Chapter 11: Literary Argument

HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR AN ESSAY ON ANYTHING?

Use all the techniques we’ve already described for writing the prose fiction analysis and poetry analysis essays.
Use the Idea Machine to direct your thoughts and answer the classic question as you go about answering the specifics of the question.

There’s just one more bit of preparation you need for the literary argument:

Three well-chosen works of literature that you know backward and forward.

WHAT THE TEST-WRITERS REALLY WANT FROM YOUR LITERARY ARGUMENT

What the test-writers would really like to do is say,

“Write an essay about any major literary work that you enjoyed. We just want to see how well you can write on a longer work that you’ve read and studied.”

Sample Themes for the Literary Argument

The literary argument question assesses students’ ability to do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents an interpretation and may establish a line of reasoning.
Select and use evidence to develop and support the line of reasoning.
Explain the relationship between the evidence and the thesis.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating the argument.

Preparing for the Literary Argument

You should know at least three works very well.
Primary works - Two of them should be longer works that you’ve studied in class.
The third work is a safeguard in case, for some reason, you can’t apply your knowledge of the first works to the question at all, or in case you need to back up your points with another example.

THE PRIMARY WORKS

The full-length works of the following authors are all good choices:

Jane Austen
James Joyce
Joseph Conrad
Emily and Charlotte Brontë
Charles Dickens
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Toni Morrison
Thomas Hardy
George Eliot
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Thomas Mann

Choose Works You Already Know (and Love)

You’ve already studied some literary works in school. Pick two and go over your notes.
Read the books again or at least spend a few hours looking them over thoroughly.
Pick your favorite work.
Do not pick a short story, a work of nonfiction, or a poem.

The literary argument questions, as a rule, say, “Choose a play or a novel: Do not choose a poem or short story.”

Suggestions for Primary Works

Emma by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

THE SECONDARY WORK

The secondary work is your just-in-case work and perhaps a bit more.
The other reason to prepare a secondary work is simply to have more options.
Prepare your secondary work well and in effect, you have three primary works.
With well-chosen and well-prepared primary and secondary works, you would have to be extremely unlucky to find yourself faced with a literary argument question that did not fit any of the works.

Suggestions for Secondary Works

Novellas and Short Novels:

The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Plays:

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov

What Does “Prepare the Work” Mean?

Two things:

Study the work as thoroughly as you can.
Write a first paragraph based on the classic question for each work you prepare.

Studying Your Primary and Secondary Works

Reread your primary and secondary works within four weeks of the test.
Work from critical editions. The books you should prepare for the AP Exam are the kinds of works that have been studied and restudied over the years.
Write your own study guide.

Your custom study guide should be no longer than one page and should contain the following:

Plot—You want to avoid plot summary in your literary argument, but it’s still important to remember what happens—and why. Chapter by chapter or scene by scene, note what happens but focus on the major conflicts of the book.
Character—Who’s who? This list could be as simple as remembering how they spell their names or it can be as detailed as you want.
Themes—What’s the message or moral of the story? Avoid oversimplification.
Symbols—Scarlet letters, green lights, white whales: what do they stand for and how do they help the author achieve his or her purpose?
Quotations— In the literary argument, it’s important to provide support for your assertions, and even more important to avoid plot summary. Memorizing the quotes—and understanding what each means—allows you to write with more confidence.