The Role of Social Class in The Necklace and the RecitativeOften, in a piece of literature, a story appears to be about an issue when in reality , the author I wanted it to be about someone else. In the short stories “Le Collier” by Guy de Maupassant and “Récitatif” by Toni Morrison, the questions of separation and class struggle, although they may seem unimportant at first glance, are in fact the central points around which these two stories rotate.In “The Necklace” and “Recitatif,” class differences affect how characters interact with each other. Nowhere is this more evident in the story "Recitatif" than in the meeting between Roberta and Twyla's mothers at the orphanage. Twyla describes Roberta's mother as tall, neat, and decent. She adds: "on his chest was the largest cross I had ever seen..." (page 213). In direct contrast to this is the image of Twyla's mother, a woman who wears revealing pants and a tattered old jacket and who swears in church. Roberta's mother clearly looks down on Twyla's mother because she is of a lower class, as illustrated by her refusal to shake her hand. In "The Necklace", the class differences between Mathilde and Mme. Forestier imposed an obvious restriction on their relationship. At the end of the story, Mathilde becomes a member of the lower class - "the woman of poor households - strong, tough and rough..." (page 71). When the two ladies meet again in the last lines of the story, Mme. Forestier is “surprised to be challenged by this simple good wife” (page 72). In a side event of "Recitatif", Roberta despises Twyla when they meet at a Howard Johnson's. She sees Twyla in her "blue and white triangle" uniform, "[her] shapeless hair in a net", and "[her] ankle...... middle of paper...... between the characters". play a central role in the action of the story. These differences affect how these characters interact, they create conflict in the story, and they affect how the reader feels and reacts to each character. The question of social class being at the center of these two works, the authors succeed in communicating to readers their conviction that, even if we try to avoid it, class is indeed a major factor in society of today. Works Cited by Maupassant, Guy ". The Necklace." Understanding Fiction. third ed. Eds. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979. 66-72. Morrison, Tony. "Recitative." New Worlds of Literature: Writings of the Many American Cultures. Second ed. Eds Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter New York: Norton., 1994. 209-225.