Ideas for Reports and Papers
1. What virtue does Madame Loisel acquire in her relentless efforts to manage her household with extreme frugality? What has this lesson cost her? Is the price she paid fair, just, or necessary? Could she have learned a similar lesson without sacrificing all her youth and beauty?
2. What does Madame Forestier know about Madame Loisel's life before and after borrowing the necklace? How sophisticated is it for her to reveal that the jewels Madame Loisel worked so hard to replace were fake? What do we know about Madame Forestier from the text, and what can we infer about her personal qualities such as integrity and intelligence? What would a loving friend or a truly noble lady have done to honor such prolonged, honest labor, instead of rendering it meaningless with a single sentence?
3. Why does Maupassant devote so little attention to the character of Monsieur Loisel? Is he unworthy of the reader's focus? Or is his nature and experience so familiar and typical to the reader that they require no elaborate description? Is Maupassant depicting a virtuous man?
4. What were the goals and ideals of the French Revolution? How does Maupassant explore the ideal of "Equality" in this story? Does Matilda believe in equality? What actions does she take because of her beliefs?
5. What is jealousy? How does it differ from envy and desire? Are these entirely negative emotions? Can these emotions bring any positive outcomes to a person's life?
6. What kind of people are the wealthy individuals envied by Madame Loisel? What do we learn about them from the text? What can we infer from the societal and cultural contexts depicted as common in Paris? Are these people genuinely great ladies and gentlemen of wit, intelligence, and wealth?
7. Outline a rewrite of the story from Monsieur Loisel's perspective. How does our understanding of the story change with this shift in viewpoint?
8. Discuss whether "The Necklace" exemplifies what Henry David Thoreau meant when he wrote: "The vast majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
9. Which characters are driven by love? What kind of love motivates them? What actions do they take as a result of this motivation? Does this love have a positive impact on the character or anyone else?
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