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Public Recommended List of Novels with
Open Question Essay Prompts and Links 
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment    Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:   Analyze the conflict created when the will of an individual opposes the will of the majority.  Discuss the moral and ethical implications that this conflict has for the individual and for society.  

Another 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:  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.   

1988 Open Question:  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 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--not necessarily the protagonist--is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences.  Write a well-organized essay that identifies each conflicting force and explain how this plaguing conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of 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 

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.  

Another Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:  Critique Roland Barthes has said, "Litarature 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.

Notes from the Underground    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.  

The Brothers Karamozov  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.
Biography
Crime And Punishment
The story of a murder and a killer who tries to put himself above society because of the reason behind the killing.
Crime and Punishment Essay Assignment
The Gambler
A first-person account by compulsive gambler Alexei's passion and despair about his addiction.
The Idiot
Prince Myshkin returns to Russia and becomes involved in the scheming of the upper classes.
Notes from the Underground
The apology and confession of a public official, detailing his separation from society and subsequent decent into the Underground.
Poor Folk
Letters written between a middle-aged man, Devushkin, and a young woman, Varvara.


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