Nathanel Hawthorne
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. The
House of the Seven Gables
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:
Read the following excerpt from the novel. Then write a careful analysis
of how the narrator reveals the character of Judge Pyncheon. You
may emphasize whichever devices (e.g. tone, selection of detail, syntax,
point of view) you find most significant. The
Scarlet Letter Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:
Show how the author developes the significance of the title through the
use of such devices as contrast, repetition, allusion, and point of view.
Another
Essay Prompt on a Literary Element:
Describe the major differences and similarites in a sequence of parallel
or recurring events that occur in this play and discuss the significance
of such events. Do not merely summarize the plot. 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. 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. 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: 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.
The
Scarlet Letter
The
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