Maria Chapdelaine is the story of the titular Maria who, after the man she loves dies, must choose between two suitors and two ways of life -- one in the big city, the other in the countryside. Written with a French and Quebecois adolescent audience in mind, Maria Chapdelaine has become a mainstay of school curricula, both in its original French and in translation, and has been extensively analyzed and adadpted to stage and screen. --