ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION Summer Reading Assignment Welcome Aboard. You are scheduled to take on the challenge of Advanced Placement English for the 2016-2017 school year, which beckons the crème de le crème every year. AP English is designed to make you a more perceptive reader, to improve your analytical skills, to enhance your writing skills, to push yourself to your fullest potential, and to provide you with an intellectually stimulating voyage through literature. The works included in this course are: Sound and Sense, Ethan Frome, Catch-22, Invisible Man, Song of Solomon, To the Lighthouse, Frankenstein, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Letter, Crime and Punishment, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Great Expectations, Everyman, Jane Eyre, Doctor Faustus, Light in August, Allegory of the Cave, Wide Sargasso Sea, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Frankenstein, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth. In order for the class to get off to a productive start and to exercise your mind for this wonderful journey, your first navigational tools will be to read a sampling of literature: How to Read Literature like a Professor, Allegory of the Cave, Everyman, and Doctor Faustus. I have equitably split the other four reads that have similar themes amongst enrolled students: Ethan Frome, Macbeth, Light in August, and Wide Sargasso Sea (Group A Last Name A-L) To the Lighthouse, Madame Bovary, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Hamlet (Group B Last Name M-Z) this summer. You may want to purchase your own copies of the works to annotate and keep as your own. The Elements of Style by Struck & White is a resource recommended for the composition component of this class. It s inexpensive and easily assessable for $4 at any bookstore. In the meantime, I hope that you have a pleasant summer. Also, take time to research and visit colleges and universities that interest you because this major turning point in your life is right around the corner. I am hopeful that next year you will be enthusiastic about analyzing these wonderful works of literature, improving your writing skills and working hard to reach our final destination. I look forward to guiding and directing you on this journey. Remember to pace yourself, so you don t tire out or even sink yourself. This coursework is meant as an overall enjoyable and rewarding journey towards self-actualization. 100 pts. Any questions email: jboyd@norwinsd.org. How to Read Literature like a Professor - Thomas C. Foster (CHOOSE 3) Introduction: How'd He Do That? How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern. Chapter 1 -- Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It's Not) List the five aspects of the QUEST and then apply them to something you have read (or viewed) in the form used on pages 3-5.
Chapter 2 -- Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion Choose a meal from a literary work and apply the ideas of Chapter 2 to this literary depiction. Chapter 3: --Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires What are the essentials of the Vampire story? Apply this to a literary work you have read or viewed. Chapter 4 -- If It's Square, It's a Sonnet Select three sonnets and show which form they are. Discuss how their content reflects the form. (Submit copies of the sonnets, marked to show your analysis). Chapter 5 --Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before? Define intertextuality. Discuss three examples that have helped you in reading specific works. Chapter 6 -- When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare... Discuss a work that you are familiar with that alludes to or reflects Shakespeare. Show how the author uses this connection thematically. Read pages 44-46 carefully. In these pages, Foster shows how Fugard reflects Shakespeare through both plot and theme. In your discussion, focus on theme. Chapter 7 --...Or the Bible Read "Araby". Discuss Biblical allusions that Foster does not mention. Look at the example of the "two great jars." Be creative and imaginative in these connections. Chapter 8 -- Hanseldee and Greteldum Think of a work of literature that reflects a fairy tale. Discuss the parallels. Does it create irony or deepen appreciation? Chapter 9 -- It's Greek to Me Write a free verse poem derived or inspired by characters or situations from Greek mythology. Be prepared to share your poem with the class. Chapter 10 -- It's More Than Just Rain or Snow Discuss the importance of weather in a specific literary work, not in terms of plot. Chapter 11 --...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature. Show how the effects are different. Chapter 12 -- Is That a Symbol? Uses the process described on page 106 and investigate the symbolism of the fence in "Araby." (Mangan's sister stands behind it.)
Chapter 13 -- It's All Political Assume that Foster is right and "it is all political." Use his criteria to show that one of the major works assigned to you as a freshman is political. Chapter 14 -- Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too Apply the criteria on page 119 to a major character in a significant literary work. Try to choose a character that will have many matches. This is a particularly apt tool for analyzing film -- for example, Star Wars, Cool Hand Luke, Excalibur, Malcolm X, Braveheart, Spartacus, Gladiator and Ben-Hur. Chapter 15 -- Flights of Fancy Select a literary work in which flight signifies escape or freedom. Explain in detail. Chapter 17 --...Except the Sex OK...the sex chapters. The key idea from this chapter is that "scenes in which sex is coded rather than explicit can work at multiple levels and sometimes be more intense that literal depictions" (141). In other words, sex is often suggested with much more art and effort than it is described, and, if the author is doing his job, it reflects and creates theme or character. Choose a novel or movie in which sex is suggested, but not described, and discuss how the relationship is suggested and how this implication affects the theme or develops characterization. Chapter 18 -- If She Comes Up, It's Baptism Think of a "baptism scene" from a significant literary work. How was the character different after the experience? Discuss. Chapter 19 -- Geography Matters... Discuss at least four different aspects of a specific literary work that Foster would classify under "geography." Chapter 20 --...So Does Season Find a poem that mentions a specific season. Then discuss how the poet uses the season in a meaningful, traditional, or unusual way. (Submit a copy of the poem with your analysis.) Chapter 21 -- Marked for Greatness Figure out Harry Potter's scar. If you aren't familiar with Harry Potter, select another character with a physical imperfection and analyze its implications for characterization. Chapter 24 --...And Rarely Just Illness Recall two characters that died of a disease in a literary work. Consider how these deaths reflect the "principles governing the use of disease in literature" (215-217). Discuss the effectiveness of the death as related to plot, theme, or symbolism. Chapter 25 -- Don't Read with Your Eyes After reading Chapter 25, choose a scene or episode from a novel, play or epic written
before the twentieth century. Contrast how it could be viewed by a reader from the twenty-first century with how it might be viewed by a contemporary reader. Focus on specific assumptions that the author makes assumptions that would not make it in this century. Chapter 26 -- Is He Serious? And Other Ironies Select an ironic literary work and explain the multivocal nature of the irony in the work. Chapter 27 -- A Test Case Read "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield, the short story starting on page 245. Complete the exercise on pages 265-266, following the directions exactly. Then compare your writing with the three examples. How did you do? What does the essay that follows comparing Laura with Persephone add to your appreciation of Mansfield's story? Plato s Allegory of the Cave (choose 2 & Journal Assignment) E-TEXT 1. Describe how the people in the cave are situated in Plato's parable. Why can't they move their legs or necks to take a look around? What is the only thing they are capable of seeing? What is their only source of light? 2. What are the stages of the liberated prisoner's experience outside the cave? 3. What do these prisoners trapped in the cavern believe is real? 4. How do the prisoners react when they first see sunlight? Why? 5. What does Plato s allegory of the cave tell us about how we recognize things? 6. What does Plato s cave tell us about what we see with our eyes? 7. What is truth according to Plato in this allegory? 8. What other ideas could have been influenced by Plato s cave? 9. Describe an experience you have had in which something that looked true turned out to be false or looked false turned out to be true. 10. How is it possible that people can believe in illusion and accept it as reality? 11. What sometimes happens to people when the illusion is shattered and reality is revealed? 12. Describe other "caves" in modern life in which people might be "imprisoned" or feel "imprisoned".
13. If a prisoner is released from the cave and compelled to look toward the light, what will he experience? Why? 14. If the liberated prisoner goes back to the cave and tries to explain to his former fellow prisoners, what kind of reaction will he get? Why? 15. To what extent do you find Socrates point about human tendency to confuse "shadows" with "reality" relevant today? 16. What could be the elements that prevent people from seeing the truth, or regarding "shadow" as the "truth"? 17. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education? 18. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners? 19. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind? 20. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners? 21. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom? 22. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not? Journal Assignment: Make an illustration of the cave. Then share your ideas using what you have learned from the "Allegory of the Cave." Be sure to discuss this situation in terms of sight, vision, blindness, truth, reality, illusion, light, and dark as it is appropriate. EVERYMAN: (E-TEXT) Choose 3 Activities: Activity One: In order to understand both levels of the play, you need to know the meaning of the following words. Define each word. 1. kindred 2. moral 3. mortal 4. pilgrimage 5. reckoning 6. redemption 7. repentance 8. respite 9. reverence 10. salvation 11. sin 12. summon 13. virtue 14. vice
Activity Two: The following questions ask you to recall the characters and events of the play -- what happens at the literal level. 1. Why does God send Death to summon Everyman? 2. How does Everyman react to the summons by Death? 3. The author of this play used deliberate repetition to drive home major points. In what way do Everyman's encounters with Fellowship and Kindred follow a similar pattern? 4. What happens when Everyman asks Goods to accompany him? Why does Goods think that his presence would adversely influence God's judgment of Everyman? 5. Why is Good Deeds at first unable to accompany Everyman? 6. How does Knowledge help Everyman on his journey? 7. Explain how the play supports the idea that knowledge of one's sin is necessary before one can truly repent. 8. How does the order in which Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits abandon Everyman parallel the process of aging? 9. Who follows Everyman into the grave? 10. What does the weakness of Good Deeds reveal about the way Everyman has led his life? Activity Three: Prepare a plot diagram for the play. Include brief notes indicating the order in which each character meets with Everyman and what happens during that meeting. For example, the first character who enters is Death. Everyman tries to talk Death out of taking him, begging for more time, and finally even attempting bribery. And so on. Activity Four: Consider how you might use costume to identify each of the following major characters. List each character, describe the costume you have chosen, and explain how each character's costume and behavior might appropriately personify that abstract idea. Everyman Death Fellowship Kindred Cousin Goods Good Deeds Knowledge Confession Beauty Strength Discretion Five Wits Messenger Doctor
Activity Five: Morality plays often dramatize man's struggle to avoid vice and seek virtue. Make sure you can define each of the following abstract terms on your own paper and give an example. Seven Deadly Sins 1. pride 2. envy 3. gluttony 4. sloth 5. lust 6. avarice 7. wrath Seven Redeeming Virtues 1. prudence 2. justice 3. temperance 4. fortitude 5. faith 6. hope 7. charity Seven Sacraments 1. baptism 2. confirmation 3. communion 4. penance 5. ordination 6. matrimony 7. unction Activity 6: Rewrite the story of Everyman in one of the following forms: a children's book, a fable, a fairy tale, or a modern short story. Design a frontispiece or cover for your creation which will show the summoning of your Everyman/Everywoman. You may include his/her companions, but you must include a sketch of your character, a title, your name, and a brief teaser to "seduce" readers into reading your version. Activity 7: Write your own morality play, basing it upon contemporary images and moral concerns. Follow correct play form, as demonstrated in Everyman. Name your protagonist allegorically and make sure your play has a moral. Do not merely personify some vices and virtues, having them converse inanely -- create a lesson for a modern Everyperson. Activity 8:. Write a morality play called Every Student. Personify the problems Every Student faces during his journey to Graduation and the qualities that help him overcome those problems. Teach a moral by showing how Every Student can succeed. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe E-TEXT (choose 3 questions) 1. Is Faustus s damnation tragic or an act of justice? Discuss in detail. 2. Compare the master-servant relationship in the drama. 3. What is the function of the Good Angel and the Evil Angel in the drama? How are the Good Angel and the Evil Angel related to earlier morality plays? What else in the drama is a holdover from the morality plays? 4. Once Faustus has signed the blood pact with Lucifer, is there a possibility for him to repent? Does he have the opportunity to change his mind? Discuss, using specific examples. (Hint: look at passages immediately before, during, and after the appearance of the Good Angel and the Bad Angel.) 5. How are the comic interludes related to the main plot? The comic subplots are separated from the doctor s behavior until the deceived Horse Courser appears to
pull off Faustus s leg in Scene 10. What does the separation do to our sense of the relationship between plot and subplot, and what does the fusion of the two do to the main plot? 6. What is the role of the Old Man? Discuss the conversation between the Old Man and Faustus. What do you learn about the sin of despair? the availability of mercy? the power of faith? 7. Acts III and IV are made up primarily of low scenes in which Marlowe records the days, months, and years that follow Faustus s deal with Lucifer. Faustus has been empowered with magic. List and discuss uses he makes of his great power. Is there anything ironic about the choices that he makes? Compare his accomplishments with his earlier ambitions. 8. Write a description of hell as it is variously described and presented in this drama. 9. How does Marlowe use Greek classical imagery in the drama? 10. How is the image of the fall used throughout the drama? 11. One of Faustus s first requests of Mephistophilis is a wife, a request that Mephistophilis cannot fulfill, offering him a female demon instead because marriage is holy. His last request is Helen of Troy as a paramour, a request that Mephistophilis grants. What is the significance of this union with a demonic spirit? How is the spirit of the Renaissance represented in it? How does Faustus s relationship with Helen of Troy epitomizes the activities of the twenty-four years? 12. What is the function of the Chorus? What kinds of information does the Chorus deliver, and what does that tell you about the state of Marlowe s dramatic skill and the sophistication of the theatrical audience? How does a modern film producer introduce the same information? 13. Is this a comedy or is this a tragedy (or is it a history)? The title claims it s a tragical history, but that may be an inadequate analysis. Troubling, as well, is the intrusion of comedy into the doctor s downfall. 14. Do you have any sense of whether Marlowe feels Faustus was morally wrong in seeking the knowledge and power he praises in the first scene? Or is Faustus tragic, for Marlowe, because he seeks it and finds it and loses it? 15. Finally, critics have long claimed that this story has universal appeal -- that it speaks to all people, all cultures, all ethnicities, throughout all centuries. Defend or deny this claim, explaining why you think readers are interested (or not interested) in this story and/or why readers relate (or do not relate) to the characters and events. GROUP A Light in August William Faulkner (Choose 3) 1. The opening chapter belongs to Lena Grove as she arrives in Jefferson. What are the core elements of Lena s character? Does she change during the course of the novel? If Lena has a symbolic function, what is it? What, if anything, does Lena s background explain about her character, motivations, and desires?
2. The story contains many flashbacks, shifts in temporal sequence, and shifts in the narrative point of view. How does the book s structure affect the reading experience? In terms of prose style, what is most striking about Faulkner s use of language and imagery? 3. Byron Bunch is a man who has tried to live in such a way that the chance to do harm could not have found him [p. 77]. He says to Hightower, early in the story, a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he s already got. He ll cling to trouble he s used to before he ll risk a change [p. 75]. Yet Byron changes more than any other character. He falls in love and, in pursuit of Lena, completely alters his life. Is Byron an admirable character, and if so, how and why? 4. The critic Malcolm Cowley felt that the novel dissolved too much into the three separate stories [The Faulkner-Cowley File, p. 28] of Lena, Gail Hightower, and Joe Christmas. Would you agree or disagree? Do their stories come together, and if so, how? Do these characters belong in the same novel? 5. Byron says, A man will talk about how he d like to escape from living folks. But it s the dead folks that do him the damage. It s the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and don t try to hold him that he can t escape from [p. 75]. How does this statement relate to Joe Christmas, Joanna Burden, and Reverend Hightower? What are the various ways in which their enslavement to dead folks and past history determines their lives? 6. Before he kills Joanna Burden, Joe thinks, Something is going to happen to me. I am going to do something [p. 104]. Notice the passive and active modes of those two juxtaposed thoughts. Does Joe actively seek the fulfilment of something awful that he believes to be his fate? The narrator tells us, He believed with calm paradox that he was the volition less servant of the fatality in which he believed that he did not believe [p. 280]. Faulkner seems to be interested in the relationship between volition and passivity in the novel; how do you understand the paradox of will and fate as it embraced by Joe Christmas? Are other characters similarly caught between will and fate? 7. One of Faulkner s central preoccupations in Light in August is the legacy of Calvinism in the American psyche. In which characters is this stringent, unforgiving strain of thinking most apparent, and what are its effects? How are guilt and Calvinism linked? 8. In Light in August, womanhood and female sexuality are often described with a combination of fascination, desire, and loathing. Does this psychological attitude originate in certain characters, or does it seem to emanate from the author? Consider this question in the context of the following quotes: He began to look about the womanroom as if he had never seen one before: the close room, warm, littered, womanpinksmelling [Doc Hines, p. 132]; the bodiless fecundmellow voice of negro women murmured. It was as though he and all other manshaped life about him had been returned to the lightless hot wet primogenitive Female [Joe Christmas, p. 115]; and Now and then she appointed trysts beneath certain shrubs about the grounds, where he would find her naked, or with her clothing half torn to ribbons upon her, in the wild throes of nymphomania [Joanna Burden, p. 259].
9. As he takes a whipping from his foster father, Joe s body might have been wood or stone; a post or a tower upon which the sentient part of him mused like a hermit, contemplative and remote with ecstasy and self-crucifixion [pp. 159 60]. Why does Joe seek punishment from McEachern and reject the love offered by McEachern s wife [pp. 166 69)]? Why are the fanatical and sadistic patriarchs of the novel, like Simon McEachern, Calvin Burden, and Doc Hines, so powerful? 10. What are the most startling and memorable scenes in the novel? Are these scenes extremely visual in their effects? Do they seem appropriate to, or influenced by, the genre of film? 11. Chapter 5 is told from Joe s point of view; what insight does the reader gain into Joe s reason for killing Joanna Burden? Does he have a clear motive? Joanna is depicted as a masculine woman, a spinster, a Northerner and a nymphomaniac. What is at the heart of Joanna s desire for Joe, and of his desire for her? 12. Critic Eric Sundquist has remarked that violence and sexuality determine the contours of the South s romance of blood and that Joe is a character whose very physical and emotional self-embodies the sexual violence of racial conflict [William Faulkner: The House Divided, pp. 89 90]. Discuss this yoking of violence, race, and sexual thinking in the novel, particularly as it is reflected in Joe s relationship with Joanna Burden and in Percy Grimm s murder and castration of Joe [pp. 464 65]. 13. With Percy Grimm, Faulkner himself said that he had created a Nazi, a Fascist galahad who saved the white race by murdering Christmas [qtd. in William Faulkner: The House Divided, p. 93]. I wrote [Light in August] in 1932 before I d ever heard of Hitler s Storm Troopers [Faulkner in the University, p. 41]. Discuss the ways in which Chapter 19 explores the fantasies and fanaticism of both the individual and the group. Does Grimm intend to lead a lynching or to prevent one? Does Grimm function as the executioner whose fantasy is merely an exaggerated version of what the community also believes? 14. Joe s life is figured repeatedly as a journey along a road; returning to Mottstown, Joe feels that he is entering it again, the street which ran for thirty years... It had made a circle and he is still inside of it [p. 339]. Should we see a thematic link between Lena s journey and Joe s? How do their wanderings differ in spirit and in function? 15. Light in August is primarily a book about racial identity, race hatred, and hysteria. Faulkner commented later that Joe didn t know what he was, and so he was nothing. He deliberately evicted himself from the human race because he didn t know which he was...which to me is the most tragic condition a man could find himself in not to know what he is and to know that he will never know (qtd. in Light in August and the Critical Spectrum, p. 1). Are the coldness and violence in Joe s character explained by Faulkner s statement? How does the reader react to Joe Christmas with empathy, with distaste, with bewilderment?
16. In The Sound and the Fury Quentin Compson says, a nigger is not a person so much as a form of behavior; a sort of obverse reflection of the white people he lives among [p. 86]. Discuss the ways in which Joe Christmas functions among the white community as an idea, a symbol, a negative image of their own ideal selves, and not as a person. What is the effect of this function on Joe s own subjectivity? 17. Chapter 19, which tells of Joe Christmas s death and castration, is followed by a chapter narrated from the perspective of Gail Hightower which tells the story of his past life and his failures, ending in the present moment. What might Faulkner have meant to do by juxtaposing Hightower s meditation with the horror that has come just before? What role does Hightower play in the novel? 18. A furniture dealer who gave Lena and Byron a lift in his wagon is the narrator of the final chapter, and their courtship is the subject of the comical tale he is telling his wife. Lena s pursuit of the feckless Lucas Burch has also been a source of comedy. Why might Faulkner have chosen to end the novel on this note of optimism and good-humoured comedy? Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys (choose 3 from the back of the book) Ethan Frome Edith Wharton (choose 3) 1. Compare and contrast Ethan Frome with The Glass Menagerie. 2. Agree or Disagree with the following assertions and explain why. Ethan Frome is right to honor his marital responsibilities. Ethan has the right to his own happiness. Ethan s greatest hindrance to happiness is himself. Suicide is the only solution for Ethan and Mattie. Ethan Frome is Edith Wharton 3. Write a Dear Abby from one of the characters asking for advice. Include the reply. 4. Words relating to sight and cold play an important role. Explain how and why. 5. The ironic surprise ending send a profound message overall. Explain. 6. How does the setting contribute significantly to the novella? 7. Find five examples of figurative language that heightens your perception of the story. 8. Is this novella a tragedy? Does the hero contribute to his downfall? What is his tragic flaw? 9. Discuss the importance of the unnamed framed narrator as a character and a stylistic structural choice. 10. Analyze the communion scene symbolically. Macbeth William Shakespeare (choose 3) 1. The last scene in the play, where Malcolm blesses all who have fought nobly on his side and promises to punish all who helped the traitors, is eerily reminiscent of the first
scene with his father, Duncan. Is this play commenting that it's just the nature of history to repeat itself? 2. Macbeth starts the play as a hero and ends up a tyrant. Does this mean there are no truly evil people and power corrupts, or just that some people have bad judgment when choosing heroes? 3. Lady Macbeth is often hailed as the source of Macbeth's evil, but she never talks about her own gain. Even when she should be all happy as queen, she takes her own life. Is Lady Macbeth just caught in fate here? Was she just trying to do the good thing by being a supportive wife? Is good in the eye of the beholder? 4. The three witches, the weird sisters, are also often blamed for planting the seed of treachery in Macbeth's mind yet the root of the word "wyrd" goes back to the Anglo Saxon word for "fate." Does one only need to think a thing is fate to make it happen? How much personal agency does one have against fate? 5. The good of other characters seems magnified when called out against Macbeth's evil. If not for Macbeth, Duncan would've died an aged king, Malcolm would never have tested his mettle in battle, and Macduff would've just been a good, quiet Thane of Fife, not a warrior-hero. Does it truly take the worst of times to see the best in men's natures? 6. Responding to Theme-List recurring themes (things are not what they seem, the corruption of power, blind ambition, superstition and its effects on human behavior) that develop as you read. Add notations of act and scene to serve as a guide for later reflection and writing. 7. Imagery and Theme-Shakespeare's use of imagery develops many themes; list these as they appear in the play. For example, the use of clothing begins with "borrowed robes" (I,ii) and continues with clothing representing a disguise of "false face" (I,vii) being repeated many times. Other examples include: flowers/planting, omens and unnatural events (superstitions), darkness, water/cleansing, blood, weather, and sleep/death. 8. Relationship of Characters-Now that you are familiar with the plot, examining characters in terms of their loyalties is interesting and useful. List the characters and diagram their relationships on chart paper. GROUP B Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston (choose 3) 1. What kind of God are the eyes of Hurston's characters watching? What is the nature of that God and of their watching? Do any of them question God?
2. What is the importance of the concept of horizon? How do Janie and each of her men widen her horizons? What is the significance of the novel's final sentences in this regard? 3. How does Janie's journey--from West Florida, to Eatonville, to the Everglades-- represent her, and the novel's increasing immersion in black culture and traditions? What elements of individual action and communal life characterize that immersion? 4. To what extent does Janie acquire her own voice and the ability to shape her own life? How are the two related? Does Janie's telling her story to Pheoby in flashback undermine her ability to tell her story directly in her own voice? 5. What are the differences between the language of the men and that of Janie and the other women? How do the differences in language reflect the two groups' approaches to life, power, relationships, and self-realization? How do the novel's first two paragraphs point to these differences? 6. In what ways does Janie conform to or diverge from the assumptions that underlie the men's attitudes toward women? How would you explain Hurston's depiction of violence toward women? Does the novel substantiate Janie's statement that "Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business"? 7. What is the importance in the novel of the "signifyin'" and "playin' de dozens" on the front porch of Joe's store and elsewhere? What purpose do these stories, traded insults, exaggerations, and boasts have in the lives of these people? How does Janie counter them with her conjuring? 8. Why is adherence to received tradition so important to nearly all the people in Janie's world? How does the community deal with those who are "different"? 9. After Joe Starks's funeral, Janie realizes that "She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people; it was important to all the world that she should find them and they find her." Why is this important "to all the world"? In what ways does Janie's self-awareness depend on her increased awareness of others?
10. How important is Hurston's use of vernacular dialect to our understanding of Janie and the other characters and their way of life? What do speech patterns reveal about the quality of these lives and the nature of these communities? In what ways are "their tongues cocked and loaded, the only real weapon" of these people? Hamlet- William Shakespeare (choose 3) 1)To what extent does Hamlet correspond to classical or medieval notions of tragedy? What (if anything) is Hamlet's fatal flaw? Why does he hesitate to act after promising his father's ghost that he will avenge his murder? Compare/contrast the protagonist's decisiveness and will to act inmacbeth. 2) Note the various familial relationships in Hamlet. Compare and contrast the family unit of Polonius / Laertes / Ophelia with Hamlet's relationships to the Ghost of Hamlet Sr., to Gertrude and to Claudius. Like Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are sons confronted with a father's death. To what extent do they function as foils to Hamlet? What do they have in common? How do they differ? 3) Why does Hamlet wait so long to kill Claudius? What are the reasons for his hesitation? How valid are they? How many times does he have the opportunity to attack Claudius? What are his reasons for not doing so? 4) Hamlet is a play in which nothing can be taken at face value: appearances are frequently deceptive, and many characters engage in play-acting, spying and pretense. What deliberate attempts are made at deception? Are the intended audiences deceived? While some deceptions are perpetrated in order to conceal secrets, others aim to uncover hidden truths. Which are which? To what extent are they successful? Note references to appearances, disguises, pretense, seeming, masks, acting, etc. 5) Pay attention to the treatment of the women characters Gertrude and Ophelia. Is there any basis for the Freudian interpretation of an Oedipal attraction between Hamlet and his mother? Hamlet does seem obsessed with his mother's sexuality. How old is Hamlet? How old do you think Gertrude is? Is Hamlet's disgust at Gertrude's sexuality justified? To what extent is Gertrude guilty? Was she "in on" her husband's murder? Has Claudius confided in her since the murder? How does Hamlet's perception of his mother affect his behavior or attitude toward Ophelia? Why does he tell Ophelia to go to a nunnery? Does Hamlet really love Ophelia? If so, why is he cruel to her? 6) Hamlet claims that his madness is feigned, an "antic disposition" which he puts on for his own purposes (I.v.172). Why would Hamlet want to feign madness? How can an appearance of insanity help him achieve his ends? Is he really sane throughout the play, or does he ever cross the line into madness? What about Ophelia's mad scene? Is it real or feigned? Is there "method in her madness" as well, or is she entirely irrational? Why has she gone mad? (What two reasons do her songs suggest?)
7) Hamlet famously declares that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." What other natural imagery is used to describe the corruption of the Danish court? What "unnatural" events or behaviors preceded the events recounted in the play? What "unnatural" events or behaviors occur during the play? 8) Moral ambiguity? Hamlet and Macbeth recount similar stories (the usurping of a throne) from differing perspectives -- those of perpetrator and avenger. Just as Macbeth was not ALL bad, Hamlet is not ALL good. What are some of his faults or shortcomings? Do these constitute a "fatal flaw" (to use the concept and terminology of Aristotle or Bradley)? Why might Shakespeare have chosen to remain in the "grey area" rather than a more "black and white" depiction of Good and Evil? Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (choose 3) 1. How do you react to the main characters in the book? Do you admire or detest any of them? Do you find any hateful, laughable or pitiable? Can you locate any heroes or villains, good or bad characters? 2. How does the point of view in the novel work, and how does it affect your impressions of the main characters? Pick a passage in which you find the point of view striking, and analyze why it interests you. 3. Analyze the final death scene of Emma and its effect on her husband and daughter. 4. Emma has been called a "hopeless romantic." How and why does she become this kind of person? What was Emma's education like? If Emma is corrupted by reading novels, how does Flaubert deal with the fact that he is himself a novelist? 5.Would Emma's life be the same if she hadn't been sent to a convent school? How is religion presented in the novel? How does Flaubert relate religion to Emma's romanticism? 6.Is Emma ever happy? What does or would it take to satisfy her? Is anyone to blame for her discontent? 7. How does socio-economic class figure in Bovary? How would a Marxist analyze the book? 8. How are gender issues relevant to the novel? To be more specific (and to point this question in only one out of many possible directions): the novel, written by a man, treats a female protagonist. Do you think this has any effect on the portrayal of Emma? Compare and contrast Pride and Prejudice along this axis. What would you say to a critic who claims that Flaubert hates women? 9. Flaubert famously declared his identification with his protagonist with the words, "Emma Bovary, c'est moi" ["Madame Bovary is me"]. What do you think he meant by this? Does he show any affinity for Emma or similarity with her, as a writer or a man?
More broadly, are Emma's problems ones that a man can identify with, or are they gender-specific? 10. Emma's reading of romances has contemporary equivalents. Discuss them. Who consumes these stories, and what is the appeal of the stories for their audiences? To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (choose 3) General Questions and "The Window" 1. How does the opening scene of the novel establish our expectations for what is to come? What does it tell us about the characters, the plot and action, the themes, the style, the method and form of the novel that follows? 2. The opening of To the Lighthouse is famous for the sophisticated use of free indirect discourse, apparent from the opening lines. In free indirect discourse, the limited third person narrator uses the language and speech patterns of the character without using the first person (I). We are thereby invited into the minds of the characters. How does this form of narration change the experience of the reader? 3. How does Woolf play with your expectations for how a novel should be written? 4. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard ran a press that published the writings of Freud. What evidence of modern (e.g., Freudian) psychology do you find in the text? 5. You will notice many references to preceding works of art and philosophy. How does Woolf play with these references and to what effect? 6. The novel lingers on the creation of art and knowledge. How do different characters participate in creation and how might we define "art"? What is the role of art in life? 7. How does the novel work as autobiography? What character or characters seem to reflect Woolf's own experience? How does the novel work as a fictionalized presentation of an artist? 8. What do the lighthouse and the journey to it seem to symbolize? Are these meanings consistent throughout the text or do they shift, and if so how? 9. Try to track the reappearance of objects (perhaps the house or windows), symbols (triangles come to mind), and language ("yes"). What are the relationships among objects, words and certain characters? 10. Watch for what Diane Middlebrook has called "Hyacinth Girl moments." The hyacinth girl appears in Eliot's poem, The Wasteland, as a symbol of fertility, desire and wholeness. 11. How do the characters' actions as well as their thoughts relate to distance and boundaries? How does Woolf use descriptions of spaces and rooms?
12. Mrs. Ramsey's dinner party provides insight into Woolf's ambitions for this novel, for women, and for art. Is this meal a metaphor? Compare it to other representations of meals you have encountered. Those of you who have read Woolf's A Room of One's Own will think of the description of luncheon at Oxbridge. What does this meal tell us about Mrs. Ramsey? "Time Passes" 1. Why divide the text into three sections? What do you makes of the titles of each section? 2. Consider the position of this passage. In what ways is it central to the text? In what ways does it address transition, growth, memory, grief? 3. Why the use of parentheses? What kinds of events are parenthetical? 4. How does Woolf represent both Mrs. Ramsey's absence and continuing presence? 5. How is time passage itself represented? Does time always pass? 6. How many meanings of "passages" are at play in this book? 7. Why does this passage end with Lily and the word, "awake"? "The Lighthouse" 1. In what ways does this section resolve questions or tensions introduced throughout the novel? 2. How does Woolf represent the trip to the lighthouse? What is its purpose in the text? 3. What does Lily make of her memories of Mrs. Ramsey? Why parallel the journey to the lighthouse to Lily's memories and the line? 4. Why is Lily finally able to draw her line and how does this gesture comment on art? gender relations? motherhood? selfhood? 5. Compare the first sentence to the last. AP TEST PREP THROUGH THE YEARS : *Choose 1 of the following authentic open ended AP prompts to answer in a welldeveloped essay for one of your reading selections (essays will be submitted to turnitin.com at the beginning of the year): 1970. Choose a character from a novel or play 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. 1970 (B) Choose a work of recognized literary merit in which a specific inanimate object (e.g., a seashell, a handkerchief, a painting) is important, and write an essay in which you show how two or three of the purposes the object serves are related to one another. 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. 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. 1975. Unlike the novelist, the writer of a play does not use his own voice and only rarely uses a narrator s voice to guide the audience s responses to character and action. Select a play you have read and write an essay in which you explain the techniques the playwright uses to guide his audience s responses to the central characters and the action. You might consider the effect on the audience of things like setting, the use of comparable and contrasting characters, and the characters responses to each other. Support your argument with specific references to the play. Do not give a plot summary. 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 of 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 character s 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 a 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. Choose 1 of the Following AP Prose Analysis Prompts to Complete in welldeveloped essay. (You will have to locate the prose passage to annotate and write your response to): 1981 George Bernard Shaw on his mother s cremation: Analyze how diction and detail convey attitude. 1982 Stevenson s Cat Bill : Analyze strategies that make the argument effective for his audience. 1983 Thomas Carlyle s Work : Examine how he uses language to convince the reader of the rightness of his position. 1984 Austen s Emma: Explain how passage characterizes Emma more than Harriet. Mailer s Death of Benny Paret : Explain and analyze effect on reader and how diction, syntax, imagery, and tone produce that effect. (Two prose prompts; no poem) 1985 Hemingway s A Farewell to Arms: Compare two drafts of a passage from A Farewell to Arms and analyze the effect of revisions. 1986 Dickens Dombey and Son: Define narrator s attitude toward characters through imagery, diction, narrative structure, choice of detail. 1987 George Eliot s Leisure from Adam Bede: Describe her two views of leisure and discuss stylistic devices she uses to convey those views. 1988 Updike s Reunion : Analyze blend of humor, pathos, and grotesque in their story. 1989 Conrad s Captain MacWhirr from Typhoon: Define attitude of speaker toward Captain and analyze techniques he uses to define Captain s character.
1990 Didion s Self-deception - Self-respect : Show how style and tone help convey attitude. 1991 Boswell s The Life of Samuel Johnson: Discuss the ways Boswell differentiates between the writing of Addison and Johnson. 1992 Beginning and ending of Tillie Olsen s I Stand Here Ironing : Analyze the narrative techniques and other resources of language Olsen uses to characterize the mother and her attitude. Choose 1 of the following AP Poetry Analysis Prompts to Complete in essay format. (You will have to locate the poems to annotate and write your response to): 1993 Poem: The Centaur (May Swenson) Prompt: Read the following poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you discuss how such elements as language, imagery, structure, and point of view convey meaning in the poem. 1994 Poems: To Helen (Edgar Allan Poe) and Helen (H.D.) Prompt: The following two poems are about Helen of Troy. Renowned in the ancient world for her beauty, Helen was the wife of Menelaus, a Greek King. She was carried off to Troy by the Trojan prince Paris, and her abduction was the immediate cause of the Trojan War. Read the two poems carefully. Considering such elements as speaker, diction, imagery, form, and tone, write a well-organized essay in which you contrast the speakers views of Helen. 1995 Poem: The Broken Heart (John Donne) Prompt: Read the following poem carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how the speaker uses the varied imagery of the poem to reveal his attitude toward the nature of love. 1996 Poem: The Author to Her Book (Anne Bradstreet) Prompt: Read carefully the following poem by the colonial American poet, Anne Bradstreet. Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss how the poem s controlling metaphor expresses the complex attitude of the speaker. 1997 Poem: The Death of a Toad (Richard Wilbur) Prompt: Read the following poem carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain how formal elements such as structure, syntax, diction, and imagery reveal the speaker s response to the death of a toad. 1998 Poem: It's a Woman's World (Eavan Boland) Prompt: The following poem was written by a contemporary Irish woman, Eavan Boland. Read the poem carefully and then write an essay in which you analyze how the poem reveals the speaker s complex conception of a woman's world.
1999 Poem: Blackberry-Picking (Seamus Heaney) Prompt: Read the following poem carefully, paying particular attention to the physical intensity of the language. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain how the poet conveys not just a literal description of picking blackberries but a deeper understanding of the whole experience. You may wish to include analysis of such elements as diction, imagery, metaphor, rhyme, rhythm, and form. 2000 Poems: Siren passage from the Odyssey (Homer) / Siren Song (Margaret Atwood) Prompt: The story of Odysseus encounter with the Sirens and their enchanting but deadly song appears in Greek epic poetry in Homer s Odyssey. An English translation of the episode is reprinted in the left column below. Margaret Atwood s poem in the right column is a modern commentary on the classical story. Read both texts carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare the portrayals of the Sirens. Your analysis should include discussion of tone, point of view, and whatever poetic devices (diction, imagery, etc.) seem most appropriate. 2001 Poems: Douglass by Paul Laurence Dunbar and London, 1802 by William Wordsworth Prompt: In each of the following poems, the speaker responds to the conditions of a particular place and time England in 1802 in the first poem, the United States about 100 years later in the second. Read each poem carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems and analyze the relationship between them. 2002 Poem: The Convergence of the Twain (Thomas Hardy) Prompt: Read the following poem carefully. Then, taking into consideration the title of the poem, analyze how the poetic devices convey the speaker s attitude toward the sinking of the ship. 2002B Poem: If I Could Tell You (W. H. Auden) Prompt: The following poem is a villanelle, a form having strict rules of rhyme, meter, and repetition. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the formal elements of the poem contribute to its meaning. 2003 Poems: EPΩ (Robert Bridges) and Eros (Anne Stevenson) Prompt: The following poems are both concerned with Eros, the god of love in Greek mythology. Read the poems carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two concepts of Eros and analyze the techniques used to create them. 2003B Poem from Modern Love (George Meredith) Prompt: The following poem is taken from Modern Love, a poetic sequence by the English writer George Meredith. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poet conveys a view of modern love.