Book Review: The Necklace

This short story is written by the French author, Guy de Maupassant. This is a story about one French lady called Madame Mathilde Loisel and his husband. It's a short but nice story. It expresses the mammonism of France in 19th century with excellent depiction.

Madame is a beautiful lady but she is very poor. Her dream was to be in the high society. Finally she got a chance to attend a prom. She borrowed one diamond necklace from her rich friend. But after the success in the prom, Madame lost the necklace. To pay for the necklace, she suddenly fell to the lowest class of the society. The story represents the mammonism at that time and how it make people avid and fall.

In this short story, Maupassant writes from the view of a spectator. He put a lot of effort on describing the night that Madame reached her top point of her life and fell to the deepest level. The more successful she was on the prom, the harder she fell later. This kind of tableau shows Madame's strong vanity and the result it brings.

When I read this story, it reminds me of the book we are learning now--Great Expectation . At the point of issue, I think these two books are similar. The characters in each book are both the victim of the hierarchy. Because of that, Madame is not possible to be a part of the upper class. And that's one reason of her strong vanity. And Pip in also suffer the poor life because he was born in the Under Class. I think except the mammonism of people, Maupassant also tried to oppose with the system of society at that time.

I admire the author very much because he can describe a quite meaningful story with such few words and brought the characters to life. His words and rhetoric are used nicely. He depicted
Madame's languages and activities lively. And they all reflect her emotions clearly. For example, Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.

The author depicted Madame's activities when she found her dreamed necklace lively. I think the author used symbolism here. Her madly cling to the necklace is the symbol of her endless vanity.
And the author used metaphor to make the emotion of the character distincter. For example,
in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.

The author compares her happiness to a cloud and compares her success in the prom to a victory of the struggle. The exaggerated metaphor can show how deep Madame immersed in her own satisfaction.

Though that is an excellent story, I think the author can put more effort on the ending. So that the story will be more plenary. Overall this is a story worth reading and I recommend it to everybody.

Book Review: Animal Farm

This book is written by George Orwell in 1945. The story is talking about the rise and fall of the "Animalism" revolution. It's an excellent story that allude the actual polity situation of USSR.

In one farm, pigs led all the animals to defeat the farmers who treat them as slaves, and finally the pigs became the slaveholders instead of the farmers. The author described the story of the animal farm to show his Anti-Utopianism conception.

The author wrote this story as an allegory. But differently from the traditional allegory, this book doesn't simply tell a truth, it is more like a symbol of all the Totalitarianism in the world. To describe the serous polity with the animals' temperament and activities, it makes the whole story more ironical and more understandable for the readers.

You can see symbolism through the whole story. Each character is the symbol of one kind of people. For example, the pig, Napoleon,the leader of the animal farm, is just like the exploiters. And the horse, Boxer, is the honest supporter of the "Animalism".It works hard, believe every single word of its leader, but finally it is betrayed by its own belief. Boxer represents the kind people who believes the revolution theory. You can also see metaphor in the book. The windmill project is the symbol of the construction result of the USSR, and each war between human and animals alludes the violence in the history. All these elements make the animal farm just like the reprint of the revolution in 20th century. Through this book, people can understand the revolution more deeply.

In this book, George Orwell predicts the fall of socialism. And maybe more importantly, he uses art to tell that whatever in which way, the totalitarian rule is always the obstacle of the basic social need.

This is really an excellent allegory with meaningful truth. Both in writing skills and ideological content, George Orwell did pretty well in this book. Although maybe the author can do more on the depiction on the characters to make the image more full, I recommend this book to everybody.