AP English

AP Book Review/Critical Essay

From: http://sun.hazelwood.k12.mo.us/~djameson/APBookReview.htm

Open-ended questions for Advanced Placement English, 1959-2006:

1959. All kinds of books have been attacked, suppressed, or disapproved of by authorities, groups, or individuals. Select an important work which you admire and which you propose to defend against possible objections. In a well-planned essay, present reasons why the work might be attacked, and base your defense on a consideration of such matters as its language, the people in it, its mood and spirit, and consequently its artistic purpose and its value for the readers.

1963. Character determines incident. Incident illustrates character. Write a well-organized essay evaluating this statement through a discussion of one character from each of two novels.

1965. An individual's struggle toward understanding and awareness is the traditional subject for the novelist. In an essay, apply this statement to one novel of literary merit. Organize your essay according to the following plan: 1) Compare the hero as we see him in an early scene with the hero as we see him in a scene near the end of the novel. 2) Describe the techniques that the author uses to reveal the new understanding and awareness that the hero has achieved.

1966. Frequently in novels, an important character violates the laws, the conventions, the rules of conduct of a society. In presenting such characters and actions, the author's purpose may be (1) to arouse our sympathy for the character who is violating the rules of society; (2) to divide our interest sharply between sympathy for the character and desire to support the principles of society; (3) to arouse our "satiric mirth" at the character who is violating the principles of society; and (4) to laugh with the character at the conventions that are being violated. Write a well-organized essay, illustrating in some detail two or more of these purposes.

1967. In many novels and plays, minor characters contribute significantly to the total work. They often have particular functions, e.g., as instruments in the plot, foils to the main characters, commentators on the main action and theme, and the like. Write a well-organized essay showing how three minor characters function in the work in which they appear.

1968. In many plays, a character has a misconception of himself or his world. Destroying or perpetuating this illusion contributes to a central theme of the play. Choose a play with a major character to whom this statement applies and write an essay in which you consider the following points: what the character's illusion is and how it differs from reality as presented in the play and how the destruction or perpetuation of the illusion develops a theme of the play.

1970. Choose a character from a work of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

1971. The significance of a title such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is so easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, “Measure for Measure”) the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gradually. Choose two works and show how the significance of their respective titles is developed through the authors’ use of devices such as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.

1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way.

1973. An effective literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of significant closure has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of a novel or play of acknowledged literary merit. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1974.Choose a work of literature written before 1900. Write an essay in which you present arguments for and against the works of relevance for a person in today’s world. Your own position should emerge in the course of your essay. You may refer to works of literature written after 1900 for the purpose of contrast or comparison.

1975. Although literary critics have tended to praise the unique in literary characterizations, many authors have employed the stereotyped character successfully. Select one work of acknowledged literary merit and in a well-written essay, show how the conventional or stereotyped character or characters function to achieve the author’s purpose.

1976. The conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority is the recurring theme of many novels, plays, and essays. Select the work of an essayist who is in opposition to his or her society; or from a work of recognized literary merit, select a fictional character who is in opposition to his or her society. In a critical essay, analyze the conflict and discuss the moral and ethical implications for both the individual and the society. Do not summarize the plot or action of the work you choose.

1977. In some novels and plays certain parallel or recurring events prove to be significant. In an essay, describe the major similarities and differences in a sequence of parallel or recurring events in a novel or play and discuss the significance of such events. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1978. Choose an implausible or strikingly unrealistic incident or character in a work of fiction or drama of recognized literary merit. Write an essay that explains how the incident or character is related to the more realistic or plausible elements in the rest of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1979. Choose a complex and important character in a novel or a play of recognized literary merit who might, on the basis of the characters actions alone, be considered evil or immoral. In a well-organized essay, explain both how and why the full presentation of the character in the work makes us react more sympathetically than we otherwise might. Avoid plot summary.

1980. A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between passion and responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well-written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.

1981. The meaning of some literary works is often enhanced by sustained allusion to myths, the Bible, or other works of literature. Select a literary work that makes use of such a sustained reference. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain the allusion that predominates in the work and analyze how it enhances the work’s meaning.

1982. In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the complete work. Avoid plot summary.

1983. From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character’s villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.

1985. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this “healthy confusion.” Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the “pleasure and disquietude” experienced by the readers of the work.

1986. Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author’s manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audiences views. Avoid plot summary.

1988. Choose a distinguished novel or play in which some of the most significant events are mental or psychological; for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness. In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to give these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external action. Do not merely summarize the plot.

1989. In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O’Connor has written, “I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see.” Write an essay in which you “make a good case for distortion,” as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work you choose are “distorted” and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

1992. In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much “the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s.” However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well. Chose a confidant or confidante from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work. Do not write on a poem or short story.

1993. “The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter.” Choose a novel or play, or long poem in which a scene or character awakens, “thoughtful laughter” in the reader. Write an essay in which you show why this laughter is “thoughtful” and how it contributes to the meaning of the work.

1994. In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show how such a character functions in the work. You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values.

1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. “The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events—a marriage or a last minute rescue from death—but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death.” Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the “spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation” evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, or other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal 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 work as a whole.

1998. In his essay “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature:

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in “Hamlet” and “The Illiad,” in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us.

From the works you have studied in school, choose a novel, play, or epic poem that you may have initially though was conventional and tame, but that you now value for its “uncivilized and wild thinking.” Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes its “uncivilized and wild thinking” and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific references to the work you choose.

1999. The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Stern wrote, "No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time."
From a novel or play 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 a work as a whole. You may use one of the novels or plays listed below or another novel or play of similar literary quality.

2000. Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2001. One definition of madness is “mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.” But Emily Dickinson wrote
Much madness is divinest Sense--
To a discerning Eye--
Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a “discerning Eye.” Select a novel or play in which a character’s apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the “madness” to the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2002. 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. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you 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.

2003. According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning.” Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in which you explain how the suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.

2003B. Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures—national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character’s sense of identity into question. Select a novel or play in which a character responds to such a cultural collision. Then write a well-organized essay in which you describe the character’s response and explain its relevance to the work as a whole.

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel or play and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the 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.

2004B. The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

2005. 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.

2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

2006B. In many works of literature, a physical journey - the literal movement from one place to another - plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Literature Appearing on Past AP Exams

A Gathering of Old Men 00 Ernest J. Gaines
A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man 76,77,80.86,89,92,97,99,04 James Joyce
Absalom, Absalom 76,00 Wm. Faulkner
Age of Innocence,The 91,92,97 Edith Wharton
Alias Grace 00,04 Margaret Atwood
All My Sons 85, 90 Arthur Miller
All the King's Men 00,04 Robert Penn Warren
All the Pretty Horses 95,96 Cormac McCarthy
An American Tragedy 81,82,95,92 Theodore Dreiser
Anna Karenina 80,91,99,92 Leo Tolstoy
Antigone 90,94 Sophocles
Awakening,The 87,88,95, 97,99,92 Kate Chopin
Beloved 99,00 Toni Morrison
Billy Budd 79,81,82,83,85,99 Herman Melville
Bleak House 94,00 Charles Dickens
Bluest Eyes, The 95 Toni Morrison
Brothers Karamazov, The 90 Fyodor Dostoevsky

Candide 80,86,87,91,95,96,92,04 Voltaire
Catch-22 82, 85, 87, 89, 94 Joseph Heller
Ceremony 94, 96 Leslie Marmon Silko
Color Purple,The 92,94,95,97, 96 Alice Walker
Crime and Punishment 04 Fyodor Dostoevsky
Cry, My Beloved Country 85,87,81,95,96,92 Alan Paton
Daisy Miller 97 Henry James
Death of a Salesman 04 Arthur Miller
Emma 96 Jane Austen
Fifth Business 00 Robertson Davies
Go Tell It On the Mt. 88, 90 James Baldwin
House Made of Dawn 95 N Scott Momaday
In the Lake of
the Woods 00 Tim O' Brian
Invisible Man 82, 83, 85, 87, 91, 94, 95, 96,04 Ralph Ellison
Jane Eyre 78,79,80,88,91,94,95,96,99,00 Charlotte Bronte
Joy Luck Club,The 97 Amy Tan
Light In August 79,81,82,83,85,95,99,92 William Faulkner
Mayor of
Casterbridge,The 94,99,00 Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch 95,04 George Eliot
Moll Flanders 76,77,86,87,95,92 Daniel DeFoe
Monkey Bridge 00 Lan Cao
Murder In the Cathedral 76,80,85,95 T.S. Eliot
Portrait of a Lady, The 88,92,96 Henry James
Pride and Prejudice 83,88,97,92 Jane Austen
Song of Solomon 81,88,96,00 Toni Morrison
Sound and the Fury, The 77,86,97,92 William Faulkner
Stranger, The 79,82,86, 92 Albert Camus
Tess of the
D'Urbervilles 82,91,92 Thomas Hardy
Tom Jones 90,00 Henry Fielding
Trial, The 88,89,00 Franz Kafka
Wuthering Heights 96,97, 92,99 Emily Bronte
Cherry Orchard,The 92,77 Aton Chekhov
Little Foxes,The 85,90,92 Lillian Hellman
Piano Lesson,The 96,99 August Wilson
A Doll's House 83,87,88,95,92 Henrik Ibsen
Agnes of God 00 John Pielmeier
Equus 92,99,00,01 Peter Shaffer
Ghosts 00,04 Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler 79,92,00 Henrik Ibsen
Joe Turner's Come
and Gone 00 August Wilson
M Butterfly 95 David Henry Wang
Major Barbara 79,96,92,04 George Bernard Shaw
Medea 95,92,00 Euripides
Trifles 00 Susan Glaspell
Waiting for Godot 77,85,86,89,94 Samuel Becket
Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf? 88,94,00,04 Edward Albee
Zoo Story, The 82,01 Edward Albee

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