Crash Course AP Literature

lender, Shylock. The condition of the loan, if it is not repaid, is that Shylock

may take a pound of flesh from Antonio.

Tags: anti-Semitism, disguise, gender roles, marriage, Portia’s famous speech

on mercy

Moll Flanders by
Daniel Defoe,
1722

Genre: novel, episodic

Setting: London, Virginia

Main characters: Moll, her mother, numerous men, some of whom she marries

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: The full title says it all: “The Fortunes and

Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and

during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood,

was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own

brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at

last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own

Memorandums.”

Tags: alienation of lower classes, poverty, adventure, marriage, self-

determination

Mrs. Dalloway by
Virginia Woolf,
published 1925

Genre: novel

Setting: England, post World War I

Main characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Smith

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: All of the present action takes place on one day in

June. The author uses flashbacks to other times and locales. Mrs. Dalloway

prepares for a party and thinks of her marriage and those she has loved.

Tags: stream of consciousness, feminism, homosexuality, value of inner life

(thoughts, emotions), effects of war

Murder in the
Cathedral by T. S.
Eliot, first
performed in 1935

Genre: poetic drama

Setting: Canterbury, England, 1170 (when Archbishop Thomas Becket was

murdered) in the archbishop’s hall and in the cathedral

Main characters: Chorus, as in a Greek drama, comments on the action in the

play. The archbishop, himself, knights, three tempters.

Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Thomas Becket is murdered and martyred.

Tags: individual versus authority, anti-fascism, power of church versus state