LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Directions: Read the story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant and answer carefully the
following questions below.
Link: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Neck.shtml

1. Is the short story an example of fiction or not? Kindly explain your answer.
 The story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is clearly a story of fiction because it is
subjective. The author creates imaginary characters and events in a realistic situation. The
author uses Mainstream fiction, a general term that publishers and booksellers use to
describe both commercial and literary works that depict a daily reality familiar to most
people. The story gives the readers a strong feelings and ideas indirectly through rising
the readers emotional responses and imagination.

2. If you are given a chance to change the ending of the story, would you change it? And if you
would change it, what would be the ending of the story? How about if you wouldn’t change it,
why you are not going to change it?
 If given a chance to change the ending of the story, I would never change it. Because the
ending already made the whole story a beautiful masterpiece. It is full of surprise,
unexpected twists and moral lesson. Maupassant amazingly illustrated how people fool
themselves to do stupid things for a quick moment of happiness. He did great on leaving
impact to the readers, his story will always be remembered because of the ending.

3. Determine the Plot of the short story, “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant.
 Exposition: Madame Loisel is unhappy with her life and her social status. She wanted to
be rich just like the other women. Her days are full of regrets, sorrows, and sadness.

 Rising Action: In order to appease Mathilde, her husband brought an invitation to a party.
But she immediately refused to go because she do not have a beautiful dress. Her
husband brought her an expensive dress. And she even borrowed a diamond necklace to
her friend, Madame Forestier

 Climax: Madame Mathilde Loisel went to the party dressed to kill. Everyone was looking
at her and many men wanted to waltz with her. She was the center of attraction. She was
very happy to achieved the dream she really wanted. But when they got home, Mathilde
found that the necklace was no longer hanging on her neck. They searched it everywhere
but it was nowhere to be found.
  Falling Action: Restless and worried, Madame and Monsieur Loisel decided to buy a new
necklace similar to Madame Forestier’s. It was priced 36,000 francs. Monsieur Loisel has
18,000 francs and the other 18,000 francs was gathered by borrowing money. Their life
became miserable and hard because of their debt. It took them ten long years to pay all
the debts.

 Resolution: Ten years later, Madame Loisel aged and was no longer a pretty woman. She
changed, poverty changed her. One day, she saw Madame Forestier, but Forestier could
not recognize her so she introduced herself. She told Madame Forestier that she was
living a life in hell just to give her back the necklace. She told Forestier that she lost the
necklace and borrowed money to buy a new one. Madame Forestier laughed at her and
told her that her necklace was fake costing just 500 francs only.

PRACTICE TASK/ASSESSMENT

Directions: Choose a short story that is an example of a fiction and make a summary out of it by
evaluating the story on how it is considered a fiction. Put also the link of the short story that you have
chosen.
https://www.topsarkarinaukri.in/thinking-out-of-the-box-a-motivational-story/
The story I found was titled Thinking out of the Box. There were three characters in the story, a merchant
named Sam, his beautiful daughter, and an old, ugly money lender named Tom.
The story was set a long time ago. Sam borrowed a large amount of money to a money lender named
Tom. If Sam fail to pay his debt on the day he was given the last chance to pay, Tom will marry his
beautiful daughter. The day of the last chance came and Sam still don’t have enough money to pay and
refused to let his daughter marry the bad money lender.
So the money lender think of a new idea, he said he will let the merchant’s daughter decide, he said he
will put two pebbles on his hand – a black pebble and a white pebble. And the catch was, if the daughter
picked the white pebble, the merchant’s debt will be erased and leave the marriage proposal too. But if
the daughter choose the black pebble, the debt will be erased but she still have to marry Tom.
So, the money lender bent over and picked up two pebbles. While he was picking them up, the daughter
noticed that he’d picked up two black pebbles. But the daughter didn’t argue. He then asked the daughter
to pick one.
The daughter naturally had three choices as to what she could have done:
1. Refuse to pick a pebble from the bag.
2. Take both pebbles out of the bag and expose the loan-shark for cheating.
 3. Pick a pebble from the bag fully well knowing it was black and sacrifice herself for her father’s
freedom.
The daughter drew out a pebble, and before looking at it she ‘accidentally’ dropped it into the midst of the
other pebbles. She then asked Tom if he could look what pebble is left so that they would know which
one she picked.

The pebble left was obviously black, and seeing as Tom didn’t want to be exposed, he had to play along
as if the pebble the daughter dropped was white, and clear her father’s debt.

This story is an example of fiction because it is a fabrication based on the author’s imagination. It
indirectly tells the readers what moral it wanted to convey, and its sole purpose is to entertain readers.