Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery. In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation. Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery. Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
Sample upper-level responses as determined by the AP readers:
In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
analysis questions:
What is immediately significant or surprising? What dominant image is present and what are that image's metaphorical values? What contrasts are being presented: opposites, foils, unresolved questions? What motivates characters? What is significant or surprising about how characters develop? What is significant or surprising about how characters react to changes? What is ironic?
Sample upper-level responses as determined by the AP readers:
Tragic drama is intellectually enlarging and "ennobling."
Tragedy makes the experience of the tragic figure our experience.
The audience is moved to pity (eleos) and fear (phobos) as it shares the tragic figure's reversal of fortune and suffering.
Tragic figures, or the tragic hero
a person of noble birth who suffers a reversal of fortune (peripeteia), usually caused by a character defect (harmatia) or arrogance (hubris)
Through suffering, the tragic figure recognizes the scope of his action and his place in the universe. By extension, he has a deep insight into human nature. (anagnorisis)
The tragic figure endures uncommon suffering with uncommon dignity
Catharsis
"purgation," but also "distillation" and "purification"
The audience experiences pity and terror.
We learn what it means to be human.
We see the magnitude of human suffering and the extent of human potential in the face of that suffering.
Dramatic irony is the catalyst of the cathartic experience.
Paradox: The tragic figure and the audience learn that life is a paradox: Those who profess to see are blind; those who are "blind" to the prejudices and arrogance of the world are in fact "inSIGHTful.".
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