AP Lit Final Texts

Hedda Gabler. Ibsen's great social drama of a caged woman in the late nineteenth century explores her tormented desire for escape and her yearning for individual and spiritual freedom.

Hairy Ape. The play tells the story of a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. At first Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an oceanliner, and is highly confident in his physical power over the ship's engines. However, when the weak but rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business refers to him as a "filthy beast," Yank undergoes a crisis of identity.
Plays by Bernard Shaw

The Adding Machine - Elmer L. Rice. This constantly interesting play shows in outline the life history and, in its later scenes, the death history of Mr. Zero, a cog in the vast machine of modern business.

Our Town - Thornton Wilder. Described by Edward Albee as “…the greatest American play ever written,” the story follows the small town of Grover’s Corners through three acts: “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage,” and “Death and Eternity.” Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, audiences follow the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually—in one of the most famous scenes in American theatre—die.

Streetcar Named Desire - T. Williams. Widely considered a landmark play, A Streetcar Named Desire deals with a culture clash between two iconic characters, Blanche DuBois, a relic of the Old South,[5] and Stanley Kowalski,[6] a rising member of the industrial, urban working class. The play presents Blanche DuBois, a fading but still-attractive Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask alcoholism and delusions of grandeur. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others (but most of all, herself) from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors.

Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, and its action is drawn from the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom is a character in the play, which is set in St. Louis in 1937. He is an aspiring poet who toils in a shoe warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. Mr. Wingfield, Tom and Laura’s father, ran off years ago and, except for one postcard, has not been heard from since.

Death of a Salesman – A. Miller. Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. The play endeavors to raise a counterexample to Aristotle's characterization of tragedy as the downfall of a great man: though Loman certainly has Hamartia, a tragic flaw or error, his downfall is that of an ordinary man (a "low man"). Like Sophocles' Oedipus in Oedipus the King, Loman's flaw comes down to a lack of self-knowledge; unlike Oedipus, Loman's downfall threatens not the city but only a single household.

Oresteia Trilogy (only need to read one play)
Desire under the Elms – O’Neill. A fiercely energetic drama of Oedipal lust and yearning involving a rebellious farm boy, his tyrannical father, and the father's slatternly new wife.
Strange Interlude – O’Neill. O'Neill forges a theatrical vehicle for the discoveries of modern psychology, giving outward form to his characters' inexpressible thoughts and feelings.
Mourning Becomes Electra – O’Neill. The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist transplants the themes of Aeschylus's ORESTEIA into Civil War-era New England.

Guest Blogger: Lauren W.

In class we have just finished reading Oedipus Rex, the story of a man whose prophecy from the oracles as a child was that he would kill his father and marry his mother. The boy was chained on the mountain and rescued be a sheep herder who gave the child to a couple who raised him as their own. Oedipus tries the best that he can to avoid making the prophecy come true. I think that the more you try to avoid your fate, the faster it comes after you. I don't blame Oedipus for what happens in the story, because for all he knew his parents were the Corinthians and he did not want to hurt them which is why he left. Although he had good reason to leave, it may have been possible for him to avoid the prophecy if he would have not left, for he may not have ever come into contact with his real parents.
Throughout everything that happens, I respect Oedipus. He says that the man who is responsible for Laius' murder will be exiled. When Oedipus starts to connect the dots about the murder, instead of hiding from the truth and blaming it on somebody else Oedipus continues to investigate his involvement in the murder. When the truth is out not only does Oedipus gouge out his eyes, he orders to be sent to exile and begs for his children/siblings to be taken care of and not be punished for the situation that he and his mother put them in. Oedipus proves to be a man of his words and is truly sorry for all of the trouble he has caused and he really cannot be blamed for marrying his mother because he honestly had no idea, nobody had any idea who he was.

Guest Blogger: Jessica S.

So in class we have just finished the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Throughout the work, Shakespeare touches on many different themes that can further deepen the meaning of the play. One of the themes explored is death. Hamlet ponders the act of killing himself for the entire play and eventually takes action on his plan at the end of the play, taking his life and the life of the king/ his uncle as well as the life of Polonius; the father of his girlfriend.
Shakespeare also incorporates the theme of insanity. In the begging of the play Hamlet tells his friend Horatio that he may act strangely. He was not kidding. By the end of the play Hamlet has almost everyone convinced that he has truly lost his mind. He speaks nonsense and eventually ends up killing two people by the end of the novel. Although Hamlet planned on only acting crazy, I believe that by the end of the novel he had truly lost his mind but Horatio did not realize it because he still believed he was acting.
The third motif explored in Hamlet is that of revenge. The ghost tells Hamlet that he needs to avenge him. Hamlet wholeheartly agrees, thus showing his respect for his dead father. Although when Hamlet does have the perfect opportunity he chooses not to kill his uncle because he was praying and Hamlet did not want him to go to heaven because he had confessed his sins. This act also adds suspense to the play because the audience later finds out that Claudius finds that he cannot pray, so Hamlet could of killed him, thus saving himself ALOT of trouble in the final scenes of the play

Guest Blogger: Jeanne D.

Since a blog has not been done yet about Tragedy, I am going to do it. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a perfect example of a tragedy. I used to think that a tragedy had only to do with the end being sad. Little did I know that there was more to it! A tragedy has to have a main character who is at a royal status, or at least pretty high up there. Hamlet happens to be a prince, so that works out perfectly. He has a long ways to fall during his tragic downfall. Basically everyone in a tragedy dies and so far in Hamlet we have seen the death of Old Hamlet, Polonius, and Ophelia. A tragedy also is a house for supernatural incidents. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet sees a ghost of his late father, who tells Hamlet to avenge him. Revenge, not surprisingly, is also a common element among tragedies.
In class these past few days we have been in the midst of reading one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet. Since the last blogger wrote, we haven't learned much additional information in class. Today we talked a bit about theme and what the theme is in Hamlet. Theme is expressible in the form of a statement, and should have a subject. Theme is also a generalization about life and should not generalize life outside of the story. And under no circumstances should theme be a cliché. Common themes in Hamlet are death, revenge and madness/insanity.
The reader can pick up some of the major themes in Hamlet by the poetic structures that Shakespeare uses. He ends most scenes or soliloquies with a heroic couplet, which signals to the reader that it is an important part. At the end of scene 3 act 1, Hamlet uses a heroic couplet to talk about his revenge that he is to take on his uncle. "Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes." Revenge happens to be a major theme throughout Hamlet.

Guest Blogger: Cadie E.

Currently in class we are studying poetic structure and how deeply it can affect literature. We have been looking at examples of prose and poetry to understand the contrast between them. Prose is an ordinary form of language, it’s more straightforward, and poetry’s language is more artistic. William Shakespeare has a unique way of writing, everything he writes has a meaning to it, and some may be hard to define.
For example, he often times writes Shakespearean sonnets with heroic couplets. Sonnets are fourteen lines long with the first twelve having a pattern and the last two being heroic couplets. The pattern is A B A B C D C D E F E F, and the heroic couplet is G G, meaning the last words of A and A rhyme, B and B rhyme and so on. But, when you get to the last two lines of G and G, they rhyme together, rather than rhyming with every other line. It seems as though he uses the last two lines of sonnet as heroic couplets to give a greater impact or to end the poem with a bang. William Shakespeare may also use this technique to show an evident ending to the writing or to emphasize it.
Hamlet frequently changes his poetic structure from prose to poetry depending whom he is talking with are what he is speaking of. When speaking to peasants or people under him, he usually speaks in prose but when speaking romantically, thoughtfully or in his soliloquy he is much more poetic. Prince Hamlet is short speaking and does not reveal much of his feelings to others. However, when he has his soliloquy it reaches into his emotions and his truest thoughts, which is why it may be more sensitive and poetic. Some readers ponder whether Hamlet has honestly gone mad, or if it’s all for show. The audience needs to see this side of Hamlet to try to comprehend and analyze his thought process, which even with the soliloquy may still be unclear.

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth P.

In class we have recently begun to read William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” now that our study of poetry is over. I was faintly surprised to find that certain literary devices, namely connotation and denotation, from poetry are still applicable to “Hamlet.” According to Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, denotation is, “the dictionary meaning or meanings of the word” whereas connotation is what a word, “suggests beyond what it expresses: its overtones of meaning … acquire[d] … from its past history and associations, from the way and the circumstances in which it has been used.” More simply put, connotation is what we believe the word to mean or represent despite the fact that our supposed definition of the word is unlike anything in its actual definition. Take the word ‘home’ for example. Its dictionary definition is a building in which people live, but its connotation to most people is along the lines of love, comfort, and security.
In poetry the reader must distinguish whether the author intended the denotation, connotation, or both to be used and then understand why and how it contributes to the author’s central purpose. The use of the word frigate in the poem “There is no Frigate like a Book” by Emily Dickenson is one example. A frigate is a type of ship, but its connotation suggests exploration and adventure. Imagine if in place of the word frigate, Dickenson used the word steamship or boat; either of these choices do not supply the same connotative purpose that frigate does.

In “Hamlet,” the denotative and connotative purposes are used slightly differently than they are in poetry. The character Hamlet often makes jests, relying on the multiple denotative or connotative definitions words have. In the first scene Gertrude, the queen and Hamlet’s mother, is speaking with Hamlet on his father’s death. She is attempting to explain to him that it is common, usual, that people die; everyone will eventually. Hamlet replies by saying that it is common, but uses the word in such a way that common in this instance means those of the lower class. In the next line Gertrude uses the word ‘seems’ to ask Hamlet why he is acting as if his father’s death is a particularly awful occurrence. However, Hamlet twists the meaning to make it seem as if she is asking him why he is putting on an act of grief; he then replies that he is not acting, answering his own twisted question. Before the above conversation Hamlet, calls Claudius, “A little more than kin and less than kind.” Because it is Hamlet the word ‘kind’ has a double meaning. It could have the meaning of being one of Hamlet’s kindred, which is also implied by the statement, “A little more than kin.” It could also mean, when paired with less than, that Hamlet is referring to Claudius as one who is heartless and ruthless. The way that Hamlet uses both the denotative and connotative meanings of certain words help to make clear a portion of Hamlet’s character: that he likes to jest, has an education, and frowns upon his stepfather.

Brian R.

The last week of AP Literature has been dedicated to the exploration of poetry. It is no secret that many of us detest this form of literature, perhaps because many of us do not know how to attack a poem, and therefore are left for dead from the get-go. So, in class, we have looked at how to find a way in, to have a way of getting to the core of what the poem really means. So in my blog post I will explore these methods and how I attempt to make them successful.
The first thing we learned to do after reading a poem is try to answer four essential questions, which were presented in Perrine’s “Sound and Sense”. The questions are: Who is the speaker? What is the occasion? What is the Central Purpose of the Poem? How does the author portray that purpose? These questions provide the reader with a few main topics to get to the main point of a poem. So let’s take a closer look.
The first question, “Who is the Speaker?” gives us a few important things, among them perspective in the poem, the tone, the mood, and the diction. Understanding the perspective in the poem is very important in gaining an understanding of the poem. Understanding the speaker’s background, personality, and beliefs allow the reader to make inferences about the character’s actions. Next, by understanding the occasion of the poem, a reader can gain further understanding of why the speaker says what he says or does what he does in a poem (or she, I just used he for convenience). For example, in the poem “The History Teacher” the occasion is that a teacher is trying to shield his students from the harsh realities of history. If one didn’t understand this, the poem would be a complete blur and would not be enjoyable to read whatsoever. Finally, the last two questions are related but are very important. The third question, “What is the central purpose?” is vital in understanding a poem. This question can often have several answers, which in my opinion is one of poetry’s redeeming qualities. It is up to the reader to decide what the purpose is, and answering the fourth question can often help find that answer. By looking at how the author conveys his or her purpose through the usage of literary techniques, a reader can see symbols, motifs, and finally, discover the poems central purpose, and with that can conquer any poem they are faced with.
Understanding poetry is a difficult task, but by answering the four essential questions it can be made much less difficult.