Lesson 5 Close Reading

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Close Reading

Few weeks into CR. 

Can anyone tell me why CR is important? What advantages does it bring? 

- deeper meaning?

- reading contracts? (as a lawyer)

- reading people? 

Texts are a piece of evidence to help us better understand culture. Various tools are necessary to analyse texts more carefully. Detective work or forensic work.

You need to develop skills of close reading.

Practicing close reading will help you to understand your own environment and culture of the text.  

The short story "The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant takes place in France several hundred years ago. Mathilde Loisel lives in a flat with her husband, who works as a clerk for the Minister of Education. Their lives are not luxurious, but they are not poor, merely simple. Mathilde, however, longs to be rich. She envies her friend Jeanne who has a large house and lots of jewelry.

Watch 8 min video that summarizes the details. 

External Conflict vs Internal Conflict

Trigger prior knowledge. 

Ask students whether they remember the difference. The superman example should help them. 

• External Conflict – a struggle between a literary character and outside force (other character/nature).

• Internal Conflict – a psychological struggle within the literary character’s mind.

Passage 1

"She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of

artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded

by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her

tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had

married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or

family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put

the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

 She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her

house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would

not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her."

Read passage to students

artisan = normal working person, like a teacher

Ask students whether this is internal or external conflicts; both can be argued.

Internal: Loisel is not satisfied with what she has. If she could accept her financial situation she could be happy

External: if she had gotten a better match; married up the social rank, life would have been better. External factors, lack of contacts, have made it impossible. 

Directions - Closely read and annotate the passage below. As you read, look for examples from the text that demonstrate conflict. Write down at least two quotes that show conflict, and explain how the quotes represent said conflict. 

"She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of

artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded

by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her

tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had

married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or

family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put

the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

 She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her

house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would

not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her."

10-12 minutes to do this in silence. 

Discuss their answers shorty. 

Tell them that by the end of the week they will have to submit all their answers about the short story via Magister to be graded. 

Passage 2

"He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there.

He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of moneylenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he

could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the

prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon

the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

 When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice:

 "You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

 She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have

thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief? 

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This

fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a

garret under the roof.

 She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing

out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dishcloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up

the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the

grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money. 

"He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of moneylenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

 When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice:

 "You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

 She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have

thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief? 

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.

 She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dishcloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money. 

Passage 2

15 minutes

Similar assignment: Closely read and annotate the passage below. As you read, look for examples from the text that demonstrate conflict. Write down at least four quotes that show conflict, and explain how the quotes represent said conflict. 

No problem if not finished on time as they will have to submit it later that evening.

 

Try to look at the struggles from both characters. Ideally, you name two quotes to explain the man's conflict/struggle and two to explain the woman's conflict/struggle

Is poverty an internal or external conflict? And why?

Discuss their answers.

• External Conflict – a struggle between a literary character and outside force (other character/nature).

• Internal Conflict – a psychological struggle within the literary character’s mind.

Let them think about what poverty means.

Unable to afford a diamond necklace?

Go to the modiste every week to get a new dress?

How is this problem that the main character has related to gratitude? 

Content (& Theme)

Close Reading Focus Characterization – The process an author uses to develop and create characters in a story.

• Direct characterization – Information that the author directly reveals about the character.

• Indirect characterization – Information revealed about a character through his/her actions, thoughts,

dialogue, or interaction with other characters. 

Do you remember that we discussed this the week we did "The Gift of the Magi"? 

We have again have a married couple at the main characters. Having in mind the the two types of characterization, I want you to look at the following passage. 

Passage 3

Directions – Closely read and annotate the passage as you read, analyze the text for characterizations of the Loisels. 

"She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers. The poverty of her rooms—the shabby walls, the worn furniture, the ugly upholstery—caused her pain. All these things that another woman of her class would not even have noticed tormented her and made her angry. The very sight of the li^le Breton girl who cleaned for her awoke rueful thoughts and the wildest dreams in her mind. She dreamt of thick-carpeted reception rooms with Oriental hangings, lighted by tall, bronze torches, and with two huge footmen in knee-breeches, made drowsy by the heat from the stove, asleep in the wide armchairs. She dreamt of great drawing rooms upholstered in old silks, with fragile li^le tables holding priceless knick-knacks, and of enchanting little sitting rooms redolent of perfume, designed for tea-Ame chats with intimate friends—famous, sought-after men whose attentions all women longed for.

When she sat down to dinner at her round table with its three-day-old cloth, and watched her husband opposite of her lin the lid of the soup tureen and exclaim, delighted: “Ah, a good homemade beef stew! There’s nothing be^er...” she would visualize elegant dinners with gleaming silver amid tapestried walls peopled by knights and ladies and exotic birds in a fairy forest; she would think of exquisite dishes served on gorgeous china, and of gallantries whispered and received with sphinx-like smiles while eating the pink flesh of trout or wings of grouse."

12 minutes

Directions – Closely read and annotate the passage as you read, analyze the text for characterizations of the Loisels. 

(Content &) Theme

What is the most prominent theme of "The Necklace"?

What is the text about?

What message is conveyed?

Theme – In a literary work, the theme is the central topic or message of the text.

• Usually, themes are not explicitly stated.

• The audience has to piece together the clues to discover the theme.

Interaction with the students: ask them to share their thoughts.

Probe them with below-written words.

Themes = 

Greed vs Generoristy 

Mathilde is greedy, but her husband and friend are very generous

The dichotomy of reality versus appearance

Necklace fake, appearance of wealth. Mathilde dresses and acts to appear wealthy, she is not

Honesty

What has close reading this short story taught you?

- External Conflict & Internal Conflict

- Indirect Characterization & Direct Characterization

- The importance of gratitude and honesty

- The dichotomy of reality and appearance

Question students what they know about these points. 

Elaborate on them with regard to the short story and rea life