The Briefcase
10th Grade/English 3 Florida Collections, pages 361-369
Essential Question:
How does Rebecca Makkai develop her
characters through thoughts, actions, and
interactions with others? How does she
develop and theme in this short story?
Read page 361
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through
thoughts, actions, and interactions with others? How does she develop
and theme in this short story?
Writers often use a character’s thoughts to help the reader understand
the character.
1. Describe the character’s state of mind as described in lines 1-8, and
cite evidence that supports your answer.
The author’s choice of words and sentence structure help to create
tone, or the author’s attitude.
2. Examine the sentence in lines 12-13. What does this sentence
reveal, and what tone do the words and structure create?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 362
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through
thoughts, actions, and interactions with others? How does she develop
and theme in this short story?
3. Describe the chef’s past and present actions as listed on lines 23-27.
4. Does the writer give readers the name of the professor?
5. Throughout lines 31-38, how does the identity of the professor
change?
The writer may compare one character with another. These
comparisons can sometimes reveal the theme, or message about life.
6. Citing textual evidence between lines 56-60, identify the ways in
which the chef is different from the professor and what might this
have to do with the theme?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 363
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through
thoughts, actions, and interactions with others? How does she develop
and theme in this short story?
One way readers learn about characters is through their motivations,
or reasons for behaving as they do.
7. In lines 65-90, explain how the chef feels about stealing the
professor’s identity. Cite textual evidence that supports your
evidence.
8. What does the chef do to adopt the professor’s identity?
9. Why reason did the chef give for wanting the professor’s wife to
believe he is alive?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 364
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through
thoughts, actions, and interactions with others? How does she develop
and theme in this short story?
Theme can often be revealed through a story’s characters. In this
section of the story, the chef and the professor share more similarities
than differences.
10. Was the chef a good student when he left school?
11. Why did he quit school?
12. Describe the direct comparisons Makkai makes between the chef
and the professor in lines 103-118.
13. Why are these comparisons important to understanding the chef?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 365
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through thoughts, actions, and
interactions with others? How does she develop and theme in this short story?
One way that writers develop their characters is by having them repeat their actions. Chef
returns to the professor’s test question several times throughout the story.
14. How was the chef’s analysis to the test question on lines 135-140
different from his approach on the previous page?
15. How is the chef’s analysis related to his own situation?
16. Explain the significance of asking the students to “prove as true what
was false.”
Character is developed through their actions. The author further develops
their characters by sharing the character’s thoughts.
17. Citing evidence from the text, what is the chef’s routine, and what does
this routine say about the chef?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 366
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through thoughts, actions, and interactions
with others? How does she develop and theme in this short story?
18. Describe the progression of the chef’s reading habits listed on lines 167-180.
19. What does the chef read when he runs out of newspapers, and what does this
pattern of behavior reveal about him?
Writers reveal what characters are like by how they interact with the other
characters. These interactions might also reveal a theme.
20. Identify the professor’s theory on lines 181-187 that the chef shares with his
lover.
21. What does the chef mean when he tells his lover that she might be the only
one to understand the theory?
Writers develop characters by revealing the character’s thoughts.
22. Review lines 194-203 and cite evidence that explains the chef’s ideas about
time and space. Then, relate the theme of identity to the chef’s thoughts, “I
run by standing still.”
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 367
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through thoughts, actions,
and interactions with others? How does she develop and theme in this short story?
In fiction, theme is usually not stated directly but can be inferred from
a character’s thoughts or actions
23. After reviewing lines 217-225, cite text evidence that explains the
chef’s state of mind in his dream as well as the significance of the
briefcase.
24. How does the chef’s dream relate to the story’s theme?
Writers use language to create a specific tone.
25. Identify the words and phrases and sentence structure that conveys
the author’s tone of despair in lines 237-246.
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 368
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through thoughts, actions,
and interactions with others? How does she develop and theme in this short story?
Examine the scene between the chef and the professor’s wife, the
longest interaction in the story, on lines 259-275.
26. What motivates the professor’s wife to meet the chef?
27. Cite the actions of the words that show both the wife’s state of
mind as well as the chef’s on lines 277-292.
Motivation, or what drives the characters to behave as they do, can
reveal theme.
28. How did the chef react when the professor’s wife says, “The he is
dead.”
29. How did the chef’s reaction relate to the theme of identity?
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)
Read page 369
EQ: How does Rebecca Makkai develop her characters through thoughts, actions,
and interactions with others? How does she develop and theme in this short story?
One way we learn about characters and how they may have changed
throughout the story is through their thoughts. Use textual evidence
from lines 299-310 to answer the following questions.
30. Why does the chef think he can convince those in authority that he
is the professor?
31. Why is the chef so desperate to prove that he is the professor?
32. Why does the chef feel the wife is backing away from him “like a
peeling off of skin?”
Share your answer with your shoulder partner. (2 min.)