Sample AP Essays

Prompt: An eating scene is common in drama and fiction. It may be a simple meal or a banquet, a holiday party or ordinary family dinner, but the work would not be quite the same without it. Choose a play, epic, or novel which contains such a scene of eating, and write an essay in which you discuss what the scene reveals, how the scene is related to the meaning of the work as a whole, and by what means the author makes the scene effective.

ALU

Prompt: A betrayal of trust appears often in novels and plays. In a well-developed essay, discuss how a betrayal of trust occurs in a work of literary merit and how this event adds to the reader’s understanding of character, plot, or theme. Do not limit your comments to plot summary.

Antigone by Sophocles is a play in which betrayal plays an important part. Because Creon betrays the trust of the city of Thebes, the plot moves forward. Without Creon’s betrayal, which is to choose his own law over the ancient rules set by the gods about burial, there would be no story because Antigone would have no reason to rebel. She would marry Haemon, Creon’s son, and live happily ever after, or at least as happy as Oedipus’s children can be.

The story begins when Antigone’s brothers fight over who should rule Thebes. One hires foreign soldiers to attack his brother’s army, which is all Thebans. In the fight the brothers die. Creon becomes the only ruler of Thebes and says that the traitorous brother, the one who betrayed Thebes, may not be buried. The body is supposed to be left out in the open where animals can eat it. Antigone buries her brother’s body and is killed by Creon because of it. Antigone goes to her death willingly because she thinks that the rules the gods made are more important than the ones that Creon made. Also, Antigone feels that she has to do this because it is her brother.

Creon’s duty is to the city. The citizens of Thebes need someone to rule them, and Creon has their trust. He doesn’t deserve that trust because he makes a bad decision. You could say that no one is perfect in decisions, but Creon keeps going, even after the blind prophet Tiresias and the citizens, who are in the chorus, and his own son tell him that he is wrong. To be stubborn and to put yourself above the laws of the gods is betrayal of the city’s trust.

In the end Creon realizes that he is wrong. He tries to undo his actions, ordering the burial of the traitorous brother and running to save Antigone from death. But it is too late. The betrayal is permanent. Antigone is dead, his son is dead, his wife is dead (she commits suicide), and Creon is left alone.

MNT

Prompt: An author frequently develops a character by showing the character in conflict with or in contrast to another character. In a well-developed essay, discuss two characters from a literary work and explain how one helps to define the other. Do not limit your comments to plot summary.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway transverses two worlds in post WWI England — that of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Both present a disillusioned unsatisfied view of the world, and yet Clarissa chooses to live in the society whose worth she is unsure of, and Septimus chooses to commit suicide. Though Clarissa and Septimus are not directly linked, Septimus’s suffering and ultimate death cause her to reevaluate her own situation and choose life. In this way, Septimus defines Clarissa Dalloway.

Septimus was an idealistic young poet who enlisted in the army as a symbol of poetic patriotism. He married a beautiful Italian woman named Lucrezia and was a lively soul. He suffered from shell shock and returned from the war unable to function as a normal human being. He was not sad or angry — he was numb. He watched his best friend Evan die and claimed to not have felt much sadness because he was already numb. Back in England, he hears and sees Evans. His wife is forced to deal with his mental instability alone, and her dream of a perfect family is ruined. She and Septimus are sitting in a park one day and she comments on how they must appear — like a happy couple, when in reality, they can barely communicate, and she has to hold him back from screaming random phrases about “human nature.”

Lucrezia tries to help Septimus and take him to see two doctors: Dr. Holmes and Sir William — both of whom cannot help him and represent to Septimus all that is wrong with English society and, perhaps, humankind. He refers to Dr. Holmes as “human nature” and jumps out of a window when Holmes tries to take him to an asylum. Sir William says that Septimus suffers from a “lack of proportion” and tells Lucrezia, the only person who truly cares for Septimus, that Septimus must be away from her as if she were the problem. Right after Septimus kills himself — in hopes of saving his soul and not having to live in the society he abhors — the doctors give Lucrezia drugs to effectively numb her. The doctors have replaced what the war did to Septimus. One doctor then attends Clarissa’s party immediately afterward, which is when the two stories cross and Clarissa hears of Septimus’s death. The two doctors represent the uncaring position-obsessed English society and do not think another moment of Septimus’s death except when it seems an interesting piece of gossip.

Upon hearing of Septimus’s death, Clarissa leaves her party and retreats into a room of her own. There she contemplates why Septimus killed himself and how she feels similarly to what he must have felt when he made that choice. Like Septimus, she struggles with the balance of privacy and outside communication. She also dislikes society but has, thus far, conformed to it and chosen to live in it. She looks through her window and sees an old woman living her life. Clarissa ultimately chooses to continue living — to continue communicating, unlike Septimus, in addition to having her own private room, her own private life. Septimus could not. Clarissa returns to her party.

Though Septimus is only one man, he represented many of the returning soldiers and disillusioned men and women who lived during the war. Society had no place for them; it did not know how to handle them and chose to ignore their problems. Woolf contrasts this disillusionment with the money-obsessed society of the rich elite, where wanton luxury has replaced feelings and emotions. Though Clarissa chooses life, Septimus is the most moral character at Clarissa’s party, and he defines the compromises Clarissa has made.

USH

In the play, Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is contrasted with Fortinbras and Laertes. The people who see Hamlet understand that the character of Hamlet is different than the other two sons in the play. All three lose fathers. Hamlet finds out in the beginning of the play that his father was murdered by Claudius. Fortinbras, the guards and Horatio explain, lost his father in a war. He was killed by the old king, also named Hamlet. Laertes’s father is Polonius, and Hamlet stabs him.

The three characters react very differently to the deaths of their fathers. Hamlet spends most of his time worrying about revenge and his mother’s marriage to Claudius, but he doesn’t do anything until his mother dies. Fortinbras begins to invade Denmark, but his uncle (another parallel to Hamlet, because Denmark is ruled by Hamlet’s uncle) tells him to stop, and he does. Laertes is the most active character. After his father is killed by Hamlet, Laertes tries to kill Hamlet at the grave of Ophelia. Then, when he is stopped, he agrees to kill Hamlet in a sneaky way, in a duel that Claudius sets up. The only character who goes right to revenge and is not stopped is Laertes. Hamlet stops all the time, whenever he thinks of an excuse. Laertes and Fortinbras define Hamlet by showing that a real man, who is sad because of an unjust death, will act and Hamlet doesn’t.

The other two characters also contrast with Hamlet by the way they deal with power. Laertes is respectful to Claudius and to his father, early in the play. After his father dies, Laertes is willing to kill whoever did it, even if it was Claudius, and he speaks to Claudius angrily. Fortinbras is only on stage for a little while, at the end, but he respects the dead prince, Hamlet, and says that Hamlet would have been a good king. Hamlet, on the other hand, is disrespectful to Claudius throughout the play. Hamlet looks more disrespectful because the other two characters contrast with him.

CBE

Eating ranks among the most primal and sensual activities of mankind. No drive is more primitive or essential, more able to push men to fight or kill. William Golding addresses that primitive nature with the barbaric feast scene in Lord of the Flies. The meal becomes part of a primeval ritual that begins in defiance and ends in violent death. The feast represents the point of no return for the boys on the isle, the moment when most of them descend into irredeemable savagery. Golding metaphorically represents the depths to which the boys have sunk and the power of their instinctual drives in the eating scene.

The castaways have yet to recognize the true identity of the beast they fear. Ignorant of their own innate evil, they hunt and kill, perpetually on the lookout for some horrid demon. Wild boars become ritualistic targets, and they roast the pigs on spits over the fire, crazy with crude salivary lust. When messianic Simon enters the circle of the boys’ feverish tribal dance he is devoured as well. The Christ-figure, who has seen the truth about the boys’ rejection of reason and civilization, who indeed has seen the face of evil incarnate as characterized by the Lord of the Flies, is not literally eaten, but the result is similar. Like the roasting pigs on the spit, the wild boys pounce upon him and tear him apart. Their hunger, the hunger of fear and desperation in the face of a shadowy figure they fail to recognize, is the same fear with which they devour the meal.

The boys have failed to acknowledge their savior, sealing their own doom in the process. By joining Jack’s lawless tribe and rejecting Ralph and Piggy, the boys have reverted to the darker side of human nature. The feast, as well as being the dramatic high point of the novel (and arguably its climax), is a visceral scene of ravenous impulses central to the theme. Nowhere is the boys’ reversion to beastliness more evident than in the feast scene, as they pounce upon the meat and upon their comrade Golding makes use of readers’ senses to describe the scene, evolving archetypal images of fire and storm, chanting and thunder. The feast is melodramatic, not just because of the power-struggle between Ralph and Jack, but because of the setting. The boys dance around an enormous fire on the beach, even as the clouds gather and thunder crashes in the night sky. The storm builds, the suspense mounts, and the boys descend into amorality. When Simon appears from the brush, he is a pitiful figure, strong of character but weak of body. The boys attack, and the results are chilling. As the corpse drifts out to sea, the martyr is food for the fish; another corrupt feast ensues.

The eating scene is indispensable to Lord of the Flies, and through the feast Golding addresses some of his most significant and topical ideas. Both aesthetically and symbolically, the ritual proves crucial to the novel.

LTK

Family meal time — whether a fancy dinner party or an everyday meal — is often included in a written work to show how the main characters communicate with each other, as well as to indicate the intricate, complicated nature of familial relationships. In James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce employs the family eating scene as a means to display Stephen’s family and their inter-woven relationships, as well as a symbolic tie to Ireland, her politics and history.

The Christmas dinner described by Joyce occurs when Stephen — not much more than six or seven — is home on holiday from school. The dinner begins as a happy, relaxed occasion for all the members but soon the atmosphere changes. As the conversation turns away from pleasantries and begins to include extremely different viewpoints, the meal becomes more and more uncomfortable for Stephen. Originally a discussion on differing religious views and political radicals, the atmosphere becomes heated and soon Stephen’s father and aunt are engaged in a shouting match across the table. Stephen does not understand what the conversation is about or what the reason for arguing is. While Stephen’s mother tries to calm everyone down, Stephen is left wondering who Charles Parnell is and why his family is fighting about him. This is the first major introduction to Stephen’s family that Joyce gives the reader, and it is indicative not only of the political atmosphere but it is also foreshadowing Stephen’s future.

The basic idea of a family arguing during a holiday occasion is somewhat shocking Stephen feels disconcerted and upset as well; and that Joyce depicts a family who cannot discuss different viewpoints without screaming at each other indicates how opinionated and proud they are. On an elementary level, this eating scene demonstrates the Dedalus family’s inability to communicate as thinking, rational adults. It shows the reader the lack of affection and respect the family members have for each other. This is an unfortunate situation which contrasts sharply with the theme of holiday joy and caring.

That the family is arguing about religion and political figures, two volatile subjects, reinforces the theme of Irish history and politics. Charles Parnell is mentioned often throughout the book, a symbol of Ireland’s explosive political atmosphere. This argument is the beginning of several similar arguments that Stephen will observe and participate in, in school and in his home. This idea of political unrest and debate that shakes the nation of Ireland is a persistent theme that Joyce employs.

This dinner scene is also a method of foreshadowing. At the dinner table Stephen feels confused and no one will explain the argument to him. This major theme of isolation is expanded upon during Christmas dinner. Stephen feels upset and alienated, and it is possible for the reader to begin to see a rift between the generations present at the table. This rift continues as Stephen grows older and further away from his parents emotionally. At this meal, Stephen is unable to relate to the family’s discussion, a pattern that continues later in his life as he is unable to relate to his parents and siblings. At this meal Joyce begins the alienation of Stephen, a motif that continues during his school years, and perhaps the most impressive theme of the novel.

James Joyce uses a family holiday meal to create the beginnings of several themes that reappear throughout the book. Foreshadowing, symbolism, and the idea of isolation are apparent in this commotion, which Joyce utilizes effectively to tie this scene to the work as a whole.

MOC

Prompt: Many plays and novels that focus upon the courtship or marriage of a man and a woman include a second pair who help to define the central figures. Write a well-organized essay in which you discuss how the secondary man and woman illuminate the central characters of the work.

Courtship and marriage are often primary focuses in written works. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley are helpful in defining Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.

For all her beauty, wit, and intelligence, Elizabeth’s greatest fault is her nature to judge people too quickly. Her initial prejudice towards Darcy and her pride in her ability to judge people prevent her from knowing his true nature. Similarly, Darcy’s pride and his inability to overcome his prejudice against some of the connections of Jane and Elizabeth deter his pursuit of Elizabeth. Jane and Bingley, on the other hand, have no pride and prejudice. They fall in love almost at first sight. Being without pride, they are also passive, and Bingley lets Darcy draw him away from Jane. Darcy, misled by Jane’s placid behavior, genuinely believes she does not love Bingley, and Bingley accepts Darcy’s view. If Darcy is too proud, Bingley is too modest to trust his own judgment. If Elizabeth is too quick to find faults, Jane is too nice and can see only the best in people. For this reason, she fails to understand Caroline Bingley or to judge Darcy as harshly as Elizabeth does. Darcy and Elizabeth show the danger of too much pride and prejudice; Jane and Bingley show the danger of too little.

The two couples also illuminate each other’s strong points, Darcy is interfering but also motivated by genuine concern for Bingley’s well-being. Elizabeth’s dislike of Darcy is partly caused by her love for Jane. When Elizabeth realizes how proud and prejudiced she has been, she realizes more than ever before Jane’s true strength and value. The wit of Elizabeth is set off by the kinder but far less interesting character of Jane, just as Darcy’s greater depth, intelligence, and complexity is set off by contrast with the genial but bland Bingley. Because of the roles that Jane and Bingley play, the characters of Elizabeth and Darcy are brought more clearly into focus. Jane Austen uses this secondary couple to clarify Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship, giving meaning to the title Pride and Prejudice.

DWB

Analysis:

ALU

The essay addresses parts of the question, but the writer makes a fairly common mistake: He or she spends far too much time retelling the events of Sophocles’ play. The writer does mention that the betrayal of the city’s trust — an interesting and justifiable idea — drives the plot. However, the writer never discusses how the betrayal adds to the reader’s understanding of plot, character, or theme.

The writer identifies Creon’s betrayal of the citizens’ trust. After that idea, however, the writer has only one other valuable thing to say: that Creon’s stubborn refusal to listen to others’ advice adds to the betrayal. These two points could certainly form the basis of a sophisticated literary analysis, but the writer doesn’t develop them. The only other point the writer makes is the far-too-simple statement that “the plot moves forward” because of Creon’s betrayal.

The writer includes a fair number of details about the plot. However, he or she doesn’t do much with the details. In other words, the details don’t serve as evidence for the essay’s

thesis — that Creon has betrayed the public’s trust.

This writer has some style. The essay flows in vaguely chronological order, and it has an introduction and a conclusion. However, there are also several grammar mistakes.

Score: 4

MNT

This essay does address the question; it stays on topic and shows how the juxtaposition of Septimus and Clarissa serves to define Clarissa’s character. The information about Lucrezia may be omitted as it does not directly relate to the two characters being discussed, Septimus and Clarissa.

The writer understands Mrs. Dalloway, and her observations about the two main characters are insightful. The second paragraph nails the characterization of Septimus, mentioning his relationship with his wife and the appearance of a happy family that’s belied by Septimus’s inner turmoil. The third paragraph explains the symbolic meanings of the doctors’ treatment of Septimus. The fourth paragraph turns to Clarissa Dalloway, analyzing her in light of Septimus’s suicide. The last paragraph beautifully explains that Clarissa’s choice of life is made in the context of Septimus’s death.

Because the text isn’t available to the writer, the exam graders won’t expect quotations. They will, however, expect specifics, and this essay includes quite a few, such as the condition of Septimus after the war, his random statements, the values of society, the doctors’ treatment of Septimus, the reaction of Clarissa to the death, the old woman that Clarissa sees, and Clarissa’s eventual return to the party. These examples come from various spots in the novel, not just one place. Thus the writer has demonstrated an understanding of the whole work, a plus on the AP exam.

This writer has a strong command of language, with very few mechanical errors. The essay gets to the point, moves smoothly from one idea to another, and comes to a logical conclusion.

Score: 8

USH

The writer of this sample makes a crucial and fairly common mistake. Instead of dealing with two characters, as the question specifies, the writer can’t resist throwing in a third. Yes, the essay discusses how Hamlet is defined by another character, but instead of sticking with Laertes, the best foil for Hamlet, the writer plops Fortinbras into the mix. Bad idea. First of all, exam writers — and exam graders — tell you what to do and then expect you to obey. Not fair, perhaps, but true. Second, the writer’s points about Fortinbras aren’t great. How can they be when the character shows up only in the last scene? Fortinbras is discussed by other characters, but the limited time given for this essay would have been better spent analyzing Laertes and Hamlet.

The essay makes a couple of good points about Hamlet — his lack of action in comparison to Laertes’s rush to vengeance and Hamlet’s disrespect for authority. However, this essay conveniently ignores the fact that the authority in question, Claudius, got there by murdering the previous authority, Hamlet’s father. The information about Fortinbras, while not called for, is accurate. The reader definitely won’t drown in the literary depth of this essay, even if he or she wears lead weights and has no idea how to swim.

This essay has no quotations (not even “To be or not to be”!), but you can’t expect quotations without a text to work from. However, the graders do expect some specific facts from the work. Everything in the essay is general. The writer doesn’t speak about Laertes’s fight at Ophelia’s grave, Hamlet’s chance to kill Claudius when Claudius is praying, or any other events. The details just aren’t there.

This writer hasn’t created a fluent, graceful sentence. Not even one! Just read the first sentence aloud. Hear the choppiness? The essay is readable, but there are several grammar mistakes.

Score: 4

CBE and LTK

There are several problems with the Joyce essay. The first is its inaccurate recollection of the book. Mr. Casey is not a relative. Dante is not Stephen’s aunt and not a relative of the Dedalus family, so the argument that the scene demonstrates the family’s lack of affection and respect is simply untrue. At this point in the book, the Dedalus family is affectionate. The essay does too little with the role religion is to play in the novel. Its chief defect is its failure to deal with the third task (the “means” by which the author makes the scene effective).

The essay on the Golding novel, on the other hand, is much more convincing. It deals fully and clearly with all three parts of the question, and though it is much shorter than the Joyce essay, it tells us much more about the meaning of the novel and the techniques by which Golding makes this scene so powerful. Inaccurate and incomplete, the Joyce essay would probably be scored a five, while the Golding essay would receive a seven or eight.

MOC

This excellent student essay, an eight on the nine-point scale, on Pride and Prejudice will give you an idea of what might be done with this question. The essay shows how Jane and Bingley throw light on Elizabeth and Darcy and on the meaning of the title of the novel.

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