"The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant and "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence have two women in these stories that show no care or concern for anyone but themselves. Hester and Mathilde both had families that they truly did not love. And they were only involved with them for social reasons and to have their selfish needs provided. They finally righted the way they lived but only because they lost something or someone of importance to them.
             Mathilde always thought that she should be someone of wealth or at the very least married someone who was rich. She was a beautiful woman that had all the tastes of a family with great prosperity. Only she was not prosperous as she married a clerk. Maupassant writes that Mathilde "...let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instructions" (Maupassant Page 976). She never married for love but married for what she had to settle for. A woman does not let herself become married, should be for love. "She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that" (Page 976). So Mathilde could not love her husband for who he was, she only loved material possessions. Possessions she could not have.
             Mathilde had all the tastes of excess. "She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries" (Page 976). Mathilde suffered because she wanted it all but could not have the "delicacies." One day her husband came home with an invitation to a formal gathering at her husband's place of work, The Ministry of Public Instructions. Instead of being pleased to actually go somewhere of upper class, she makes her husband feel about two inches tall. Mathilde was not satisfied with just going but her selfish conceited ways only wanted more. Not caring of the expense she demanded a new dress for the occasion. Which happened to be the same amount of money t...