Alliteration is a literary device that can be used to make a text sound more poetic. Unlike rhymes that modern audiences are more familiar with, where the sounds at the ends of the words are the same, alliteration is when the sounds at the beginning of the words are the same. This was used often in ancient epic poems like Beowulf, instead of an end rhyme.
An example of alliteration would be something like black bunnies burrow in the bleak winter or the squawking and shrieking of the seagulls skinned my ears.
In "The Necklace," there is quite a bit of alliteration as Madam Loisel imagines the beautiful life that she longs for and describes it in detail. In one example, she imagines dinner:
"When she sat down to dine, before a tablecloth three days old, in front of her husband, who lifted the cover of the tureen, declaring with an air of satisfaction, “Ah, the good pot-au-feu. I don’t know anything better than that,” she was thinking of delicate repasts, with glittering silver, with tapestries peopling the walls with ancient figures and with strange birds in a fairy-like forest; she was thinking of exquisite dishes, served in marvelous platters, of compliment whispered and heard with a sphinx-like smile, while she was eating the rosy flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail."
Still imagining her life, she moves to her effect on others:
"She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be seductive and sought after."
Alliteration and other literary devices are used in this part of the story to paint the picture of the beautiful life Madam Loisel craves.
*It's important to note that not all translations of the story are the same. I used the text linked below.*
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