AP Lit - Prose Prompt - "Gentlefolk"
The following essay is meant as a study guide only and definitely is not an invitation to cheat. With that said, feel free to borrow from it, paraphrase it, and adopt ideas from it that you like. Sometimes the best way to learn to write well is to read how someone else might have written a response to the same prompt. For many of the AP students I interact with, the primary challenge is learning to form an argument that builds on itself in a logical way. You may find reading my response helps you formulate a strategy for answering the prompt. Learning to integrate evidence in a way that makes sense to the argument is another key skill that can boost an essay score. Read this carefully and see how it compares to your own writing.
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Last reminder; if you're doing a "cut and paste" with this essay then that's plagiarism and that can have huge consequences. Plus, your AP teacher will know. Trust me. They know your writing, your voice, and they know when you turn in an essay that doesn't sound like you.
The class system in 19th century Europe, particularly England, has inspired countless authors and artists to make an argument through their work. Sometimes those works have painted the working class as an honorable underclass scratching out a living any way they can. Others portray the Gentry as a kind-hearted group, guided in their nobility to serve the country. Using tone, imagery, and selection of detail this passage, by an unspecified author, illustrates the narrator's contempt for the Gentry through a screed that is full of biting sarcasm.
The author's use of tone probably gives the most explicit insight to the narrator’s general contempt for “gentlefolks”. The tone juxtaposes, in a style that feels particularly English, humor with a kind of peevish anger. The narrator begins the passage, stating that gentlefolks have a “very awkward rock”, with a tone that only hints at the patronizing attitude that will come later on. That mention of the “rock”, being an allusion to the life work of Sisyphus, can be an indication of the regard with which the narrator holds his own intelligence. The narrator uses hyperbole and sarcasm as he refers to gentlefolk drifting “blindfold” into “torturing” or “spoiling” something without a “pang of remorse”, in a tone that suggests a kind of amused exasperation. As the narrator gets deeper into his little speech the tone maintains a hint of that humor but also becomes a more earnest argument against the idleness of the Gentry. Each time the narrator observes the behavior of the gentlefolks, who may be “occupied for hours together” and who have nothing to do with their “poor idle hands”, his tone seems to become a bit more sincere. Humor aside, he is making an argument against the idleness of the rich. This transition, or juxtaposition, from cutting humor reaches its zenith when the narrator makes the earnest observation that his audience should be thankful that they have things they “must” think of and work they “must” do. The tone, which definitely represents the narrator's attitude, relies heavily on imagery in order to do it’s work.
One might take the narrator’s use of imagery as evidence that they are members of the staff who serve, or at least are sympathetic to those who serve, in the home of one of the gentry. The passage is full of images that evoke the least palatable aspects of living with a hobbyist as they pursue their scientific or artistic interests. The narrator invokes images of bugs stuck with pins and flowers being disected to gain the audience’s sympathy in his effort to persuade them to his point of view. Perhaps the most vivid of the many unpleasant images is of “tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty water” that turns “everybody’s stomach in the house”. Or, for an arachnophobic reader, the image of someone “poring over” a “spider’s insides with a magnifying glass” would be the most convincing of the narrators images. The conspicuous lack of positive imagery certainly tells the reader that the narrator is relying on selection of detail to give the worst impression possible of what the “gentlefolk” are doing.
Both the tone of the passage and the imagery in the narrator's argument are aided by his careful selection of detail. The passage contains plenty of details, but the narrator's selection of positive and negative details are the most revealing to the reader. Perhaps the most amusing, and off-handed, of the details included come in the parenthetical mention that “ladies, I am sorry to say, as well as gentlemen” are guilty of the narrator's accusations. A modern audience would probably assume that this argument is not specific to gender, but to a 19th century audience the parenthetical would have made it clear that no one is innocent. The narrator supports his argument with a sizable list of unpleasant details including that the creatures being caught “day after day” are “newts, and beetles, and spiders, and frogs”. There are also details, such as smells from paints and tadpoles or “chipping off bits of stone” that drops “into all the victuals of the house”, that the narrator includes because they would be particularly distasteful to someone responsible for cleaning the house. The more subtle bit of detail that the narrator employs comes in the mention of anything positive. There are details included like “a pretty flower”, a painter's canvas, or photography. However, each time one of these details is revealed it is put in the context of having been ruined by the hobbyists who are making an attempt at the task; the pretty flower is spoiled by “pointed instruments”, the canvas is spoiled with their paints, and the photography only serves to stain fingers and “do justice without mercy” on everybody’s face. Each of these details is a particular accusation of the ineptitude of the gentry.
The passage, which is essentially an argument from the narrator against the idleness of the wealthy, uses tone, details, and imagery to convince the audience. The underlying humor makes the argument palatable to a sympathetic audience and leaves the impression that the “gentlefolks” are bumbling buffoons who are more likely to ruin anything than create something.