The novel begins and ends with Sallie reflecting on the past many years later. Analyze how Kline uses the framing device to shape the novel’s exploration of morality.

Analyze one conflict in the novel—such as duty versus desire, individual identity versus familial obligation, or moral conviction versus social expectation—and explain how Kline develops this conflict through one central relationship in the novel.

Analyze the novel’s use of setting. Choose two settings and explain how they shape the characters’ identities, relationships, and/or decisions.

Examine how Kline uses pairs of foil characters throughout the novel. In addition to Sallie and Addie or Chang and Eng or Sallie and Grace, consider another pair and analyze how their similarities and differences reflect the novel’s themes.

The novel repeatedly presents the same events through different characters’ perspectives. How does Kline use delayed revelation to complicate characterization?

The title, The Foursome, refers to an unusual marital arrangement, but the composition of the novel’s “foursome” changes over time. Analyze how Kline uses the recurring image of the foursome to explore changing ideas about family, obligation, and belonging.

Consider how the sisters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), if you have read it, relate to the sisters in The Foursome. How does each author use sister relationships to explore womanhood and personal identity?

Both The Foursome and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) explore what it means to be perceived as unnatural by society. In what ways do the authors aim to challenge readers’ assumptions about what it means to be “monstrous”?