In The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, Mathilde has no gown for the ball: "By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she wiped her wet cheeks." Which conflict does this moment turn on?

In The Necklace, Mathilde says she has no jewelry. "How stupid you are!" her husband cried. "Go look up your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels." Which conflict does this exchange turn on?

In The Necklace, the narrator says of Mathilde: "She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains." Which conflict does her suffering show?

In The Necklace, the narrator writes: "She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and distinguished man." Which conflict does this describe?

In The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, Mathilde's struggle with her own discontent begins long before she loses the borrowed diamonds.

In The Necklace, Mathilde weeps because she has no gown for the ball. She asks Loisel for four hundred francs for a dress. He turns a little pale but agrees. What does giving her the money cost him?

In The Necklace, the Loisels do not tell Madame Forestier the truth. They borrow ruinously and buy a new diamond necklace instead. Which value wins, and at what cost?

In The Necklace, her husband suggests roses instead of jewels. Mathilde answers: "No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich." What is her struggle about?

In The Necklace, Mathilde loses the borrowed diamonds on the way home from the ball. Which is the heaviest cost the loss brings on the couple?

In The Necklace, Mathilde meets Madame Forestier years later: "And now that she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not?" Why does she speak at last?

The Necklace opens: "The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks." How does the reader learn what she is like?

In The Necklace, the narrator reports: "She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra." How does the reader learn of Mathilde's longing here?

In The Necklace, after the debt begins: "She washed the dishes, using her dainty fingers and rosy nails on greasy pots and pans." Which method shows what Mathilde has become?

In The Necklace, Mathilde greets her old friend: "The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all." Which method shows how far Mathilde has changed?

In The Necklace, Loisel uncovers the soup tureen and says: "Ah, the good soup! I don't know anything better than that." What does this line reveal about him?

In The Necklace, Mathilde is pretty and charming, yet she lets herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. What does the story present as deciding her marriage?

In The Necklace, the narrator says that with women "there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth." What claim is the narrator making about women?

In The Necklace, Mathilde hurries down the stairs into the cold: "She felt this and wished to escape so as not to be remarked by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs." Why does she hurry?

In The Necklace, Loisel says of the ball: "Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks." What does this show about class in their world?

In The Necklace, after the loss: "They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof." What has happened to the family's place in society?