On the first page of the story, the character mentions something about gold francs. "I had eighty francs (gold francs) to last me the rest of the month..." Gold francs had been circulated in France from 1800 to 1914, and this suggests that the story took place in that time period. However, it is quite unlikely that the story took place in the 1800s because at that time, France was a pandemonium after the French Revolution had ended and there were wars between European nations. People would not have gone to restaurants and had casual luncheons since poverty was common. It is also unlikely that the story took place in the 1850s because that is the time where France had begun to industrialize, lower-class and middle-class citizens were still in poverty and they had to work in industrial ar

The story has an external conflict within, in which there was a subtle problem between the man and the woman. In the story, the man and the woman were in a restaurant. He only ordered a mutton chop but she ordered a lot of expensive meals and drinks. Although she ate many meals like a pig, she said that she never ate more than one thing. For him, she had become a burden because he was worried about the cost of the meals and the bill, in which he had to pay at the end.

Some topics in this essay:
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