Define a morality tale and how Maupassant's story qualifies as one. Relate your answer to the adage: "Beauty is only skin-deep."

The necklace is really a morality tale involving desire and vanity. Works of Literary Realism often focus on the theme of social class, and "The Necklace" is certainly an example of this. Mme. Loisel's greatest concern is her own social class, especially the way she is perceived in society in virtue of her appearance and attire. It is her focus on social class that causes her to borrow a necklace to wear to a party to which she and her husband have been invited; in an ironic twist, this very necklace results in them becoming even lower in social class when they lose it and must work to pay for a replacement. Mathilde discovers that the beauty of the necklace was not real as is vanity not real. External beauty is superficial.