1. What does Matilda yearn for? How does her longing impact her life?

2. What defines ambition? Why is it considered a good servant but a bad master?

3. What was the motto of the French Revolution? Which elements are being examined in this story?

4. What are Loisel's goals and aspirations at the start of the story? What has he achieved by the story's conclusion?

5. What type of school might Matilda Loisel and Jeanne Forestier have attended? How significant is it culturally that one woman married a wealthy man while the other married a clerk?

6. What can you infer about the economy in Paris and France during the period in which the story is set?

7. Why, for a tale set in the bustling city of Paris in 1880, are there so few characters in this narrative?

8. How has technology enabled this story? Why couldn't it be set in fourteenth-century France?