poor visitor ap lit essay

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Article search, “poor visitor”: mobility as/of voice in jamaica kincaid's lucy.

• Jamaica Kincaid crosses disciplinary borders by writing fiction that is simultaneously diasporic and national, but only half of this equation has received serious inquiry. Since its publication, myriad critical essays have appeared about Kincaid's Lucy: A Novel (1990), a fictionalized autobiographical account of the Antiguan author's migration to New York in the late 1960s to work as an au pair for a wealthy white family; most essays focus on the character interactions in the novel that metaphorically explore the relationship of Antigua to its British colonial past and to the contemporary imperialism and forced diaspora of global capital.

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• Gale Literature Resource Center
• Acculturation
• African American literature
• American literature
• Assimilation (Sociology)
• Authors, Caribbean
• Caribbean literature
• Criticism and interpretation
• Imperialism
• Kincaid, Jamaica
• Literary criticism
• Western feminism
• White people

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Lucy: A Novel Chapter 1: Poor Visitor Summary

• It's Lucy's first day. Her first day of what? Well, we're not sure yet.
• Lucy recalls coming from the airport the previous night, looking around at all the cool buildings, parks, and bridges she'd always dreamed about.
• Back to the first day. Lucy gets up and gets dressed. Even though it's the middle of January, it seems weird to her that it's cold out when the sun is shining.
• See, Lucy's just come from a tropical climate so she doesn't exactly associate sun with below-freezing temperatures. She realizes a wardrobe change is in order.
• Aww, Lucy feels homesick.
• We learn that Lucy is staying in the maid's quarters, a small room with high ceilings. And we finally find out that her new job is to watch the kids who live in the apartment. She's going to be one busy girl because she also plans to go to school at night.
• Zzzzz. Lucy is sleeping on the job already. She turns on the radio on her dresser, starts singing along, promptly falls asleep and has a dream about, of all things, her old nightgown.
• Wake up! Another maid stands over her trying to wake her. Lucy tells us this maid doesn't like her to begin with and Lucy's cat nap certainly hasn't helped matters.
• We don't hear anything more about how the big first day went. We can presume some time passes because Lucy jumps into describing her routine of taking care of the four little girls in the family during the day and going to school at night.
• It's pretty much all work and no play for Lucy so it's no big surprise that she tells us she's not happy.
• However, Lucy isn't about to let everyone back home know that she's miserable. No way. She writes and tells them how awesome her new life is.
• After the maid tries to get Lucy to dance to some music she thinks is pretty lame, Lucy sings a calypso song about a runaway. FYI: Calypso is a style of music with origins in the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (check out a calypso beat set to this familiar tune ).
• We learn a bit about the family for whom Lucy works. Lewis and Mariah are the parents of the four girls Lucy looks after. Lucy is pretty impressed by their permissive parenting. She thinks it's cool that he kids don't have to eat everything on their plate and that they're allowed to say "bad" words.
• Oh, and don't even think about telling any blond jokes around this family: all six of them have golden locks.
• They call Lucy "the Visitor." Lewis even goes so far as to call her the Poor Visitor because she doesn't seem to laugh or smile that much (note: this family smiles and laughs a lot).
• At dinner one night, Lewis tells a story about his uncle. While Lewis is telling his tale, Lucy's mind wanders and she recalls an erotic dream she had involving Lewis and Mariah.
• After Lewis finishes his story, Lucy tells them about her dream. Awkward!
• Lewis and Mariah laugh uncomfortably. Lucy is pretty confused though because she thinks it's a total compliment to them since she only dreams about people who are important to her.

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Lucy - Chapter 1, Poor Visitor Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1, Poor Visitor Summary

It is Lucy's first day in a location yet to be disclosed. She is traveling to an apartment from the airport, with the driver or a passenger pointing out the sights to her. She was overwhelmed but disappointed with what she saw. After getting out of the car, she gets into an elevator and eats food out of a refrigerator. All of these things were new to her; she slept well.

In the morning, she was happy the sun was bright. She was surprised that the sun was shining, but the weather was cold to her, as she was from a tropical area. She put on a madras dress and went outside into the cold for the first time. She sometimes felt homesick and was surprised that she longed even for the things she disliked. Lucy lived in the...

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Poor Visitor

The New Yorker , February 27, 1989 P. 28

Narrator recalls what it was like to leave Antigua as a young girl & come to a new country. Driving from the airport someone pointed out famous buildings & other points of interest, places she daydreamed about now looked dirty & ordinary in real life. The morning of her 1st day she dressed as if she were home. She had no idea that the sun could shine & the air remain cold. She realized that she no longer was in a tropical zone. Her room was the maids room off the kitchen. Everyone was nice to her & told her that she should regard them as family. Her days soon took on a routine. She walked the children to school & played with them in the afternoons. At night she went to school. She wrote flourishing letters home even though she was unhappy & homesick. She lived in a household made up of a man & wife & 4 girl children. They all seemed to look alike-- blond & smiling. At dinner when they all sat down together there was much joking around. Not long after she had lived there they began to call her the Visitor. Lewis told her a story about his uncle & monkeys. This story reminded her of a dream she had in which Lewis & Mariah appeared, & so she told it to them. At first they fell silent, then they laughed in a soft, kind way. She had meant by telling them her dream that she'd taken them in, because only people who were important to her had ever appeared in her dreams. She saw that they already understood that.

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“Poor Visitor”: Mobility as/of Voice in Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy

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Jennifer J. Nichols, “Poor Visitor”: Mobility as/of Voice in Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy , MELUS , Volume 34, Issue 4, December 2009, Pages 187–207, https://doi.org/10.1353/mel.0.0063

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How to Write the AP Lit Prose Essay with Examples

March 30, 2024

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples – The College Board’s Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Course is one of the most enriching experiences that high school students can have. It exposes you to literature that most people don’t encounter until college , and it helps you develop analytical and critical thinking skills that will enhance the quality of your life, both inside and outside of school. The AP Lit Exam reflects the rigor of the course. The exam uses consistent question types, weighting, and scoring parameters each year . This means that, as you prepare for the exam, you can look at previous questions, responses, score criteria, and scorer commentary to help you practice until your essays are perfect.

What is the AP Lit Free Response testing? 

In AP Literature, you read books, short stories, and poetry, and you learn how to commit the complex act of literary analysis . But what does that mean? Well, “to analyze” literally means breaking a larger idea into smaller and smaller pieces until the pieces are small enough that they can help us to understand the larger idea. When we’re performing literary analysis, we’re breaking down a piece of literature into smaller and smaller pieces until we can use those pieces to better understand the piece of literature itself.

So, for example, let’s say you’re presented with a passage from a short story to analyze. The AP Lit Exam will ask you to write an essay with an essay with a clear, defensible thesis statement that makes an argument about the story, based on some literary elements in the short story. After reading the passage, you might talk about how foreshadowing, allusion, and dialogue work together to demonstrate something essential in the text. Then, you’ll use examples of each of those three literary elements (that you pull directly from the passage) to build your argument. You’ll finish the essay with a conclusion that uses clear reasoning to tell your reader why your argument makes sense.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples (Continued)

But what’s the point of all of this? Why do they ask you to write these essays?

Well, the essay is, once again, testing your ability to conduct literary analysis. However, the thing that you’re also doing behind that literary analysis is a complex process of both inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning takes a series of points of evidence and draws a larger conclusion. Deductive reasoning departs from the point of a broader premise and draws a singular conclusion. In an analytical essay like this one, you’re using small pieces of evidence to draw a larger conclusion (your thesis statement) and then you’re taking your thesis statement as a larger premise from which you derive your ultimate conclusion.

So, the exam scorers are looking at your ability to craft a strong thesis statement (a singular sentence that makes an argument), use evidence and reasoning to support that argument, and then to write the essay well. This is something they call “sophistication,” but they’re looking for well-organized thoughts carried through clear, complete sentences.

This entire process is something you can and will use throughout your life. Law, engineering, medicine—whatever pursuit, you name it—utilizes these forms of reasoning to run experiments, build cases, and persuade audiences. The process of this kind of clear, analytical thinking can be honed, developed, and made easier through repetition.

Practice Makes Perfect

Because the AP Literature Exam maintains continuity across the years, you can pull old exam copies, read the passages, and write responses. A good AP Lit teacher is going to have you do this time and time again in class until you have the formula down. But, it’s also something you can do on your own, if you’re interested in further developing your skills.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples 

Let’s take a look at some examples of questions, answers and scorer responses that will help you to get a better idea of how to craft your own AP Literature exam essays.

In the exam in 2023, students were asked to read a poem by Alice Cary titled “Autumn,” which was published in 1874. In it, the speaker contemplates the start of autumn. Then, students are asked to craft a well-written essay which uses literary techniques to convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.

The following is an essay that received a perfect 6 on the exam. There are grammar and usage errors throughout the essay, which is important to note: even though the writer makes some mistakes, the structure and form of their argument was strong enough to merit a 6. This is what your scorers will be looking for when they read your essay.

Example Essay 

Romantic and hyperbolic imagery is used to illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn, which conveys Cary’s idea that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.

Romantic imagery is utilized to demonstrate the speaker’s warm regard for the season of summer and emphasize her regretfulness for autumn’s coming, conveying the uncomfortable change away from idyllic familiarity. Summer, is portrayed in the image of a woman who “from her golden collar slips/and strays through stubble fields/and moans aloud.” Associated with sensuality and wealth, the speaker implies the interconnection between a season and bounty, comfort, and pleasure. Yet, this romantic view is dismantled by autumn, causing Summer to “slip” and “stray through stubble fields.” Thus, the coming of real change dethrones a constructed, romantic personification of summer,  conveying the speaker’s reluctance for her ideal season to be dethroned by something much less decorated and adored.

Summer, “she lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,/ And tries the old tunes for over an hour”, is contrasted with bright imagery of fallen leaves/ The juxtaposition between Summer’s character and the setting provides insight into the positivity of change—the yellow leaves—by its contrast with the failures of attempting to sustain old habits or practices, “old tunes”. “She lies on pillows” creates a sympathetic, passive image of summer in reaction to the coming of Autumn, contrasting her failures to sustain “old tunes.” According to this, it is understood that the speaker recognizes the foolishness of attempting to prevent what is to come, but her wishfulness to counter the natural progression of time.

Hyperbolic imagery displays the discrepancies between unrealistic, exaggerated perceptions of change and the reality of progress, continuing the perpetuation of Cary’s idea that change must be embraced rather than rejected. “Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips/The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd”, syntax and diction are used to literally separate different aspects of the progression of time. In an ironic parallel to the literal language, the action of twilight’s “clip” and the subject, “the days,” are cut off from each other into two different lines, emphasizing a sense of jarring and discomfort. Sunset, and Twilight are named, made into distinct entities from the day, dramatizing the shortening of night-time into fall. The dramatic, sudden implications for the change bring to mind the switch between summer and winter, rather than a transitional season like fall—emphasizing the Speaker’s perspective rather than a factual narration of the experience.

She says “the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head/Against the earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost”. Implying pride and defeat, and the word “witched,” the speaker brings a sense of conflict, morality, and even good versus evil into the transition between seasons. Rather than a smooth, welcome change, the speaker is practically against the coming of fall. The hyperbole present in the poem serves to illustrate the Speaker’s perspective and ideas on the coming of fall, which are characterized by reluctance and hostility to change from comfort.

The topic of this poem, Fall–a season characterized by change and the deconstruction of the spring and summer landscape—is juxtaposed with the final line which evokes the season of Spring. From this, it is clear that the speaker appreciates beautiful and blossoming change. However, they resent that which destroys familiar paradigms and norms. Fall, seen as the death of summer, is characterized as a regression, though the turning of seasons is a product of the literal passage of time. Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.

Scoring Criteria: Why did this essay do so well? 

When it comes to scoring well, there are some rather formulaic things that the judges are searching for. You might think that it’s important to “stand out” or “be creative” in your writing. However, aside from concerns about “sophistication,” which essentially means you know how to organize thoughts into sentences and you can use language that isn’t entirely elementary, you should really focus on sticking to a form. This will show the scorers that you know how to follow that inductive/deductive reasoning process that we mentioned earlier, and it will help to present your ideas in the most clear, coherent way possible to someone who is reading and scoring hundreds of essays.

So, how did this essay succeed? And how can you do the same thing?

First: The Thesis 

On the exam, you can either get one point or zero points for your thesis statement. The scorers said, “The essay responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis located in the introductory paragraph,” which you can read as the first sentence in the essay. This is important to note: you don’t need a flowery hook to seduce your reader; you can just start this brief essay with some strong, simple, declarative sentences—or go right into your thesis.

What makes a good thesis? A good thesis statement does the following things:

• Makes a claim that will be supported by evidence
• Is specific and precise in its use of language
• Argues for an original thought that goes beyond a simple restating of the facts

If you’re sitting here scratching your head wondering how you come up with a thesis statement off the top of your head, let me give you one piece of advice: don’t.

The AP Lit scoring criteria gives you only one point for the thesis for a reason: they’re just looking for the presence of a defensible claim that can be proven by evidence in the rest of the essay.

Second: Write your essay from the inside out 

While the thesis is given one point, the form and content of the essay can receive anywhere from zero to four points. This is where you should place the bulk of your focus.

My best advice goes like this:

• Choose your evidence first
• Develop your commentary about the evidence
• Then draft your thesis statement based on the evidence that you find and the commentary you can create.

It will seem a little counterintuitive: like you’re writing your essay from the inside out. But this is a fundamental skill that will help you in college and beyond. Don’t come up with an argument out of thin air and then try to find evidence to support your claim. Look for the evidence that exists and then ask yourself what it all means. This will also keep you from feeling stuck or blocked at the beginning of the essay. If you prepare for the exam by reviewing the literary devices that you learned in the course and practice locating them in a text, you can quickly and efficiently read a literary passage and choose two or three literary devices that you can analyze.

Third: Use scratch paper to quickly outline your evidence and commentary 

Once you’ve located two or three literary devices at work in the given passage, use scratch paper to draw up a quick outline. Give each literary device a major bullet point. Then, briefly point to the quotes/evidence you’ll use in the essay. Finally, start to think about what the literary device and evidence are doing together. Try to answer the question: what meaning does this bring to the passage?

A sample outline for one paragraph of the above essay might look like this:

Romantic imagery

Portrayal of summer

• Woman who “from her golden collar… moans aloud”
• Summer as bounty

Contrast with Autumn

• Autumn dismantles Summer
• “Stray through stubble fields”
• Autumn is change; it has the power to dethrone the romance of Summer/make summer a bit meaningless

Recognition of change in a positive light

• Summer “lies on pillows / yellow leaves / tries old tunes”
• Bright imagery/fallen leaves
• Attempt to maintain old practices fails: “old tunes”
• But! There is sympathy: “lies on pillows”

Speaker recognizes: she can’t prevent what is to come; wishes to embrace natural passage of time

By the time the writer gets to the end of the outline for their paragraph, they can easily start to draw conclusions about the paragraph based on the evidence they have pulled out. You can see how that thinking might develop over the course of the outline.

Then, the speaker would take the conclusions they’ve drawn and write a “mini claim” that will start each paragraph. The final bullet point of this outline isn’t the same as the mini claim that comes at the top of the second paragraph of the essay, however, it is the conclusion of the paragraph. You would do well to use the concluding thoughts from your outline as the mini claim to start your body paragraph. This will make your paragraphs clear, concise, and help you to construct a coherent argument.

Repeat this process for the other one or two literary devices that you’ve chosen to analyze, and then: take a step back.

Fourth: Draft your thesis 

Once you quickly sketch out your outline, take a moment to “stand back” and see what you’ve drafted. You’ll be able to see that, among your two or three literary devices, you can draw some commonality. You might be able to say, as the writer did here, that romantic and hyperbolic imagery “illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn,” ultimately illuminating the poet’s idea “that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.”

This is an original argument built on the evidence accumulated by the student. It directly answers the prompt by discussing literary techniques that “convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.” Remember to go back to the prompt and see what direction they want you to head with your thesis, and craft an argument that directly speaks to that prompt.

Then, move ahead to finish your body paragraphs and conclusion.

Fifth: Give each literary device its own body paragraph 

In this essay, the writer examines the use of two literary devices that are supported by multiple pieces of evidence. The first is “romantic imagery” and the second is “hyperbolic imagery.” The writer dedicates one paragraph to each idea. You should do this, too.

This is why it’s important to choose just two or three literary devices. You really don’t have time to dig into more. Plus, more ideas will simply cloud the essay and confuse your reader.

Using your outline, start each body paragraph with a “mini claim” that makes an argument about what it is you’ll be saying in your paragraph. Lay out your pieces of evidence, then provide commentary for why your evidence proves your point about that literary device.

Move onto the next literary device, rinse, and repeat.

Sixth: Commentary and Conclusion 

Finally, you’ll want to end this brief essay with a concluding paragraph that restates your thesis, briefly touches on your most important points from each body paragraph, and includes a development of the argument that you laid out in the essay.

In this particular example essay, the writer concludes by saying, “Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.” This is a direct restatement of the thesis. At this point, you’ll have reached the end of your essay. Great work!

Seventh: Sophistication 

A final note on scoring criteria: there is one point awarded to what the scoring criteria calls “sophistication.” This is evidenced by the sophistication of thought and providing a nuanced literary analysis, which we’ve already covered in the steps above.

There are some things to avoid, however:

• Sweeping generalizations, such as, “From the beginning of human history, people have always searched for love,” or “Everyone goes through periods of darkness in their lives, much like the writer of this poem.”
• Only hinting at possible interpretations instead of developing your argument
• Oversimplifying your interpretation
• Or, by contrast, using overly flowery or complex language that does not meet your level of preparation or the context of the essay.

Remember to develop your argument with nuance and complexity and to write in a style that is academic but appropriate for the task at hand.

If you want more practice or to check out other exams from the past, go to the College Board’s website .

Brittany Borghi

After earning a BA in Journalism and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, Brittany spent five years as a full-time lecturer in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa. Additionally, she’s held previous roles as a researcher, full-time daily journalist, and book editor. Brittany’s work has been featured in The Iowa Review, The Hopkins Review, and the Pittsburgh City Paper, among others, and she was also a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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by Jamaica Kincaid

Lucy summary and analysis of "lucy".

A full year has passed since Lucy arrived in the United States. She reflects on the changes that have occurred since then. She sees herself then and now as two separate people. Before, Lucy was a simple girl who wanted to conform to convention, become a nurse, and obey her parents and the law. Now, Lucy is in the process of inventing herself, still becoming aware of who that self is.

Lucy then begins to sort out what she does and does not know about herself through a series of recollections. During an embarrassing conversation with a woman who had visited her homeland, Lucy realizes that even though her family has lived on the small island for generations, she has never really seen more than a quarter of it. Upon further contemplation, she recognizes that the only history of the island she knew was that of its colonization by the British. Lucy contrasts this present awareness of colonization with her experience as a child. As a young schoolgirl, Lucy disliked the British for superficial reasons like their looks, clothes, and choice of music. At the time, she wished to be ruled instead by the French.

At this point, Lucy defines the past as "the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in." She summarizes some of the main changes that have occurred within the past year. Mariah , once perpetually happy, is now sad, since Lewis has left her for Dinah , Mariah's best friend. Lucy no longer lives with the family. She decided to leave after the news of her father's death. Lucy now has new feelings of guilt, recalling that she actually wished her father dead. Yet, Lucy's guilt is self-proclaimed, and she feels "like Lucifer, doomed to build wrong upon wrong."

Lucy notes that she did not regret not opening her mother's letters until after she had learned of her father's death. With that thought, she sends her mother a last letter telling them she is moving and provides a fake address. When Lucy informs Mariah of her decision to move, Mariah feels betrayed, realizing she is truly alone.

The holidays that year are miserable. Lewis gives Mariah a fur coat that she hates but pretends to like, and Lucy receives an African necklace from Mariah. The new year arrives, and Lucy moves into her new apartment with her best friend Peggy . The apartment is middle class: it has a kitchen, sitting room, two bedrooms, and a bath.

It is a Sunday, and Lucy is glad she does not have to go to church. Sitting at the desk Mariah has given her, Lucy begins to ponder her name: Lucy Josephine Potter . Josephine comes from her mother's uncle, Mr. Joseph. Supposedly, he was rich from the money he made from sugar in Cuba. After his death, however, the family discovered he had lost his fortune and was living in a tomb. Potter is probably from the English slaveholder who owned her family. Lucy recalls that as a young child, she called herself by different names: Emily, Charlotte, and Jane. One day she announced to her mother that she wanted to change her name to Enid. Lucy's mother became very enraged. Not until later did Lucy discover that an obeah named Enid was hired by her father's lover to kill Lucy's mother and her unborn child. Lucy recalls another time when Lucy's mother was pregnant, malnourished and cranky, and Lucy asked why she had been given her name. Lucy's mother responded under her breath that she was named after the devil himself, Lucifer--a character Lucy had read about in Milton's Paradise Lost .

Later that day, Paul brings flowers as a housewarming gift and takes Peggy and Lucy out for dinner. That night Paul sleeps over in Lucy's bed.

On Monday, Lucy starts her job for Timothy Simon , a photographer who takes pictures of still life but really wants to travel the world. Lucy types, answers the phone, and is allowed to develop film in his darkroom when he is not using it. Life in the apartment with Peggy becomes mundane as they grow apart. Lucy feels increasingly alone and isolated. She suspects Paul is cheating with Peggy, but she does not care.

The book closes as Lucy opens a blank book and writes her name on a page in blue ink: Lucy Josephine Potter. The sight of her name on the page causes her to cry she writes: "I wish I could love someone so much I would die from it."

"Lucy" is an highly reflective chapter as Lucy looks back on her year and tries to sort out who she has become and who she is becoming. The physical changes are minor. For example, she now wears her hair closely cut. Yet Lucy knows that a world of change has occurred within, and she tries to process these changes consciously.

Through recollections of past events, Lucy articulates the effects of colonialism on her life. She realizes her ignorance about her homeland when a white tourist describes to her some places on her small island where she has never stepped foot. Lucy resentfully describes what factual knowledge she does have: "I know this: it was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493; Columbus never set foot there but only named it in passing, after a church in Spain" (135). Lucy recalls that even as a young child she resented the notion of imperialism, even though she has never been formally taught or made aware of the modern concept. Lucy remembers refusing to sing, "Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never, never shall be slaves," following her natural, logical observation that she was not British and that she "not too long ago would have been a slave" (135).

Lucy's departure from Mariah's apartment begins with the death of her father. She tries to imagine the details of the funeral: the coffin, his clothes. When Lucy goes to Mariah in order to sort out her mixed emotions, she arrives at the notion of guilt. Lucy sees that guilt has been a central emotion in her life, though she has not always understood it:

Guilty! I had always thought that was a judgment passed on you by others and so it was new to me that it could be a judgment you pass on yourself. Guilty! But I did not feel like a murderer; I felt like Lucifer doomed to build wrong upon wrong.

Guilt is not, however, what Lucy feels when she leaves the apartment. Mariah is angry when Lucy announces her decision. Mariah believes that her support and nurturing has merited loyalty from Lucy, especially now that Lewis has left. But Lucy has no sympathy, at least not for Mariah, and she only wants to say to Mariah, "Your situation is an everyday thing. Men behave this way all the time" (141). Once again, Lucy wants Mariah to confront the reality that Lucy and other women from her country have lived with. The guilt belongs to so many men, not to Mariah or to Lucy.

In this context, some of Lucy's statements involve misandry, perhaps a cultural misandry that either oppresses men or gives them license to act immorally: "Everybody knew that men have no morals, that they do not know how to behave, that they do not know how to treat other people" (142). After moving into her new apartment with Peggy, Lucy expresses this stereotype once again, suspecting that Peggy and Paul are having an affair. But Lucy does not care. She accepts the possibility not only because it is what she expects, but also because Lucy's primary concerns are not for other people, but for herself.

Naming is a powerful concept in this book. As a young girl, Lucy inquired into how she was named. All parts of her name represent important aspects of her identity. Lucy sees the influence of colonialism in her last name, Potter, which she infers is derived from an English slaveholder who owned her relatives prior to their emancipation. A huge part of Lucy's anger is also related to her name through is her mother's low expectations for Lucy. Her mother encouraged her three brothers to go to college while only expecting Lucy to be a nurse. Lucy's middle name, Josephine, indicates this low expectation, because with this name her mother chose to name her after a supposedly rich uncle who died broke and lived in a tomb. Lucy's mother deals another harsh blow to Lucy when she tells her daughter that she is named after the Devil himself, Lucifer.

The reference to Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost is apt. In the epic poem, the victory of good over evil is clear, but Milton makes Lucifer very sympathetic for his desire to be free from God's control. Lucy revels in being the anti-hero like Lucifer, rejecting normative morality and convention. While Milton makes clear that God's morals are good and therefore have no need of being challenged, merely human conventions are artifacts of human pride in setting one's own path. Lucy rejects many sets of cultural norms out of the pride that so many readers admire in Lucifer, although she cannot replace those norms with anything but another set of human norms. And it is not clear that she wants any new set of norms as she forges her new identity. Lucy articulates her anthem of radical freedom through self-invention:

I understood that I was inventing myself, and that I was doing this more in the way of a painter than of a scientist. I could not count on precision or calculation; I could only count on intuition. I did not have anything exactly in mind, but when the picture was complete I would know. (134)

Lucy remains stuck in a contradiction, wanting to be free to love with her whole being, which would mean that she is no longer free. At some point, radical freedom must resolve itself into real commitments, but Lucy is not quite ready for this idea. Lucy's false belief that the past is "the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in" (137) provides her with a great deal of difficulty as she symbolically and literally starts a new page in her journal. After having rid herself of all attachments, her first desire expresses her difficulty: "I wish I could love someone so much I would die from it" (164).

Lucy Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Lucy is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why Lucy had a sudden sinking feeling?

Chapter please?

immidiately upon coming to america lucy is faced with disillusionment examine several disillusionment and how they contribute in forming of her evolving identity

Colonialism repeatedly surfaces in Lucy's flashbacks of her homeland, a British colony. As a product of the British educational system, Lucy begins to realize the extent of its influence more powerfully once she has left her home culture. Lucy...

What are comparison drwan between lucy and nature?

In the poem Lucy, Wordsworth doesn't seem able to decide whether Lucy os more like a star in the night sky.... ot a delicate violet. She is, of course, his star.... and yet, he sees more of the violet in her. A delicate bloom aligned with nature.

Study Guide for Lucy

Lucy study guide contains a biography of Jamaica Kincaid, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• Lucy Summary
• Character List

Essays for Lucy

Lucy essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid.

• The Double Lives of Servants: A Comparison and Contrast Between the Representation of Servants in Virginia Woolf's Between the Acts and Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy
• Maternal Problematic: The Painful Struggle for Individuality in Three Novels
• I Am Who (You Say) I Am: Issues of Identity in Kincaid's Lucy and Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea
• Mariah in Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy
• Freedom Does Not Equal Happiness: Analyzing Lucy's Choices

Lesson Plan for Lucy

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Lucy
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Lucy Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Lucy

• Introduction

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How to Write the AP Lit Prose Essay + Example

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What is the ap lit prose essay, how will ap scores affect my college chances.

AP Literature and Composition (AP Lit), not to be confused with AP English Language and Composition (AP Lang), teaches students how to develop the ability to critically read and analyze literary texts. These texts include poetry, prose, and drama. Analysis is an essential component of this course and critical for the educational development of all students when it comes to college preparation. In this course, you can expect to see an added difficulty of texts and concepts, similar to the material one would see in a college literature course.

While not as popular as AP Lang, over 380,136 students took the class in 2019. However, the course is significantly more challenging, with only 49.7% of students receiving a score of three or higher on the exam. A staggeringly low 6.2% of students received a five on the exam. 

The AP Lit exam is similar to the AP Lang exam in format, but covers different subject areas. The first section is multiple-choice questions based on five short passages. There are 55 questions to be answered in 1 hour. The passages will include at least two prose fiction passages and two poetry passages and will account for 45% of your total score. All possible answer choices can be found within the text, so you don’t need to come into the exam with prior knowledge of the passages to understand the work. 

The second section contains three free-response essays to be finished in under two hours. This section accounts for 55% of the final score and includes three essay questions: the poetry analysis essay, the prose analysis essay, and the thematic analysis essay. Typically, a five-paragraph format will suffice for this type of writing. These essays are scored holistically from one to six points.

Today we will take a look at the AP Lit prose essay and discuss tips and tricks to master this section of the exam. We will also provide an example of a well-written essay for review.  

The AP Lit prose essay is the second of the three essays included in the free-response section of the AP Lit exam, lasting around 40 minutes in total. A prose passage of approximately 500 to 700 words and a prompt will be given to guide your analytical essay. Worth about 18% of your total grade, the essay will be graded out of six points depending on the quality of your thesis (0-1 points), evidence and commentary (0-4 points), and sophistication (0-1 points). 

While this exam seems extremely overwhelming, considering there are a total of three free-response essays to complete, with proper time management and practiced skills, this essay is manageable and straightforward. In order to enhance the time management aspect of the test to the best of your ability, it is essential to understand the following six key concepts.

1. Have a Clear Understanding of the Prompt and the Passage

Since the prose essay is testing your ability to analyze literature and construct an evidence-based argument, the most important thing you can do is make sure you understand the passage. That being said, you only have about 40 minutes for the whole essay so you can’t spend too much time reading the passage. Allot yourself 5-7 minutes to read the prompt and the passage and then another 3-5 minutes to plan your response.

As you read through the prompt and text, highlight, circle, and markup anything that stands out to you. Specifically, try to find lines in the passage that could bolster your argument since you will need to include in-text citations from the passage in your essay. Even if you don’t know exactly what your argument might be, it’s still helpful to have a variety of quotes to use depending on what direction you take your essay, so take note of whatever strikes you as important. Taking the time to annotate as you read will save you a lot of time later on because you won’t need to reread the passage to find examples when you are in the middle of writing. 

Once you have a good grasp on the passage and a solid array of quotes to choose from, you should develop a rough outline of your essay. The prompt will provide 4-5 bullets that remind you of what to include in your essay, so you can use these to structure your outline. Start with a thesis, come up with 2-3 concrete claims to support your thesis, back up each claim with 1-2 pieces of evidence from the text, and write a brief explanation of how the evidence supports the claim.

2. Start with a Brief Introduction that Includes a Clear Thesis Statement

Having a strong thesis can help you stay focused and avoid tangents while writing. By deciding the relevant information you want to hit upon in your essay up front, you can prevent wasting precious time later on. Clear theses are also important for the reader because they direct their focus to your essential arguments. 

In other words, it’s important to make the introduction brief and compact so your thesis statement shines through. The introduction should include details from the passage, like the author and title, but don’t waste too much time with extraneous details. Get to the heart of your essay as quick as possible. 

3. Use Clear Examples to Support Your Argument 

One of the requirements AP Lit readers are looking for is your use of evidence. In order to satisfy this aspect of the rubric, you should make sure each body paragraph has at least 1-2 pieces of evidence, directly from the text, that relate to the claim that paragraph is making. Since the prose essay tests your ability to recognize and analyze literary elements and techniques, it’s often better to include smaller quotes. For example, when writing about the author’s use of imagery or diction you might pick out specific words and quote each word separately rather than quoting a large block of text. Smaller quotes clarify exactly what stood out to you so your reader can better understand what are you saying.

Including smaller quotes also allows you to include more evidence in your essay. Be careful though—having more quotes is not necessarily better! You will showcase your strength as a writer not by the number of quotes you manage to jam into a paragraph, but by the relevance of the quotes to your argument and explanation you provide.  If the details don’t connect, they are merely just strings of details.

4. Discussion is Crucial to Connect Your Evidence to Your Argument 

As the previous tip explained, citing phrases and words from the passage won’t get you anywhere if you don’t provide an explanation as to how your examples support the claim you are making. After each new piece of evidence is introduced, you should have a sentence or two that explains the significance of this quote to the piece as a whole.

This part of the paragraph is the “So what?” You’ve already stated the point you are trying to get across in the topic sentence and shared the examples from the text, so now show the reader why or how this quote demonstrates an effective use of a literary technique by the author. Sometimes students can get bogged down by the discussion and lose sight of the point they are trying to make. If this happens to you while writing, take a step back and ask yourself “Why did I include this quote? What does it contribute to the piece as a whole?” Write down your answer and you will be good to go. 

5. Write a Brief Conclusion

While the critical part of the essay is to provide a substantive, organized, and clear argument throughout the body paragraphs, a conclusion provides a satisfying ending to the essay and the last opportunity to drive home your argument. If you run out of time for a conclusion because of extra time spent in the preceding paragraphs, do not worry, as that is not fatal to your score. 

Without repeating your thesis statement word for word, find a way to return to the thesis statement by summing up your main points. This recap reinforces the arguments stated in the previous paragraphs, while all of the preceding paragraphs successfully proved the thesis statement.

6. Don’t Forget About Your Grammar

Though you will undoubtedly be pressed for time, it’s still important your essay is well-written with correct punctuating and spelling. Many students are able to write a strong thesis and include good evidence and commentary, but the final point on the rubric is for sophistication. This criteria is more holistic than the former ones which means you should have elevated thoughts and writing—no grammatical errors. While a lack of grammatical mistakes alone won’t earn you the sophistication point, it will leave the reader with a more favorable impression of you. 

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Here are Nine Must-have Tips and Tricks to Get a Good Score on the Prose Essay:

• Carefully read, review, and underline key instruction s in the prompt.
• Briefly outlin e what you want to cover in your essay.
• Be sure to have a clear thesis that includes the terms mentioned in the instructions, literary devices, tone, and meaning.
• Include the author’s name and title  in your introduction. Refer to characters by name.
• Quality over quantity when it comes to picking quotes! Better to have a smaller number of more detailed quotes than a large amount of vague ones.
• Fully explain how each piece of evidence supports your thesis .  
• Focus on the literary techniques in the passage and avoid summarizing the plot. 
• Use transitions to connect sentences and paragraphs.
• Keep your introduction and conclusion short, and don’t repeat your thesis verbatim in your conclusion.

Here is an example essay from 2020 that received a perfect 6:

[1] In this passage from a 1912 novel, the narrator wistfully details his childhood crush on a girl violinist. Through a motif of the allure of musical instruments, and abundant sensory details that summon a vivid image of the event of their meeting, the reader can infer that the narrator was utterly enraptured by his obsession in the moment, and upon later reflection cannot help but feel a combination of amusement and a resummoning of the moment’s passion. 

[2] The overwhelming abundance of hyper-specific sensory details reveals to the reader that meeting his crush must have been an intensely powerful experience to create such a vivid memory. The narrator can picture the “half-dim church”, can hear the “clear wail” of the girl’s violin, can see “her eyes almost closing”, can smell a “faint but distinct fragrance.” Clearly, this moment of discovery was very impactful on the boy, because even later he can remember the experience in minute detail. However, these details may also not be entirely faithful to the original experience; they all possess a somewhat mysterious quality that shows how the narrator may be employing hyperbole to accentuate the girl’s allure. The church is “half-dim”, the eyes “almost closing” – all the details are held within an ethereal state of halfway, which also serves to emphasize that this is all told through memory. The first paragraph also introduces the central conciet of music. The narrator was drawn to the “tones she called forth” from her violin and wanted desperately to play her “accompaniment.” This serves the double role of sensory imagery (with the added effect of music being a powerful aural image) and metaphor, as the accompaniment stands in for the narrator’s true desire to be coupled with his newfound crush. The musical juxtaposition between the “heaving tremor of the organ” and the “clear wail” of her violin serves to further accentuate how the narrator percieved the girl as above all other things, as high as an angel. Clearly, the memory of his meeting his crush is a powerful one that left an indelible impact on the narrator. 

[3] Upon reflecting on this memory and the period of obsession that followed, the narrator cannot help but feel amused at the lengths to which his younger self would go; this is communicated to the reader with some playful irony and bemused yet earnest tone. The narrator claims to have made his “first and last attempts at poetry” in devotion to his crush, and jokes that he did not know to be “ashamed” at the quality of his poetry. This playful tone pokes fun at his childhood self for being an inexperienced poet, yet also acknowledges the very real passion that the poetry stemmed from. The narrator goes on to mention his “successful” endeavor to conceal his crush from his friends and the girl; this holds an ironic tone because the narrator immediately admits that his attempts to hide it were ill-fated and all parties were very aware of his feelings. The narrator also recalls his younger self jumping to hyperbolic extremes when imagining what he would do if betrayed by his love, calling her a “heartless jade” to ironically play along with the memory. Despite all this irony, the narrator does also truly comprehend the depths of his past self’s infatuation and finds it moving. The narrator begins the second paragraph with a sentence that moves urgently, emphasizing the myriad ways the boy was obsessed. He also remarks, somewhat wistfully, that the experience of having this crush “moved [him] to a degree which now [he] can hardly think of as possible.” Clearly, upon reflection the narrator feels a combination of amusement at the silliness of his former self and wistful respect for the emotion that the crush stirred within him. 

[4] In this passage, the narrator has a multifaceted emotional response while remembering an experience that was very impactful on him. The meaning of the work is that when we look back on our memories (especially those of intense passion), added perspective can modify or augment how those experiences make us feel

More essay examples, score sheets, and commentaries can be found at College Board .

While AP Scores help to boost your weighted GPA, or give you the option to get college credit, AP Scores don’t have a strong effect on your admissions chances . However, colleges can still see your self-reported scores, so you might not want to automatically send scores to colleges if they are lower than a 3. That being said, admissions officers care far more about your grade in an AP class than your score on the exam.

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AP® English Literature

Frequently asked questions, welcome to ap® english literature and composition, subject organization, using standards and tags to find questions, question types, exam information, our help center is always available.

• Short Fiction
• Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11 (Jane Austen)
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• Les Miserables, The Lark (Victor Hugo)

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