📚AP English Literature
📚AP English Literature
FRQ 2 – Prose Fiction Analysis
Practice FRQ 1 of 191/19
2. The following excerpt is from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, published in 1873. In this passage, Mr. Hawkins and his family have arrived in a new city and are interacting with a landlady, Mrs. Holt.
Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Twain and Warner use literary elements and techniques to portray the complex dynamic between Mr. Hawkins and Mrs. Holt.
In your response you should do the following:
- Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
- Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
- Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
- Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
Par.
1
The Hawkins family were put into the drawing-room. Mr. Hawkins had brought a pocketful of cigars and the party made themselves comfortable. A woman appeared, who was a good deal embarrassed. Mr. Hawkins asked what she wanted, and she explained that she was the landlady, Mrs. Holt.
2
What Mr. Hawkins wanted, was to know which was the best hotel in the city. The landlady was evidently unprepared for such a question. She fumbled in her pocket for a circular, and pretended to read from it, but she knew she was not reading correctly, and her voice was weak and uncertain. She seemed to be watching the countenance of Mr. Hawkins while she read; and finally she ventured to say, if anyone would take that hotel and run it, she thought it would be a good chance to make money. Mr. Hawkins said he was not in the hotel business.
3
But what Mr. Hawkins wanted to know was, which was the best hotel in the city.
4
The landlady was silent upon that point. She had not in truth thought of it before. There were many hotels, she said, her voice weak, her gaze wandering. There were the Union, the American, the National, the Planters'.
5
"And which is the best?"
6
The landlady looked up in a helpless way at her interrogator. She could not answer such a question as that off-hand.
