Final answer:
Madame Loisel in 'The Necklace' changes for the worse as she struggles for ten years to repay the debt for a necklace that turns out to be fake. Her physical and mental deterioration are consequences of her vain desire for status, highlighting the story's themes of vanity, materialism, and irony.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the short story 'The Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant, Madame Loisel experiences a significant transformation, arguably for the worse, through the story's events. Initially, Madame Loisel is portrayed as vain and discontent, unhappy with her middle-class life. She yearns for luxury and status, which leads to her borrowing a necklace that she believes to be extremely valuable for a high-society ball. However, when the necklace is lost, Madame Loisel and her husband must work tirelessly for ten years to repay the debt incurred to replace it. During this period, Madame Loisel changes physically and mentally; the text describes how she becomes 'the woman of impoverished households - strong and hard and rough'. After the ten years, she encounters Madame Forestier, the owner of the necklace, and discovers that the original necklace was a fake, made of paste, not diamonds. The theme of vanity and the desire for social status, as well as the irony of Madame Loisel's situation, shine through in her transformation. This lesson in the futility of materialism is encapsulated when Madame Loisel reflects on her life after the discovery: 'Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was a fake. It was worth at the very most only five hundred francs! ... '