'The Necklace' is the most famous short story by French author Guy De Maupassant. The entire story is a symbol of the pettiness and amoral materialism of the 19th century French bourgeois. The necklace itself is a symbol of extravagance. Madame Loisel's struggle to pay for it is symbolic of the ceaseless and pointless social climbing and money-grubbing the bourgeois were prone to. She spends ten years trying to pay for a necklace that is worth nothing.