AP Lit Essay Prompts

AP Essay Prompts
Requirements: Typed, (MLA format) organized, with ideas supported by examples from the text. (100 pts.)

1. In a novel, a confidant(e) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the main character needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Choose a confidante from a work you have read and discuss the various ways this character functions in the work.
   
   
2. From one of you readings, select an unrealistic or “distorted” event or character and explain how such a distortion relates to the more realistic elements of the work. In other words, how can the inclusion of certain unrealistic situations or characters help authors convey their ideas?
   
   
3. Developing strong characters is often the goal of many authors. In fact, as readers, we may even be manipulated to feel sympathetic towards an evil or immoral character. Using a character from your reading, analyze how and why readers might feel sympathy towards an evil or immoral character.
   
   
4. A classic conflict in novel is a character’s struggle between a private passion and personal responsibility. For instance, a character’s personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to correct a wrongdoing, or some other emotion may conflict with her/his moral duty. From one of your readings, discuss how a character experiences such a conflict, how the conflict affects the character’s personality and actions, and why the conflict is important to the story.
   
   
5. Critics often applaud works that can produce in the reader a “healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a work from your readings that produces this healthy confusion. Be sure to show how readers can be both entertained and troubled by the particular literary work.
   
   
6. Some works of literature use time in a very distinct way. The plot’s sequence of events may be changed, or time may be slowed, suspended, or accelerated. Choose a novel or a reading in which the author’s manipulation of time affects the entire novel and explain how the novel is affected by this manipulation.
   
   
7. A critic once said that the true test of comedy is its ability to awaken “thoughtful laughter” in the reader. If one of your readings contained “thoughtful laughter”, analyze why the laughter is thoughtful and how it contributes to the overall meaning of the work.
   
   
8. A recurring theme in many novels is the conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority. Choose a novel or reading in which a character is in opposition to her or his society. Analyze the conflict and discuss the moral implications for both the individual and the society.
   
   
9. Often, a character’s view of the past is used to develop themes in novels. A character may view the past with such feelings as reverence, bitterness, or longing. If a character from your readings attempted to recapture or reject the past, explain how those attempts helped create interest and provoke thought in the reader.
   
   
10. Certain parallel or recurring events are important to many novels. Describe the major similarities and differences of parallel or recurring events in one of your readings and discuss the significance of those events.
    
    
11. Literary critics contend that in good literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. From your readings, choose a work that confronts the reader with a scene or scenes of violence. Explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work.
    
    
    
    
    
12. Authors, through their characters, plots, and settings, often seem to support changes in traditions or changes in social and political attitudes. Select such a work from your readings and discuss which attitudes or traditions the author wishes to change and how the author attempts to influence our opinions.
    
    
13. A character can be important even though she/he appears briefly or not at all. Choose a work from your readings that has an important minor character and analyze how the character affects the action, theme, or the development of other characters.
    
    
14. In many novels, some of the most significant events are mental or psychological (for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness). Select a work from your readings that has a psychological emphasis and show how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement and suspense usually associated with external action.
    
    
15. Some plots involve contrasting places (two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, the land and sea) to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a work from your readings that contrasts two such places and explain how the places differ; what each place represents; and how their differences contribute to the meaning of the work.
    
    
16. Choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.
    
    
17. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, or creed. Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions and moral values.
    
    
18. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal of the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
    
    
19. Morally ambiguous characters - characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good - are at the heart of many works of literature. Examine a work where such a character plays a pivotal role. Explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
    
    
20. Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Considering Barthes’ quotation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question a work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
    
    
21. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

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