2004 FRQ #3
Post date: Sep 25, 2013 4:15:1 PM
Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel or play and, or considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
You may select a work from the list below or another novel or play of comparable literary merit.
Alias Grace Middlemarch
All the King's Men Moby Dick
Candide Obasan
Crime and Punishment Oedipus Rex
Death of a Salesman Orlando
Doctor Faustus A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Don Quixote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
A Gesture Life The Scarlet Letter
Ghosts Sister Carrie
Great Expectations The Sound and the Fury
The Great Gatsby Sula
Gulliver's Travels The Sun Also Rises
Heart of Darkness Their Eyes Were Watching God
Invisible Man The Things They Carried
Joe Turner's Come and Gone The Turn of the Screw
King Lear Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf
Major Barbara