Character
Before Rainsford's arrival on Ship-Trap Island, this man has already decided that traditional hunting no longer provides enough of a challenge.
Who is Zaroff?
This single lost possession leads one couple to exchange ten years of relative comfort for a decade of exhausting labor and debt.
What is a Necklace?
This isolated location has such a sinister reputation among sailors that even experienced hunters speak of it with unease.
What is Ship-Trap Island?
Mathilde's tragedy begins not with poverty itself but with her inability to accept this.
Her position in life? Her Poverty?
Rainsford's argument that animals do not understand fear gains new significance after he becomes prey himself. This reversal is an example of this device.
What is situational irony?
Although she unknowingly causes years of hardship for Mathilde, this woman is completely surprised when she learns what happened to her borrowed jewelry.
Who is Madame Forestier?
What events "Bookend" the story outlined in The Plainswoman?
What are the roundups?
This setting's physical characteristics—vast distances, exposure to the elements, and isolation—shape Nora's daily existence.
What are the plains?
Rainsford's experience suggests that a person's understanding of another's suffering may remain incomplete until this happens.
What is when they experience it for themself?
Whitney's concern about Ship-Trap Island before Rainsford reaches it hints at the danger to come. This is called this.
What is foreshadowing?
This character's conversation with Rainsford establishes early in the story that Rainsford sees hunting primarily from the hunter's point of view.
Who is Whitney?
Rather than being defeated by a single enemy, Nora's conflict comes not from an external source but this type of conflict.
What is Internal?
The contrast between Mathilde's ordinary home and this temporary setting intensifies her dissatisfaction with her everyday life.
What is the ball?
Nora's ability to continue despite the demands of her environment best illustrates this theme.
What is adapting to your environment or doing what needs to be done?
The necklace's apparent value versus its actual value makes it especially important as an example of this device, in which an object carries meaning beyond itself.
What is symbolism?
Although the story is named for her identity as a woman of the Plains, this character's personal name is revealed as this.
Who is Nora?
One of the two antagonists in The Most Dangerous Game, this one is not a person at all.
What is Ship-Trap Island? (Or What is Nature?)
This is an unusual place for a woman to give birth in one of the stories.
What is a train?
By replacing an object without first revealing its loss, the Loisels demonstrate how this can transform a relatively small problem into a life-changing disaster.
What is dishonesty?
The reader understands the significance of certain clues about Zaroff and his island before Rainsford fully understands the danger. This creates this kind of irony.
What is Dramatic Irony?
He injures his finger causing it to get infected with the "Mortification of the flesh?"
Who is Pleny?
This part of plot structure that occurs after a climax is very short in these three stories.
What is Falling Action?
The climactic confrontation between Rainsford and Zaroff takes place here.
What is Zaroff's bedroom?
Rainsford in becoming the prey himself develops this for the prey that he never had before.
What is empathy?
In The Plainswoman, the harsh natural environment is described in ways that make it seem almost like an active force working against Nora. Giving human-like qualities or actions to something nonhuman is called this.
What is personification?