AP English Book IV List
These books have appeared on the AP Test, many of them more than once.
Adv. of Huckleberry Finn, The - Mark Twain
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Anthony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare
Antigone - Sophocles
Awakening, The - Kate Chopin
Billy Budd - Herman Melville
Castle, The - Franz Kafka
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Cherry Orchard, The - Anton Chekov
Color Purple, The - Alice Walker
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Cyrano De Berjerac - Edmond Rostand
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
Demain - Herman Hesse
Doll's House, A - Henrik Ibsen
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
Enemy of the People, An - Henrik Ibsen
Farewell to Arms, A - Ernest Hemingway
Glass Menagerie, The - Tennessee Williams
Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin
Grapes of Wrath, The - John Steinbeck
Great Gatsby, The - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ghosts - Henrik Ibsen
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Hedda Gabler - Henrik Ibsen
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Henry IV - Shakespeare
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
King Lear - Shakespeare
Light in August - William Faulkner
Long Day's Journey into Night, A - Eugene O'Neill
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
Macbeth - Shakespeare
Man for all Seasons, A - Robert Bolt
Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
Major Barbara - George Bernard Shaw
Merchant of Venice, The - Shakespeare
Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot
Native Son - Richard Wright
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Odyssey, The - Homer
Oedipus the King - Sophocles
Othello - Shakespeare
Our Town - Thornton Wilder
Paradise Lost - John Milton
Passage to India, A - E.M. Forester
Plague, The - Albert Camus
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Portrait of a Lady - James Joyce
Power and the Glory, The - Graham Greene
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw
Raisin in the Sun, A - Lorraine Hansberry
Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare
Richard III - Shakespeare
Scarlet Letter, The - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Sound and the Fury, The - William Faulkner
Stranger, The - Albert Camus
Sun Also Rises, The - Ernest Hemmingway
Tale of Two Cities, A - Charles Dickens
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora N. Hurston
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Albee
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
1993 Test Question gave a list of authors from which to choose.
Aristophanies
Moliere
Margaret Atwood
Valdimir Navokov
Jane Austen
Gloria Naylor
Samuel Beckett
Walker Percy
Lord Byron
Harold Pinter
Geoffrey Chaucer
Alexander Pope
Charles Dickens
Barbara Pym
T.S. Eliot
Mordecai Richler
William Faulkner
Shakespeare
Henry Fielding
George Bernard Shaw
Zora Neale Hurston
Tom Stoppard
Aldous Huxley
Jonathan Swift
Henry James
Anthony Trollope
Ben Jonson
Mark Twain
Franz Kafka
Voltaire
Margaret Laurence
Evelyn Waugh
Bobbie Ann Mason
Oscar Wilde
"The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." -George Meredith
Choose a novel, play, or long poem in which a scene or character awakens "thoughtful laughter" in the reader. Write an essay
in which you show why this laughter is "thoughtful" and how it contributes to the meaning of the work.
Choose a novel, play, or long poem by one of the following authors or another author of comparable merit.
1994 Choices
1984
Adv. Huck Finn
Antigone
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
As I Lay Dying
Bleak House
Bear, The
Catch 22
Cat's Eye
Ceremony
Color Purple, The
Death of a Salesman
Glass Menagerie, The
Hamlet
Heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
J.B.
Jane Eyre
Mayor of Casterbridge
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
Obansan
Optimist's Daughter
Raisin in the Sun, A
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Turn of the Screw, The
Twelfth Night
Waiting for Godot
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel
or play of literary merit and write an essay in which you show how such a character functions in the work. You may wish to
discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the development of other characters.
1995 Choices
Adventures of Huck Finn
America Is in the Heart
America Tragedy, An
Another Country
Awakening, The
Bluest Eye, The
Cry, the Beloved Country
Diviners, The
Doll's House, A
Grapes of Wrath, The
Great Expectations
House Made of Dawn
Invisible Man
Jane Eyre
Jude the Obscure
Light in August
Love Medicine
Madame Butterfly
Media
Merchant of Venice
Middlemarch
Moll Flanders
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Murder in the Cathedral
Native Son
Obasan
Othello
Power and the Glory, The
Saint Joan
Sun Also Rises
Winter in the Blood
Zoot Suit
Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a 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.
1996 Choices
Adventures of Huck Finn
All the Pretty Horses
Bless Me, Ultima
Major Barbara
Moby Dick
Piano Lesson, The
Candide
Ceremony
Color Purple, The
Crime and Punishment
Cry, The Beloved Country
Emma
Eumenides, The
Great Expectations
Heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
Jane Eyre
King Lear
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A
Portrait of a Lady
Praisesong for the Widow
Raisin in the Sun, A
song of Solomon
Stone Angel, The
Tempest
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Twelfth Night
Warden, The
Wuthering Heights
The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings: "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and
most lasting response from readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I
do not mean mere fortunate events-a marriage or a last-minutes reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even
at death."
Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual
reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.
1997 Choices
Age of Innocence
Awakening, The
Birthday Party
Bless Me, Ultima
Ceremony
Color Purple, The
Daisy Miller
Dead, The
Delta Wedding
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Glass Menagerie, The
Great Gatsby, The
Hamlet
Invisible Man
Jane Eyre
Julius Caesar
Joy Luck Club, The
Member of the Wedding, The
Mrs. Dalloway
Much Ado About Nothing
Our Town
Pnin
Pride and Prejudice
Romeo and Juliet
Shipping and News, The
Sound and the Fury, The
Sula
Things Fall Apart
Wuthering Heights
Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the
values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused
essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
1998 No list or Author Given
In his essay "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following.
"In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild
thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad, in all scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us."
From the works you have studied in school, choose a novel, play, or epic poem that you have thought was conventional and
tame but that you now value for its "uncivilized free and wild thinking." Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes
its "uncivilized free and wild thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas
with specific references, to the work you choose.
1999 Choices
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Anna Karenina
Antigone
Awakening, The
Beloved
Billy Budd
Ceremony
crime and Punishment
Dr. Faustus
Enemy of the People, An
Equus
Farewell to Arms, A
Glass Menagerie, The
Hamlet
Heart of Darkness
Jane Eyre
Jasmine
Light in August
Lesson Before Dying, A
Macbeth
Mayor of Casterbridge, The
Native Speaker
Piano Lesson, The
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A
Raisin in the Sun, A
Scarlet Letter, The
Wuthering Heights
The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, "Nobody, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing
thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in contrary diction at
the same time."
From a novel or play choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions,
obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this
conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.
2000 Choices
Absalom, Absalom
Agnes of God
Alias Grace
All the King's Men
Bleak House
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Crime and Punishment
Equus
Fifth Business
Frankenstein
Gathering of Old Men, A
Ghosts
Great Expectations
Good Soldier, The
Great Gatsby, The
Hamlet
Heart of Darkness
Hedda Gabler
In the Lake of the Woods
Jane Eyre
Joe turner's Come and Gone
Lord Jim
Mayor of Casterbridge
Monkey Bridge
Oedipus Rex
Remains of the Day, The
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Snow Falling on Cedars
Song of Solomon
Tom Jones
Trial, The
Trifles
Turn of the Screw, The
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
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
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.
2001 Choices
As I Lay Dying
Beloved
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
Ceremony
Coming Through September
Crime and Punishment
Dancing at Lughnsa
Don Quizote
Gulliver's Travels
heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
King Lear
Medea
Moby Dick
native Son
Of Mice and Men
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
An Enemy of the People
Equus
The Father
Going After Cacciato
Great Expectations
Pale Fire
The Sound and the Fury
A Streetcar Named Desire
Waiting for Godot
The Zoo Story
One definition of madness is "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it." But Emily Dickinson wrote
Much madness is divinest SenseTo a discerning EyeNovelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a "discerning Eye." Select a novel or play in which a
character's apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well-organized essay in
which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain
the significance of the "madness" to the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
You may select a work from the list below or choose a novel or play of literary merit.
2002 Choices
The Age of Ignorance
All the Kin's Men
Anna Karenina
The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man
The Awakening
Billy Budd
Crime and Punishment
Faust
Fences
The Glass Menagerie
Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
Heart of Darkness
Hedda Gabler
Henry V
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Merchant of Venice
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Pere Goriot
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Plague
Poccho
The Scarlet Letter
Silas Marner
Sister Carrie
Sula
The Turn of the Screw
Typical American
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 that character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or
her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
Choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of comparable literary merit.
2003 Choices
An American Tragedy
Anna Karenina
Antigone
Beloved
Crime and Punishment
Death of a Salesman
Ethan Frome
Faust
Fences
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Frankenstein
Hedda Gabler
King Lear
Light in August
Long Day's Journey into Night
Lord Jim
Macbeth
Medea
Moby Dick
Oedipus Rex
Phedre
Ragtime
Sent for You Yesterday
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Things Fall Apart
According to critic Northrop Frye, "Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the
inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass.
Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the living lightning."
Select a novel or play in which a tragic figure functions as an instrument of the suffering of others. Then write an essay in
which you explain how that suffering brought upon others by that figure contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.
You may choose a work from the list below or another novel or play of comparable quality. Avoid mere plot summary.
2004 Choices
Alias Grace
All the King's Men
Candied
Crime and Punishment
Death of a Salesman
Doctor Faustus
Don Quixote
A Gesture Life
Ghosts
Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
Gulliver's Travels
Heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
King Lear
Major Barbara
Middlemarch
Moby Dick
Obasan
Oedipus Rex
Orlando
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The Scarlet Letter
Sister Carrie
The Sound and the Fury
Sula
The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Things They Carried
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel or play and, 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.
2005 Choices
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Age of Innocence
The American
As You Like It
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Billy Budd
Bless Me, Ultima
Brave New World
Catch-22
The Color Purple
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
A Doll's House
Ethan Frome
A Gesture Life
Go Tell It On the Mountains
Invisible Man
King Lear
Madame Bovary
Middlemarch
Mrs. Dalloway
1984
Obasan
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Persuasion
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Portrait of a Lady
Rosencrantz and Guilenstern Are Dead
The Scarlet Letter
Surfacing
The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Are Watching God
Typical American
In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "that outward existence which
conforms, the inward life which questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms
outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity
and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.
You may select a work from the list below or another appropriate novel or play of comparable literary merit.
Native American
Ancient Child
Anpao
Baptism of Desire (poetry)
Beet Queen
Bingo Palace
Black Elk Speaks
Ceremony
Crown of Columbus
Dreamwalker
Earthway
Fools Crow
House Made of Dawn
Jacklight (poetry)
Lakota Woman
Love Medicine
Many Smokes, Many Moons
Mean Spirit
Pheonix Rising
River Song
Sharpest Sight
Spirit Song
Storyteller
The Indian Lawyer
The Sacred
Touch the Earth
Tracks
Winter in the Blood
Winterkill
Wisdomkeepers
Woman Who Owned the Shadows
Yellow Raft in Blue Water
N. Scott Momaday
Jamake Highwater
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
John Neihardt
Leslie Marmon Silko
Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich
Mary Summer Rain
Mary Summer Rain
James Welch
N. Scott Momaday
Louise Erdrich
Mary Crow Dog
Louise Erdrich
Jamake Highwater
Linda Hogan
Mary Summer Rain
Craig Lesley
Louis Owens
Mary Summer Rain
Leslie Marmon Silko
James Welch
Peggy Beck and Anna Walters
T.C. McLuhan
Louise Erdrich
James Welch
Craig Lesley
Steve Wall and Harvey Arden
Paula Gunn Allen
Michael Dorris
Hispanic
100 Years of Solitude
Bless Me, Ultima
Cantora
Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent
Hunger of Memory
Leaf Storm
no One Writes to the Colonel
Old Gringo
Rain of Gold
Strange Pilgrims
The House of the Spirits
The House on Mango Street
The Last of the Menu Girls
The Monkey Grammarian
The Revolt of the Cockroach People
The Storyteller
Two Strange Tales
Woman Hollering Creek
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Rudolfo Anaya
Sylvia Lopez-Medina
Octavio Paz
Julia Alvarez
Richard Rodriguez
Grabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Carlos Fuentes
Arturo Islas
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Isabel Allende
Sandra Cisneros
Denise Chavez
Octavio Paz
Oscar Acosta
Mario Llosa
Mircea Eliade
Sandra Cisneros