REQUIRED TEXT: Charters, The Story and Its Writer, compact 9th ed.
“A White Heron”
1. How do Sylvia’s mother and grandmother describe her? How does Sylvia seem to see herself?
2. How does Sylvia react when she hears the hunter’s whistle? What’s the effect of Jewett’s sudden switch to the present tense here?
3. What does Sylvia have in common with the hunter? Why is she attracted to him?
4. What does she have in common with the heron? How does Sylvia’s relationship with the heron contrast with the young man’s relationship to the bird?
5. What is the significance of Sylvia’s climb to the top of the pine tree? What does she see up there that she has never seen before?
6. Analyze the last paragraph. What has Sylvia gained, and what has she lost? What has she preserved?
“The Necklace”
1. Who’s the protagonist, who’s the antagonist, and what makes them so?
2. What kind of person is Madame Loisel? Try to find specific evidence for each trait that you name.
3. What sort of evening does Madame Loisel have at the ball? What does this suggest about her understanding of high society?
4. Once Mme. Loisel is resigned to replacing the necklace, what sort of change occurs in her personality? Does the narrator present the new or the former Mme. Loisel as the more sympathetic?
5. Why does Madame Loisel choose to tell Madame Forestier the truth?
6. What is the role of Madame Loisel’s husband in this story?
7. How does the ending change the meaning of the story?
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