Essay Prompts

1) Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values. Select a novel or play that includes such acts of betrayal. Then, in a well written essay, analyze the nature of the betrayal and show how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

2) Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then, write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why this ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole.

3) Writers often highlight the values of culture or society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.

1) In the play The Doll House, a wife leaves her husband and her children for freedom for her own opinion. The time at which this play is set in many years back into history, and there are few women’s rights. Nora, the wife, becomes disgusted with her husband’s abusing manipulative ways and chooses to leave him, even though it is entirely unheard of and her quality of life is sure to diminish. She chose to leave her children with this wretch of a man after he finds out about her helping with the finances and refuses to treat her as a wife anymore. Although she loves her children, she realizes a life without her will be near the same as they will have the nurse, but if her children ever find out the “treachery” she committed, it wouldn't be. To Nora, assisting in financial income was a sin upon her marriage. Her husband told her never to help and she betrayed that custom and “trust”. This all occurs towards the very end of the play. To the play this adds dramatics, and is the climax to the story. In addition to this, it also revolves around the idea of feminism and  relationships that work within the play. The woman betrays her own promises to help the one she made those promises to.

2)No country for Old men

The book No country for Old Men has an interesting view on morals. It is open for interpretation from every reader. All of the characters have their own unique  ways of dealing with things. Some would consider one of the main characters, Sheriff Bell, extremely moral, others the complete opposite, but most view him as dead in between. While Sheriff Bell appears as a moral man we find things out about him as the story goes on, things he's done that are not so moral. He does a good man’s work. He abides by the law and he enforces it as well. However, he also ran away from his men in battle, and was the only survivor. He received a medal of honor for being the last survivor, which he accepted, even though he knew it wasn't truly an honor. In the end of the story, he gives up in chasing down a serial killer. He doesn't believe he can catch him without dying so he gives up and retires to the quiet life. Without this consideration of Bell in the book, the story would be lacking intricacy and meaning. It also has a sense of existentialism that it brings to the table, but without this choices have been made mentality of Bell, it wouldn't be as strong.

3) Fences by August Wilson

The play Fences by August Wilson is ridden with racial inequality on both social and economical levels. The play focuses on three people, Troy, the father, Cory, the son, and Rose, the wife. They are all black people living in a majority white society. Although there are no characters who are the privileged white they are so outcast from, racial discrimination is a huge theme within this production. Troy is the most obvious example  from the text. He forbids Cory to play ball, based off of his own experiences as a black athlete. Even though he was a good player, there were no unsegregated leagues for him to play in, and in turn he couldn't make it to the “big leagues”. Even though they have progressed to a time where integration is becoming more common in sports, Troy refuses to let Cory play ball. This plays to the theme of the book overall. How can one’s previous, or their parents experiences of being an outcast affect one’s life and choices.