Lantin's New Wife example essay topic

The Happiness and Misery of Monsieur Lantin At the beginning of "The Jewels", Lantin meets the woman of his dreams (and of every other man's) and immediately falls in love with and marries her. Their lives go on in perfect harmony and happiness, and every day Lantin falls more deeply in love with his adorable wife. Lantin has only two complaints about the character of his wife: her love of the theater and her love of fake jewelry. Eventually Lantin stops going to the theater, and his wife goes alone. After returning from the theater one night, his wife develops a cough and dies eight days later. This point marks the beginning of Lantin's misery as he uncovers more about his wife than he might have wanted to know.

Lantin is very happily married to his wife, and the reader gets the impression that everyone else in the community feels she is a fine woman to have as a wife. "Happy the man who wins her love! He could not find a better wife" (Maupassant 105). The reader learns just how devoted he is to his wife when he confesses that after six years of marriage, he loves his wife even more than he did at first.

Lantin's life seems a perfect picture of what a happy marriage should be, but then it changes suddenly and drastically. When Lantin's wife comes home one night with a chill and dies eight days later, Lantin is devastated. His life is filled with sorrow and despair and even "time, the healer, did not assuage his pain" (Maupassant 106). Lantin sits in her unchanged room everyday and thinks of her.

At this point, the reader understands the depth of his suffering since he was so in love with her. When Lantin starts losing money and realizes that he scarcely has enough to buy food, he immediately thinks to sell his wife's beloved gems. "He cherished in his heart a sort of rancor against the false gems" (Maupassant 106). The very sight of the gems spoiled the wonderful memory of Lantin's wife and the first piece that Lantin sells is the one that she enjoyed the most. Lantin might have subconsciously gotten rid of this one first because it signifies a present from some other admirer or lover, yet she loved to wear it.

After learning that the gems are actually real, elegant and very expensive, Lantin's misery deepens even more when he realizes that they were all presents from some other person. This is when Lantin's life hits rock-bottom. His dislike of the jewelry before is now justified when he learns the truth behind them. On the way back to the jeweler's shop, Lantin remarks that the life of a rich person is wonderful, and that with money, "it is possible to forget even the deepest sorrow" (Maupassant 107). Lantin then sells all the jewelry without a feeling of guilt, knowing that he will soon be happy with his new fortune. Lantin even defends his wife when the jeweler makes a comment about his wife spending all her money on jewelry.

"It is only another way of investing one's money" (Maupassant 108). Lantin knows his wife didn't invest her money in the jewels (so does the jeweler), but he soon forgets his worries when he collects his new fortune. Now Lantin brags about having such an enormous amount of money to his name, and as he travels down the street, he inflates the amount he is actually worth. This is his way of proving to himself that he overcame his grief and his pitiful situation. Now he feels he should be respected and envied by all. Lantin now has everything he desired: a respectable position in society without a job, a new wife and money.

But at the end of the story, the author points out that Lantin's new wife has a violent temper and caused him much sorrow. This suggests that although Lantin got what he wanted, his new wife (though she is virtuous) still causes him much grief, and no one could ever replace his first love. This shows how sometimes things that seem too good to be true either are, or are not made too last. And sometimes, fate is the only one to blame. The Jewels by Guy de Maupassant.