The Three Faces fo Justice in John Cheever's Five Forty-Eight
...g wealthy, even though she did live a suitable life, “…but she was as unhappy as though she had fallen from her proper station…” (Maupassant 46). This scenario brings up many features of society. Many people are not happy with what they have, even though they are very fortunate. Mathilde spent many days staring at her plain apartment wishing for more. One evening her simple husband brought her a surprise: an invitation to a high society ball. Ironically, the woman most desperate to attend this event cried out, “What do you suppose I do with that?!” (47). She had no dress or jewels to wear to such an occasion. Her husband gave her the money to acquire a suitable dress. Once she had the dress, she was still not pleased. She expressed: “I am vexed not to have a jewel, not one stone, nothing to adorn myself with. I shall have such a poverty-laden look” (50). Her husband suggested she borrow some jewels from a wealthy friend. Seeing it wouldn’t kill her to ask, she went and came back with a beautiful necklace. It’s sad to say that even though her husband tried to do all he could to please his wife, the only thing that made her happy was the necklace. In the story “Like a Bad Dream” Bertha’s consists of making compromises against her husband on who’s better. The narrator understands that Bertha is trying to curry a favor with the Zumpens; to make Mr. Zumpen more inclined to award the bid to her husband. He recognize that Bertha knows “…through my father-in-law…he has helped me to meet people who can be useful to me in business” (126). What becomes even more apparent is that the narrator considers Bertha’s tactics to be underhanded and he really isn’t sure he wants to know how to work this way. It all seems “like a bad dream” to him. For example, “…she sighed and tied on her apron. I followed her into the kitchen, we put the rest of the appetizers back in the refrigerator…Bertha was standing there with the car key in her hand” (128). What she expected her husband to do is discuss the matter with Mrs. Zumpen. "Please try and understand," she says to him. "I am trying to help you. I want you to find out for yourself how to deal with such things. All we had to do was call up Father and he would have settled the whole thing for you with one phone call, but I want you to get the contract on your own" (129). In stories “The Necklace” and “Like a Bad Dream” persuades its good fortune or worldly possess...