her pretty out looking and low social hierarchy that made her dreamed some dream she should never dream, bought the dress she should never buy, and more fatally, borrowed the necklace she should never borrow.
Since her vanity was origin from her ideality and reality, the former one is because of her “natural fineness and the latter one origin from the rigid social hierarchy. Thus, in my opinion, it is the social hierarchy rather than her vanity directly resulted in her tragedy. Let see some details to support my opinion. “By a mistake of destiny,” Mathilde, born to be a pretty and charming girls, was in a family of “neither caste nor rank”(38), so she had no expectation, for she known there was an invisible line she could nerve cross, which was the solid social hierarchy. So after what she’d been through, the losing of the necklace, the hardship of paying the debt, she could only sigh for “how life is strange and changeful!”(44) And even after she know the truth that the necklace is a fake one could only made her see how she was manipulated by destiny, I guess. So what is destiny? It is the rigid social hierarchy by which she should only do what their rank should do and any effort to change it was infructuous.
And another significant factor which also made the story a dramatic tragedy is the necklace was paste one. Suppose the necklace is a real diamond, what Mathilde had been suffered for the years is only the simply pay-back of a serious mistake she made ten years ago. However, the paste necklace made her ten years of hard work amounted to nothing. As far as I see, under that atmosphere, in the different class, Mathilde was luxury to make real friend with Forestier who didn’t bother to tell the truth before hand, which, to some extant, causes her “friend” ten years of misery life. And she even gave a gesture of dissatisfaction when Mathilde return the replaced one. “You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it.”(43)
In conclusion, the tragedy of Mathilde was rooted in the rigid social hierarchy. More accurately, she was manipulated by the hierarchy.
June 21, 2007
Direction: From The Necklace, what might have been the quality of Mme. Loisel’s life if she had not lost the necklace? Is her life better or worse now?
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It has always been an interesting question for the reader to imagine a different plot the writer provided us. Specifically, in the story of The Necklace, let’s just suppose what might have been happened if she had not lost the necklace. For the losing of the necklace was the biggest turning of the story.
Then the story would develop into two completely different possibilities. The first one is: after fully enjoy the party, Mme. Loisel’s had not only won the glory and satisfaction for herself, but also get her husband the ticket to the upper class party. Who doesn’t always want to invite the most beautiful “party” girl to join the ball then bring ecstasy to everyone? Then, their lives maybe change a lot due to the opportunity of talking to the big men.
The second possibility, which is more warranted because of the specific social background, is that although she did shine on the ball, there is no difference brought to their lives. All she could do after the ball is indulging her in the glory of that night and intoxicating herself in the fantasy which could not happen. This one is more sound origin from the rigid social hierarchy, the uncrossable line between the social classes one was born to. There is nothing one can do to change the fact that one is doomed to stay in one’s class until the death come upon him/her. Although Mme. Loisel’s dream, to be envy to be chase after and fully enjoy the advantage brought along with the naturally fineness, seems come true at the very moments on the ball. But what the ball left her is the unfathomable darkness of agony rooted in the huge gap between the fantasy memory and cruel reality. And what’s worse: her vanity may grow after the ball.
After the long visionary thinking, it is time to be back the original ending of the story. Then comes the question: is her life better or worse after she lost the necklace? From the level of material, her life is obviously worse for the debts they have to pay, the endless work they have to do. Also, she is no longer beautiful, which may be a disaster to the Mme. Loisel used to be. However, she is not the same Mme. Loisel any more, in other words, in the level of spirit, her life is better after the accident. She finally finds her proper stature in the society. She and her husband did not escape the debts, quite oppositely, they use their diligence to fight back the destiny, that, I think is the expression of the beauty inside. And what the best part is the ten years of hard working satiate the vain of her soul and remove all the vanity from her spirit. Someone says it is also mean the giving up to change the rigid social class, however, if there is nothing one can change at all, isn’t is better for one to recognize it, at lease, she is peaceful inside at last.
What a dilemma
I find this story is quite astounding for its most daily tone the author tells “his” misery life.
This one reminds me another story, the title I’ve forgotten, written by Mark Twain, which mainly depicts a train was trap in middle of nowhere, and people in the train were discussing in what order they should eat people to survive. Although it turns out to be a insane person’s thought, that story was also told in extraordinarily plain tone.
As far as I see, it’s quite a dilemma for Babu to decide what kind of inner life they should lead, whether to content with what they have or whether to be angry with how bad his life condition is. Obviously, Babu chooses the former one, which, I think, is one of the reasons why they lead such a miserable life. Dissatisfaction causes revolt, which is the only way to change their unimaginable poor living condition fundamentally. In other words, if everybody as Babu is content with their lives, then the governor will find no need to change, so they could continue putting most of the money in army racing no matter how bad their people’s basic living conditions are. So, to some degree, it’s their content attitude to the results of their poor lives.
On the other hand, if Babu chooses a different view of life, he would be agony, since he seems have no ability to make a difference. But suppose every person leads a same life as Babu would be discontent and resist to the governors, there may be other choices.
So, what a dilemma! I just hope people living in the real world could choose the better one.
Work Cited
Krishnan Varma. “The Grass-Eaters” 1985 Rpt. In The International Story: The Stories.