(Abbreviations: S = sentence; P = paragraph; S2P3 would mean the second sentence of the third paragraph)

Vocabulary (an asterisk indicates usage of a word in a less frequent or unfamiliar sense)

dowry (par. 1), finesse (par. 2) drab (par. 3), desolation (par. 3), anterooms (par. 3), tapestries (par. 3), bronze (par. 3), valets (par. 3), culottes (par. 3), knicknacks (par. 3), inestimable (par. 3), tete-a-tetes (par. 3), ecstatically (pars. 4 and 47), depicting (par. 4), gourmet (par. 4), gallantries (par. 3), sphinx[like] (par. 4), quail (par. 4), convent (par. 6), spitefully (par. 10), stammered (pare. 15 and 110), bewildered (par. 17 and 66), falteringly (par. 17), frugal (par. 23), tentatively (pare. 24), blanched (par. 26), anxious* (par. 29), corsage (par. 34), Venetian (par. 44), finely* (par. 44), anxiously* (par. 48), haltingly (par. 48), sought (par. 52), intoxicated* (par. 53), wraps* (par. 55), luxuriated (par. 55), Seine (par. 59), quay (par. 59), wretched (par. 59), vestibule (par. 71), enervated (par. 81), haggard (par. 82), clasp [noun] (par. 83), racking (par. 90), Palais-Royal (par. 91), deprivations (par. 94), flat* (par. 98), encrusted (par. 99) measly (par. 99), fair copies (par. 101), unkempt (par. 104), Champs-Elysees (par. 106)

Questions

1. What irony occurs in the very early description of Mrs. Loisel's unhappiness (S1P2) that a reader can only become aware of the second or later time he or she reads the short story?

2. One of the things that can be learned from literature, song, or film, is the way in which persons or cultures have differed because of time, or place, or both time and place. What difference between nineteenth-century France and twentieth-century America is suggested by one of the details of Mrs. Loisel's daydream of luxury ("She daydreamed of . . . heaters"[S5P3])?

3. What might the symbolism be of the particular Ministry that holds the ball, or party, that stimulates the action of the short story (P9; cf. P1 & P60), given what happens to the Loisels following the ball?

4. How are Mrs. Loisel and her husband importantly differentiated in certain essential features of personality in the episode about what Mr. Loisel expects his wife's reaction to be to the invitation to the ball, as well as what the money Mr. Loisel has been saving should be spent on (pars. 7-28)? What defect of Mrs. Loisel is shown in this episode, which will be partially reformed (as explained, to some extent, in one of the sample essays on the short story in Ch. 1 and Ch. 2)?

5. (a) What might the symbolism be of the items of jewelry Mrs. Loisel rejects, especially the item of jewelry described in most detail, when looking over her friend's collection (pars. 41-51)? (b) What might the symbolism be of the item of jewelry Mrs. Loisel chooses as part of her "accessorization" for the upcoming party? (c) What very human psychological processes might account for why the Loisels simply don't tell Mrs. Forrestier that they've lost the necklace, after it disappears?

6. One of the things that can be learned from literature, song, and film, conversely from what is mentioned in question 2, above, is what facets of human nature, behavior, or culture, seem to be universal, despite changes of time or place or both time and place. What humorous differentiation is suggested between the genders in how the women and men have responded to the party, in the description of Mrs. Loisel coming to collect her husband at 4 a.m. (par. 54)? How does this difference still apply today, to a greater or lesser extent?

7. The "sample reader" who is annotating the story asks a very good question across from par. 60: What might the symbolism be of the name of the street on which the Loisels live, initially, given what will happen to them in the remainder of the story?

8. What might the symbolism be of the name of the street on which Mrs. Loisel meets Mrs. Forrestier, after all the years of working off the debt for the necklace (par. 106), given that the French name literally translates as "Elysian Fields"? According to your collegiate dictionary, what in classical mythology was "Elysium" or were the "Elysian Fields"? How might the symbolism here connect with the symbolism referred to in questions 7, 5a, and 4?

9. One sample essay makes a bit too much about the extent to which Mrs. Loisel has changed. How does one of her remarks to Mrs. Forrestier (par. 115) suggest that Mrs. Loisel hasn't completely reformed? How might the degree or extent of Mrs. Loisel's reformation be an accurate portrayal of human nature by Maupassant?