51 pages • 1 hour read
Guy de MaupassantA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Mathilde dreams of having luxuries she cannot afford, believing having those things will improve her life. When is Mathilde the most genuinely happy?
Teaching Suggestion: One way to lead into this discussion might be to post different definitions of happiness around the room and ask students to stand by the one to which they most relate, and then discuss their reasoning with those around them. The groups could re-read scenes of the story together and discuss how they fit or do not fit with their definition. To work on revision, groups could work together to combine two or more definitions together, eventually coming to a consensus about what happiness means and using that definition to analyze Mathilde’s character in a class discussion.
Differentiation Suggestion: For diverse learners, one way to approach this discussion could be to define happiness together first. Then, re-read a scene together, have students freewrite about what they notice, and then conduct the class discussion.
By Guy de Maupassant