Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Show how the conventional or stereo-typed character is used to accomplish the author's purpose.  

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  Show how a character's attempts to recapture or reject the past is used to develop an important theme in the novel.)

A Tale of Two Cities   Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Write a well-organized essay that analyzes how this novel confronts the reader with a scene or scenes of violence.  Be sure to explain how these scenes contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole.  Avoid plot summary.    

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Some of the most significant events in this work is mental or psychological;  for example, awakenings, discoveries, changes in consciousness.  In a well-organized essay, describe how the author manages to gives these internal events the sense of excitement, suspense, and climax usually associated with external events.  Do not merely summarize the plot.  

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   This novel uses contratsting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that arecentral to the meaning of the work.  Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the overall meaning of the work.   

Bleak House  (1994 Open Question:  In this novel, a character who appears briefly, or does not apppear at all, is a significant presence.  Write an essay that shows how this character functions in this work.  You may wish to discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters.

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Although not usually identified with the detective story genre, this work does involve the investigation of a mystery.  Write an essay which identifies the mystery, explaining how the knowledge gained from the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.  Do not merely summarize the plot.   

Dombey and Son   Essay Prompt on Attitude:  The passage below is the opening of the novel.  Read the passage carefully.  The write an essay in which you define the narrator's attitude toward the characters and show how he directs the reader's perceptions of those characters through his use of such stylistic devices as imagery, diction, narrative structure, and choice of specific details.)

Great Expectations   Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  Choose a complex character from this play who might--on the bisis of the character's actions alone--be considered evil or immoral.  Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how and why the full presentation of the character in the play makes us react more sympathetically than we otherwise might.  Avoid plot summary.    

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Analyze the recurring theme seen in this novel of 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 that may conflict with moral duty.  Then, in a well-written essay, show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.   

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   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 this novel are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of this novel.  Avoid plot summary.    

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  In this novel, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is used to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in.  Frequently, as Henry James puts it, this friend or relative of the protagonist can be as much "the reader's friend as the protagonist's."  Write an essay in which you discuss the various ways this character functions in the work.    

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   This work highlights 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.  Write a well-organized essay that analyzes how the alienation of one character reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.     

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   This work offers a happy ending through moral development.  Write a well-organized essay that identifies the moral reconciliation evident on the ending and analyze its significance in the work as a whole. 

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   In this novel, a character's apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role.  Write a well-organized essay in which you explain what this eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable.  Explain the significance of the madness to the work as a whole.)  

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  Critique 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.

Hard Times     Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  Note the changes in social or political attitudes that are advocated in this novel.  Then analyze the techniques that the author uses to influence the reader's views.  Avoid plot summary.  Do  not write about a film or television program.   

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  This novel depicts a conflict between a parent or parental figure and a son or daughter.  Write a well-organized essay that analyzes the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.  Avoid plot summary.

David Copperfield; Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Select an important character in this novel who is a villain.  Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of ther character's villainy and show how it enhances the meaning of the work .  Avoid plot summary.  Do not base your essay on a work that you know about only from having seen a television or movie production of it.   

Our Mutual Friend    Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  This novel depicts a conflict between a parent or parental figure and a son or daughter.  Write a well-organized essay that analyzes the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.  Avoid plot summary. 

American Notes for General Circulation
The true account of Dickens tour of America.
Barnaby Rudge - A Tale Of The Riots Of 'Eighty
A historical tale that takes place during the anti-popery riots of 1780, the story is based around the murder of Reuben Haredale.
Bleak House
Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife, who harbors the secret of having borne an illegitimate child when she was young. The child is still alive and through a series of tragic events, finally learns the secret about her past.
The Chimes
Trotty Veck, over the course of his life, becomes convinced that poor are born bad. Spirits from the bell tower at a nearby church show him how the future might be if Veck continues to think badly of his fellow man. He awakens a changed man and heads to his daughter's wedding.
A Christmas Carol
The beloved story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his life-changing encounters with several ghosts on Christmas Eve.
The Cricket on the Hearth
John Peerybingle, a mail carrier, and his wife, Dot meet a mysterious stranger. 
David Copperfield
Born after the death of his father and abandoned by his aunt, who wanted a girl, the story tells of David Copperfield's turbulent life, through his rise to adulthood when he finally finds happiness.
Great Expectations
Pip, an orphan, meets an escaped convict and falls in love with beautiful Estella, the ward of Miss Havisham. 
Hard Times
A successful businessman, Thomas Gradgrind, teaches his children to accept the hardness of life. He arranges for his daughter Lousia to marry Josiah Bounderby, a man thirty years older than her.  Gradgrind's son robs Bounderby's bank and Louisa runs away, it forces Gradgrind to reevaluate his life.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
The story of the Nickleby family. After the death of their patriarch, a cruel uncle sends Nicholas to a boarding school. There Nicholas befriends Smike, and the two escape. Nicholas seeks a way to help his family out of their squalor while getting revenge against his uncle.
Little Dorrit
William Dorrit is imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison for debt for such a long time that he is now called 'The Father of Marshalsea.' He lives only for his daughter, Amy, 'Little Dorrit.' He meets Arthur Clenham, and a fortune comes into their lives. Clenham eventually ends up in the same prison, and there his tale unfolds.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Edwin Drood, who is engaged to Rosa, an orphan, disappears.  Dickens died before completing this story, leaving it unsolved. 
The Old Curiosity Shop
Oliver Twist Or The Parish Boy's Progress
The life, adventures, and tragedies in the life of Oliver Twist, an orphan who, after being sold to a cruel man, escapes to the streets and, under the tutorship of the Artful Dodger, learns how to become a thief.
Our Mutual Friend
The body of John Harmon is found in the Thames. His fortune goes to "Noddy" Boffing, a kind, but poor clerk.
The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club
A Tale Of Two Cities
A narrative of the French Revolution set in both Paris and London.  Charles Darnay renounces his social status against the will of his uncle, the Marquis de St Evremonde. Darnay leaves Frances and marries Dr. Manette's daughter. Darnay returns to France, tries to save a servant, is arrested, and sentenced to death. The rest of the novel concerns itself with whether or not Darnay must die for his heroic action or if he can be saved, and by whom.