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NAME: Angela Mellina V. Ador DATE: March 30, 2021

COURSE: BSEd Major in English SECTION: CED-02-601P
SUBJECT: Contemporary Popular Literature PROF.: ELMER MONES

ACTIVITY 2: Interpreting and Evaluating Fiction

TASKS
1. Explain the characteristics, types and elements of fiction.
2. Read the story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant.
3. After reading the story answer the following:
A. Is the story fiction or non-fiction? Why do you say so?
B. What type and elements of fiction are used in the story?
4. Write a summary, minimum of 300 words, of the story “The Necklace” by Guy de
Maupassant.
5. Write an interpretation and analysis paper of the in 400-500 words.

NOTE: Document your sources.

Criteria for Checking:

Content/Completeness 35
Quality of Answer 35
Timeliness 10
Mechanics/Grammar 20
TOTAL 100
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Fiction
Works of fiction are those that tell made up stories. As opposed to the many genres of
nonfiction—biography, autobiography, commentary, data analysis, philosophy, history, and
others—fiction is defined by its focus on narratives invented by the author. Most academics and
literary critics further subdivide fiction into two categories: genre fiction and literary fiction.
(Masterclass, 2020)

Main Types of Fiction

1. Commercial fiction attracts a broad audience and may also fall into any subgenre, like
mystery, romance, legal thriller, western, science fiction, etc.
2. Literary fiction tends to appeal to a smaller, more intellectually adventurous audience.

a. Mystery is a popular genre, boasting a huge established audience. All mysteries focus on
a crime, usually murder.
b. Romance is a type of category fiction in which the love relationship between a man and a
woman pervades the plot.
c. Science fiction can be defined as literature involving elements of science and technology
as a basis for conflict, or as the setting for a story.
d. Suspense novels and thrillers are tense, exciting, often sensational works with ingenious
plotting, swift action, and continuous suspense.
e. Mainstream fiction transcends popular novel categories—mystery, romance or science
fiction, etc.
f. Western, these novels about life on America’s post-Civil War western frontier usually
involve conflicts between cowboys and outlaws, cowboys and Native Americans, or
Easterners and Westerners.
g. Horror, the characteristic is the intention to frighten readers by exploiting their fears, both
conscious and subconscious.
h. Young adults, this genre includes any type of novel with a protagonist in the 12 to 16 age
range that speaks to the concerns of teenagers.
i. Historical fiction is a fictional story set in a recognizable period of history. As well as telling
the stories of ordinary people’s lives, historical fiction may involve political or social
events of the time.
j. Realistic fiction is an imaginative writing that accurately reflects life as it could be lived
today. Everything is a realistic fiction story could conceivably happen to real people living
in today’s natural physical world. Realistic fiction helps children move toward a fuller
understanding of themselves and others.
k. Fantasy creates another world for characters and readers, asking that the reader believe
this other world could exist. There are two types of fantasy – fantastic stories and high
fantasy. Fantastic stories are realistic in most details but still require the reader to willingly
suspend disbelief. They contain fantastic elements, such as talking animals, eccentric
characters in preposterous situations, anthropomorphism, or extraordinary worlds. While
High fantasy takes place is a created world or imaginary kingdom. Serious in tone, the
story primarily focuses on the conflict between opposing forces, and concerns itself with
cosmic questions and ultimate values, such as goodness, truth, courage, or wisdom.
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l. Science fiction can be defined as literature involving elements of science and technology
as a basis for conflict, or as the setting for a story.
m. Humans and Technology are stories describing how humans interact with computers,
nanotechnology, bioengineering, virtual reality, artificial intelligences, or other parts of
technologically driven society. These stories often question the concept of what it means
to be human.
n. Mysteries contain a character who acts as the detective, and contain clues to help he
reader solve the puzzle. Mysteries written for older students have a suspenseful mood
and contain foreshadowing. e.
o. A fable is a very brief story in prose or in verse that teaches a moral or a practical lesson
about how to succeed in life.
p. A folk tale is a story with no known author. Folk tales are passed down from one
generation to another by word of mouth. They teach lessons & teach you about the
consequences of certain kinds of behaviors or attitudes.
q. A legend is a semi-true story, which has been passed on from person-to-person and has
important meaning or symbolism for the culture in which it originates. A legend usually
includes an element of truth, or is based on historic facts, but with 'mythical qualities'.
Legends usually involve heroic characters or fantastic places and often encompass the
spiritual beliefs of the culture in which they originate.
r. A myth is a story passed down from generations trying to explain how our world works or
how we should treat each other. Some myths have gods or ‘super-beings’ that use powers
to make events happen.
s. A fairy tale is a type of imaginative writing that carries the reader into an invented world
where the laws of nature, as we know them, do not operate. It usually starts with…” Once
upon a time & ends with “They lived happily ever after”.
t. Epics are stories and songs emerged as an oral means of communication and preserving
the past: tales of heroic battles or struggles, myths, or religious beliefs. In a time before
mass communication, the oral tradition enabled people to pass down stories, most often
in the form of rhyming poems. Thus, the earliest forms of fiction were in fact poetry.
Eventually written down, these extended narratives developed into epics, which were
long narrative poems about heroic figures whose actions determine the fate of a nation
or entire race. (Hamidah, 2017)

Elements of Fiction
a. Characterization is a means by which writers present and reveal characters – by
direct description, by showing the character in action, or by the presentation of
other characters who help to define each other.
b. Characters in fiction can be conveniently classified as major and minor, static and
dynamic. A major character is an important figure at the center of the story’s
action or theme. The major character is sometimes called a protagonist whose
conflict with an antagonist may spark the story’s conflict. Supporting the major
character are one or more secondary or minor characters whose function is partly
to illuminate the major characters. Minor characters are often static or
unchanging: they remain the same from the beginning of a work to the end.
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Dynamic characters, on the other hand, exhibit some kind of change – of attitude,
purpose, behavior, as the story progresses.
c. Irony is not so much an element of fiction as a pervasive quality in it. It may appear
in fiction in three ways: in a work’s language, in its incidents, or in its point of view.
But in whatever form it emerges, irony always involves a contrast or discrepancy
between one thing and another. The contrast may be between what is said and
what is meant (verbal irony), what is expected to happen and what actually
happens (situational irony) or between what a character believes or says and what
the reader understands to be true (dramatic irony).
d. Plot, the action element in fiction, is the arrangement of events that make up a
story. Many fictional plots turn on a conflict, or struggle between opposing forces,
that is usually resolved by the end of the story. Typical fictional plots begin with
an exposition, that provides background information needed to make sense of the
action, describes the setting, and introduces the major characters; these plots
develop a series of complications or intensifications of the conflict that lead to a
crisis or moment of great tension. The conflict may reach a climax or turning point,
a moment of greatest tension that fixes the outcome; then, the action falls off as
the plot’s complications are sorted out and resolved (the resolution or
dénouement). Be aware, however, that much of twentieth-century fiction does
not exhibit such strict formality of design.
e. Point of view refers to who tells the story and how it is told. The possible ways of
telling a story are many, and more than one point of view can be worked into a
single story. However, the various points of view that storytellers draw upon can
be grouped into two broad categories:
Third-Person Narrator (uses pronouns he, she, or they):
1. Omniscient: The narrator is all-knowing and takes the reader inside the
characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motives, as well as shows what the
characters say and do.
2. Limited omniscient: The narrator takes the reader inside one (or at most
very few characters) but neither the reader nor the character(s) has access
to the inner lives of any of the other characters in the story.
3. Objective: The narrator does not see into the mind of any character;
rather he or she reports the action and dialogue without telling the reader
directly what the characters feel and think.

First-Person Narrator (uses pronoun I):

The narrator presents the point of view of only one character’s
consciousness, which limits the narrative to what the first-person narrator
knows, experiences, infers, or can find out by talking to other characters.
f. Setting is the physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs. The
major elements of setting are the time, the place, and the social environment that
frames the characters. These elements establish the world in which the characters
act. Sometimes the setting is lightly sketched, presented only because the story
has to take place somewhere and at some time. Often, however, the setting is
more important, giving the reader the feel of the people who move through it.
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Setting can be used to evoke a mood or atmosphere that will prepare the reader
for what is to come.
g. Style is the way a writer chooses words (diction), arranges them in sentences and
longer units of discourse (syntax) and exploits their significance. Style is the verbal
identity of a writer, as unmistakable as his or her face or voice. Reflecting their
individuality, writers’ styles convey their unique ways of seeing the world.
h. A symbol is a person, object, image, word, ore vent that evokes a range of
additional meanings beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance.
Symbols are devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to
painstaking explanations. Conventional symbols have meanings that are widely
recognized by a society or culture, i.e., the Christian cross, the Star of David, a
swastika, a nation’s flag. A literary or contextual symbol can be a setting, a
character, action, object, name, or anything else in a specific work that maintains
its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. For example, the white
whale in Melville’s Moby Dick takes on multiple symbolic meanings in the work,
but these meanings do not automatically carry over into other stories about
whales.
i. Theme is the central idea or meaning of a story. Theme in fiction is rarely
presented at all; it is abstracted from the details of character and action that
compose the story. It provides a unifying point around which the plot, characters,
setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements of a story are organized. Be
careful to distinguish the theme from plot – the story’s sequence of actions –and
from subject – what the story is generally about.
j. Tone is the author’s implicit attitude toward the reader, subject, and/or the
people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author’s
style. Tone may be characterized as serious or ironic, sad or happy, private of
public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic, or any other attitudes and feelings
that human beings experience. (Narrator, n.d)

“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant

a. The Necklace is most likely to be a work of fiction due to its plot. It has characters developed
entirely for the convenience of the plot. It can also be noted that this short story has a moral at
the end, which could likely be used for discussing to its audience about the message rather than
retelling a tale which happened in real life. Although it is possible that this work may be non-
fiction, it leans more to the fiction genre due to the elements contained within it.
b. The story falls under commercial fiction. In addition to this, its subgenre could be that of
realistic fiction and a fable due to the lesson encompassed in it. The elements in the story are the
following:
1. Characterization – the author wrote the characters in vivid details which showed not
only their physical appearance, but including their behavior and attitude towards people.
Mathilde Loisel wants all the finer things in life but is unfortunately born under a lower
class that she intended. Monsieur Loisel is a good husband, often wanting to please his
wife. Madame Forestier is a kind friend to Mathilde, going as far as lending her things.
2. Characters – the characters in the story are Mathilde Loisel, her husband, and Madame
Forestier.
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3. Plot – the plot begins with the introduction of the characters and showing the miserable
life of Mathilde followed by the couple being invited to an exclusive party. The climax
reaches its peak once they find out that the necklace lent to her has gone missing. They
sacrifice living humble lives to pay off the debt they acquired from replacing the stolen
necklace only to find the necklace not costing the amount they had to pay for it.
4. Point of View – the point of view was written in an all-knowing perspective, a third
person’s point of view.
5. Setting – the setting took place in France, obviously in the past.
6. Style – the style of the author used in the text is narrative in nature, telling the story
from beginning to end with detail.
7. Symbol – the necklace can be considered a symbol of the protagonist’s trait of being a
social climber; she went to different lengths to put a front of a life she did not have.
8. Theme – the theme which could be taken from this story is contentedness. The
protagonist later wonders in life whether or not her life would have changed had she not
lost the necklace but looking at the bigger picture, had she been contented with the life
she had all along, they would have lived a simpler life debt-free.
9. Tone – the tone of the story is light and formal.

Summary
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant tells of a woman named Mathilde Loisel. She is a beautiful
woman who had been born in a lower class in society. Despite this, she believes she deserves the
fine things in life. As she grew older, she married off to a clerk who is a minor official at the
Ministry of Education. She often dreams of a beautiful house filled with guests of high rankings
that everyone in their place knew. While her husband is completely satisfied with the food served
at the table for supper, she dreams expensive cutlery with dishes suit for fine dining. A friend of
hers is introduced as someone of higher status whom she no longer visits. One night, her husband
came home holding an envelope for her to open. She discovers it is an invitation to a formal party
from the minister of education and Madame Georges Rampouneau. Her husband expected her
to be delighted only to find his wife mad for she had nothing to wear. Mathilde throws a fit and
this makes her husband offer that she can buy a dress for herself. The money he gave his wife
was supposedly for a personal gift he wanted to reward himself with but disregarded to fulfill his
wife’s desire. After buying a dress, Mathilde later complained that she had no jewels and this
would make her stand out as a beggar from the crowd. He told Mathilde to go see her friend and
ask her friend to lend her jewelry to which she gladly obliged. In here we see Madame Forestier,
who lends her a diamond necklace. They go to the ball with her looking as the most beautiful
woman. After the party has ended, they go home and find out that the necklace had gone
missing. After numerous searches, they decided to buy a replacement which cost them thirty-six
thousand francs. They paid off the debt for ten years living the simplest life they could get. Years
later, Mathilde encounters Madame Forestier and admits to having lost the necklace and
suffering for being deep in debt. Madame Forestier smiles and tells her it was an imitation, having
cost no more than five hundred francs.
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Analysis
The story written by Guy de Maupassant tells us of a tale full of realism and irony. It is considered
to be a work of fiction and falls under realistic fiction due to the nearness to reality of its plot as
something like this could very well happen to anyone superficial. The author narrates the story
as to how the events took place, never adding any commentary about the causes or effects of
the actions of the characters. Until the latter part of the story, the author narrated the irony that
the married couple worked all their life for something which proved to only be an imitation. To
break down the story, the plot must be discussed from start to finish. In the beginning, we are
introduced to the protagonist who is described as beautiful and part of the lower class of society.
This said, we can see the materialistic trait of the protagonist: wanting the luxuries she knows
her family nor her husband could afford to give her. This gives us foreshadowing to the
consequences this will put a toll on the protagonist. As she believes she is beautiful, she believes
she deserves a better life. From this, we can see the character equate having superficial beauty
an advantage in materialistic possessions. They’re not at all in the pits of poverty, as shown in
the text where they even have a helper in their house. Yet, this seems insufficient to Mathilde as
she wants an elegant house with popular guests as friends. Even at supper, she daydreams of
fine silverware and a banquet fit for a palace. The invitation to the ball proves Mathilde’s
superficiality. She cries out in despair for having nothing to wear—or at least nothing new to wear
and this makes her husband appease her. Even so, this highlights how she values society’s
perception of her not only on a physical level but in the social class. She would be more than
ready to put a front that she lives an extravagant lifestyle. She takes advantage of her husband’s
meekness and uses his money to splurge on something for herself. Lastly, she would borrow
jewelry from her friend knowing full well that she can go without having to wear an accessory
such a diamond necklace but to present herself as a rich, beautiful woman, she would fall under
such pretense. Once they find out the disappearance of the necklace, Monsieur Loisel uses his
inheritance to partially pay for the replacement. This in itself proves just how generous he can
get when it comes to his wife. They suffer for ten years until they are free from debt and this tells
its readers the sacrifices, they had to make in exchange for one night of living in disillusion. The
appearance of Mathilde drastically changes indicative that her beauty can only go skin deep, it
changes as time goes by and her perception of life does not. After her encounter with Madame
Forestier, it is then that we see the deceptiveness of things and the irony of the whole situation.
The married couple worked multiple jobs until they were able to pay off everything only to find
out that it was all in vain. Morally speaking, it speaks of value being subjective. To Mathilde, the
diamond necklace was beautiful therefore it had to be expensive. However, the twist suggests
otherwise.
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Bibliography:

Hamidah, R. (2017, January 12). Definition, elements, genres, and types of fiction. Retrieved
from Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/RabiatulHamidah2/definition-elements-genres-
and-types-of-fiction
Masterclass. (2020, November 8). Characteristics, Literary Fiction Vs. Genre Fiction. Retrieved
from Masterclass: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/literary-fiction-definition-and-
characteristics#what-is-literary-fiction
Maupassant, G. d. (n.d). The Necklace. Retrieved from Short Stories:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Neck.shtml
Narrator, T. (n.d). Elements of Fiction . Retrieved from New Mexico's Flagship University:
https://www.unm.edu/~hookster/Elements%20of%20Fiction.pdf