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Welcome to the School House Books Online Services Public Recommended List of Plays with The Open Question Essay Prompts and Links |
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The Dramatist: HENRIK IBSEN By Bjorn Hemmer (a professor at the University of Oslo) A Doll's House Study Guide La Tarantella A Doll
House topics of discuission: expectations, sins of the father
(Oedipus stuff), identity, truth, expectations of the man and woman in
a marriage, what marriage meant then, and do a lot of dissecting the end
of the play and whether it is a fitting resolution. For
fun, read some self-help stuff . I hand out lists about what makes
a
1971 Essay Prompt: The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure), the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only gredually. Why do you think Henrik Ibsen chose A Doll's Houseas his title? Write a well-organized eassy that shows how the significance of this choice of title is developed through the use of such devices as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view. Ghosts Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel or play and, 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. Hedda Gabler 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 pivitol 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. 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. 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. 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. This play uses 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 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. This novel 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. An Enemy of the People Analyze the recurring theme seen in this play 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. 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. In this play, a characterónot necessarily the protagonistóis 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. 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. |