Imagery in The Necklace

Maupassant employs vibrant imagery throughout the story. This is a technique designed to make a story more vivid and real in order to draw readers into the setting. Here he is appealing to the reader's sense of taste by mentioning the "delicious dishes" of trout and quail wings. The passage is also full of visual descriptions, such as the color of the trout or the "strange birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest." Mathilde's fantasy showcases her disastifaction with her station as she instead conjures up images of decadent food and rich surroundings to replace her soiled tablecloth and common cuisine.