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4/6 AP English Literature Prose Essay Example #3

This is a real, anonymized prose essay written by an AP student and scored 4/6 by our AI grader — one of many AP English Literature essay examples in our library.

The Prompt

The following excerpt is from Jane Urquhart’s novel The Night Stages, published in 2015. In this passage, an artist named Kenneth is finishing a mural for a new airline terminal using the long-established medium of egg tempera, a paint made of egg yolk, pigment, and water. He thinks about the influences on his work and how his mural may be received. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Urquhart uses literary elements and techniques to convey Kenneth’s complex perspective as he completes his mural.

The Passage

It had taken him three months to complete the thirty-six four-by-six-foot panels that would join together, like a huge puzzle, to form the immense mural. The last thing he painted, on the final morning, was a third apple—airborne—tossed by a child juggler. The apples were like tiny planets, and the child, otherwise small and unexceptional, gained power through his manipulation of them. Kenneth had to break one last egg to paint this, and as he passed it from hand to hand, letting the white drain to the floor, and allowing the clean yolk to settle in his palm, he looked at this boy—his serene, confident expression, the three apples aloft, the face calm with the knowledge that they would be kept in the air indefinitely. While Kenneth mixed the yolk with the warm shades of ground pigment, he remembered the critic telling him to keep things on the picture plane flat, two-dimensional, and he smiled as the apple became spherical under his brush. When he could imagine the weight of it in his hand, he knew he was finished. Then he began to toss brushes, palettes, and pigments down to the floor below. There was a drill shrieking somewhere in the building. The clatter his tools made on landing must have been drowned out by its noise. Kenneth figured he had broken five thousand eggs, more or less, in the making of the mural, and each time he broke the shell, he thought of the critic’s head, the smooth baldness of the top of it. Humpty-Dumpty, he thought, this wall, and the wall of cultural fashion that could keep you out, for a while, until the great fall. By now he knew that fashion always fell, it failed and fell. He was happy to be free of it. And as he used the shell to separate the white from the yolk, he thought about Harding, a man who had never made use of egg tempera. He wondered what had become of him. And the woman Harding had loved, whether she had ever painted again, and whether or not he himself would ever come across a painting by Gentleman. The girl in Germany, the couple in Italy, floated by, a sense of them here and there in the mural. These narratives fought for space in his mind. But the mural itself, he knew, was divorced from narrative. As it should be, he whispered to himself, as it should be. Flight and Its Allegories. Once he was on the ground, he rifled through a canvas sack until he found the camera he was looking for, a Brownie Starflex, with six exposures still available. He shot the mural from left to right. Then he walked across the full length of the half-tiled floor. This was the last exposure and it would make the mural look incredibly small, like a two-inch-long piece of ribbon with an unreadable pattern on it. But he wanted to show its proportions to a friend and, in any case, the more professional pictures would be taken later, after he was gone, when the mural had begun to live its own independent life in the presence of an audience. For months now there had been noise, the workmen’s power tools and, in the odd moments when those were silent, the roar of the planes arriving and departing at the old, soon-to-be abandoned terminal. He had seen the passengers, through the plate glass of the windows, rivers of them, pouring down the steps that were pushed up to airliners, then flowing darkly across the tarmac. What would they make of Flight and Its Allegories? Would they be struck by it? Or would they simply pass it by, preoccupied by the mysteries of their individual lives as they walked forward or waited in the lounge? He was not unaware that public art could be—and often was—ignored. Still, what pleasure he had taken in the making of it.

The Essay

Urquhart uses vivid descriptions to show Kenneth’s belief that his mural shouldn’t adhere to external judgement. When thinking about how others may criticize his work, he says that, “the wall of cultural fashion that could keep you out…always fell.” Kenneth believes that while his work could be ignored by other people for not adhering to certain artistic standards or norms, this rejection is ultimately futile and pointless. He believes that this wall, or barrier, that decides what is and isn’t attractive is bound to collapse, and by using the word “always,” he implies that the evolution of artistic taste has been a pattern throughout history and not just a one-time event caused by his mural. This shows his belief that external judgement is irrelevant to his mural, which ultimately emphasizes how art is subjective because what is “good” and “bad” is always changing. Next, Urquhart uses vivid descriptions when describing the good travelers who know no fixed paths would be looking at Kenneth’s mural. Kenneth sees them as “rivers” that are “pouring down the steps” and “flowing darkly across the tarmac.” By using words which are all related to fluidity to describe the audience, Urquhart is showing how these people are not just static onlookers but rather constantly changing and moving just like water itself does. This description also shows how people are fluid but also responsive within their own environments; Urquhart’s descriptions of them as water are inseparable from their context “down the steps” and “across the tarmac.” By showing them fitting around their changing environments, it is implied that the audience may grow to adapt and accept Kenneth’s mural and not be rigidly opposed to it even if they currently may be like the aforementioned critic. Therefore, Kenneth believes that his mural shouldn’t fit around external judgement but can rather be accepted over time because art is subjective with preferences that adapt to new environments. Notions of “good” and “bad” can change. Additionally, Urquhart uses characterization to show Kenneth’s belief that his mural shouldn’t adhere to external judgements. When Kenneth is thinking about the critic’s suggestion “to keep things on the picture plane flat… he smiled as the apple became spherical under his brush.” Instead of making his apple two-dimensional, he makes it spherical, which is three-dimensional. This indirect characterization shows that Kenneth is happy to defy the advice that he is given by other people. In the end, he knows that it is his work and that he is the one in control. This action shows his belief that his mural shouldn’t adhere to external judgement. Furthermore, when Kenneth is thinking about people in his artistic life, he is described as them having “fought for space in his mind,” though the mural is still “divorced…as it should be.” This shows how Kenneth has been influenced by other people, but he refuses to let that affect his art. Kenneth chooses not to evaluate his work by the preferences of other people such as “a man who had never made use of egg tempera” but rather by his own standards. He wants his art to “live its own independent life,” not just a copy of what other people have created in the past. This characterization implies that he enjoys his work because it is his own, showing his belief that his mural should not adhere to external judgement. This characterization ultimately emphasizes how art is subjective because it can be enjoyed by some people but not others.

Score Breakdown

Thesis (1/1)

Evidence & Commentary (3/4)

Sophistication (0/1)

Why This Essay Scored Well

The essay opens with a defensible thesis that makes a claim about Kenneth's perspective, giving the response something to argue and support. Evidence selection is strong: the wall of cultural fashion quote directly backs the claim about Kenneth rejecting external judgment. The analysis of that quote is the essay's best moment, zooming in on the word always to show how the claim extends beyond Kenneth's personal situation. The water imagery paragraph also brings in clearly relevant evidence, and the writer consistently connects evidence to claim by naming the action and explaining what it reveals about Kenneth's defiance.

For the full point-by-point rubric behind this score, read our AP essay rubric breakdown.

What Could Be Improved

The claim that the audience may grow to adapt and accept the mural goes beyond what the water imagery supports. The fluid imagery shows movement and transience, not future acceptance, and may even suggest indifference. The characterization paragraph mostly restates the thesis instead of pushing past it. The idea that the mural should not adhere to external judgment is repeated three times; the paragraph would be stronger if it explained what the defiance of the critic's advice reveals about Kenneth's relationship to his own craft. Kenneth says the mural is divorced from narrative yet narratives fought for space in his mind. That contradiction is left unexplored, and it is the most promising opening for deeper commentary.

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