As they prepare to get ready for the event, they make their social class very evident.
The Eloise family is classified as proletarians, and the bosses of the husband were the bourgeoisie. Nonpayment’s story was a great example of “ Keeping up with the Joneses”, as the proletarians’ displayed a dying hunger to impress the bourgeoisie, which results in their ten years of debt and labor. “ Keeping up with the Joneses” is an old saying which basically means, “ strive to match one’s neighbors in spending and social standing’.
In Nonpayment’s story each character expresses the characteristics of the phrase. For example, “ He turned a little pale, for he had saved just this sum to buy a gun that he might be able to join some hunting parties the next summer, on the plains at Enterer, with some friends who went to shoot larks up there on Sunday. ” In the story Mr.
. Eloise (husband of Madame Eloise) wants to be able to fit in with his peers. In addition, he manages to get tickets to a party that includes people that are in a higher economical class than him.
Throughout the story “ The Diamond Necklace”, we are given an idea of the society that they live in does not have a fair distribution of goods or even a path to achieve them. Leaving many with no hope to aspire higher economically.
In the case of Madame Eloise, she is described as an unfortunate beautiful woman, whose destiny fell into a family of clerks. With aspirations of living an elegant lifestyle, her dreams are limited by the material circumstance of her society leaving her trapped.
