Thematic Focus On Prose Essay

Congratulations! You decided to take the initiative in going for the AP English Exam. It's a good chance to capitalize on a test that can help pave the way towards your college education as well as test your English literature skills. The Prose essay is an important part of the exam the you need to be well informed about in order to score high on it. Theme is part of every passage we read and is used commonly to identify the passage, but not to mention that there can be several themes found. It is important that you are able to point out themes from a story or any passage that can help connect the focus of this part of the essay. Some themes that can be included in this essay can range from societal expectations (conventions), the morals of human beings, actions of a rebellion, and revelations. When also thinking about what else to include in this essay, literary elements are not to be forgotten. The essay may ask you to include literary elements to help support the main theme. Examples of Literary Elements are Symbolism, Point of View, Characterization, and Summarization. When it comes to Symbolism you may be asked to point out or further explain symbols in a passage that help connect to the theme. A symbol can be about anything from location, to an object or creature maybe even a human being. One thing that you must remember is to make sure the symbol is focused on the main theme. Point of view helps readers get to know the characters in a story, it also helps to connect the characters to the theme. For example, the theme of a story could be about the defiance of conventions and the protagonist of a story can be shown as a rebel to society, someone who does not want to follow the common way in the world. Summarization can be key to help enforce a specific theme, but one thing to ensure is AVOID PLOT SUMMARY. The graders of this essay do not want to see an explanation of the entire passage, but what can help is simple parts or events in a story can be used to follow up the main theme. On a final note, when everything is put out it is your job to connect everything together in this essay in a understandable order so there is no confusion.