Proud woman, pearl necklace, twenty years

This story-article takes its title from three key elements in Maupassant’s canonical story ‘The Necklace’. A teacher invites a class to put the story together, having given them only these clues, and then eventually tells the story. As this process unfolds, he appropriates the story and its telling in a self-reflexive attempt to investigate narrativity and the mechanics of the short story, reflecting on Maupassant’s life and career and on the reception of the story by its varied listeners.