Each open-ended AP® English Literature essay prompt focuses upon a specific idea or theme common in canonical literature (such as justice, sacrifice) or a certain type of work or technique used within many works. It will then ask you to explain how whatever device it focuses on works within a particular piece of literature and then justify that explanation. Here are three sample AP® English Literature prompts (all from actual AP® exams) and a quick explanation of one way you could tackle each of them. Studying and practicing these methods will definitely help you perform better on the AP® English Literature exam!
1. A 2003 AP® English Literature Prompt:
According to critic Northup Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the high points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power around 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 divisive 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.
A good work to write on is Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which the eponymous character commits various murders, including of his king and closest friend, because of the influence of his tragic flaw, ambition. The suffering Macbeth causes for others contributes to the tragic vision of the work for various reasons:
– With every act of violence, he becomes more mad with guilt and paranoid that he will be discovered (in the beginning) or usurped (throughout the middle and end). Macbeth’s madness and paranoia lead to further acts of violence in a vicious cycle.
– The people Macbeth should love most, his wife and best friend, are directly affected by his actions, Lady Macbeth going mad and Banquo being murdered by hired assassins.
– There is an irony in the fact that Macbeth is hated for killing his countrymen, when before the murder spree he was revered for killing his kingdom’s enemies.
Any one of these, if fully explored, could provide an essay in and of itself, or all of them could be combined in one essay. For practice, try constructing a thesis (or even writing an entire essay) for each of these points, then all of them together.
2. A 2009 AP® English Literature Prompt:
Many works of literature deal with political or social issues. Choose a novel or play that focuses on a political or social issue. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the author uses literary elements to explore this issue and explain how the issue contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
A good work for this prompt would be George Orwell’s 1984, which focuses on the political issue of communist totalitarianism. The setting of this novel is one element through which political commentary is delivered, in that Orwell has imagined a future in which the government lies to its people constantly and has forged a police state in the name of creating equality, while in fact the same inequalities that ran rampant during the age of capitalism still exist.
The character of Winston Smith is also an element through which Orwell makes his commentary, because Smith is an “everyman” – an unremarkable, easy-to-relate-to character – driven to political radicalism by that environment.
Focusing on setting or character would work equally well for an essay. For points supporting a thesis related to setting, you could list and explain examples of the various ways in which Orwell’s imagined society takes control of its people, and the consequences for fighting against that system. For points supporting a thesis related to character, you could write on the changes that take place in Smith over the course of the novel, as he gets involved with revolutionary activity and then faces torture, imprisonment, and guilt toward the novel’s end.
3. A 2012 AP® English Literature Prompt:
“And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and character as much as fate, destiny, or any supernatural agency.” – Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces
Choose a novel or play in which cultural, physical, or geographical surroundings shape psychological or moral traits in a character. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how surroundings affect this character and illuminate the meaning of this work as a whole.
This question could be answered with an essay on Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In this novel, the two estates, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, represent two different ways of life and have distinct sets of characters – though the most significant characters in the novel travel between the two estates, and are often very seriously affected by it. The Grange represents civilization, security, strict morality, and the Heights wildness, violence, and freedom.
When writing this essay, you could focus not only on how these traits are displayed by the characters from or inhabiting one of the two estates, but how the development of characters at each of the locations seeks to start a dialogue about ideas of “good breeding” very prevalent in society at the time. Is a person shaped more by her heredity or environment? There are cases to be made from both and evidence to support either claim in this very complicated novel.
You could also consider the fact that the most important, interesting, and ultimately happy characters in the story are not dominated by either place, either family, either set of characteristics – showing that freedom and wildness tempered with, but not totally eclipsed by, civilized notions provide the best life.
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