AP® English Literature and Composition review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/lit/units/3/3-1)
Unit 3 · Topic 3.1
3.1 Expectations, motives and a character's perspective
In novels and plays you have room to ask why characters act as they do. What they want, what they expect, what others expect of them and how they compare themselves to others all shape their perspective. Reading motives from actions, and noticing when a character breaks expectations, is central to analyzing longer works.
Key terms
- motivation
- perspective
- values
- expectations
- complexity
Expectations: set up, then met or broken
When a work first describes a character, it creates expectations. A character introduced as "the sensible daughter" or "a man who never forgave anyone" makes you expect certain behavior. What happens next matters: when a character meets the expectation, it confirms the picture; when they break it, you have to rethink who they are.
Expectations also come from inside the story. Families, towns and social classes expect things of people. A character's struggle with those expectations is often the heart of a novel.
Details that stick to a character
Writers often attach a detail to a character and repeat it: a phrase they always say, an object they carry, a habit. These details build up an impression over many pages. When a detail comes back changed, or goes missing, that's a signal that the character has changed too.
Motives: reading actions and inactions
A motive is the reason behind an action. Characters rarely announce their motives honestly, so you infer them from what they do and don't do. Inaction counts. A character who never answers a letter, never visits a sick parent or never speaks up at a key moment is making a choice, and the choice shows what they want or fear.
- Ask what the character gains or avoids by acting this way.
- Compare what they say they want with what they actually do.
- Look for moments when they act against their own interest; those often reveal their deepest motive.
Whose view of the character are you getting?
Your picture of a character depends partly on the narrator. A narrator who mocks a character will color your view; a narrator who admires one will do the opposite. When a character compares another person to something ("she's a snake," "he's a child"), the comparison reveals the speaker's perspective, and sometimes a truth about the person compared.
Perspectives can also shift during a long work. A character who starts out sure of something may end up doubting it. Tracking that shift is a strong way to organize an essay.
Complexity
Strong characters are often pulled in more than one direction: duty against desire, love against pride. The exam rewards readers who notice these tensions instead of flattening a character into one trait.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Expectations in a famous first sentence
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) opens: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters." In the next lines Mrs. Bennet, who has five unmarried daughters, eagerly tells her husband that a rich young man has rented a nearby estate. How does this opening reveal the expectations and motives that drive the characters?
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Read the first sentence carefully. It claims rich single men want wives. The second sentence quietly flips it: it's the neighbors who want the rich man for their daughters.
- Step 2: Notice the word "property." The families treat the man as something to be claimed, which shows their real motive: securing money and status through marriage.
- Step 3: Notice "universally acknowledged." The narrator's grand language is ironic; the "truth" is really just what these families want to believe.
- Step 4: Connect to Mrs. Bennet, whose eagerness shows she is exactly the kind of parent the narrator is describing.
Answer: Model paragraph: Austen's opening sets up the social expectation that drives the novel and gently mocks it at the same time. The first sentence presents as "a truth universally acknowledged" the idea that a rich bachelor "must be in want of a wife," but the next sentence reveals whose wants are really at work: the neighbors consider him "the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters." The word "property" exposes the families' motive. Marriage, in this world, is a way to claim wealth, and the families feel entitled to it. When Mrs. Bennet rushes to share the news of a rich new neighbor, she proves the narrator's point. From the first page, readers learn to see characters' choices through the pressure of this expectation, and to notice which characters accept it and which resist it.
Common mistakes
- Describing what a character does without asking why. Every action you mention should lead to a motive or a value.
- Ignoring inaction. What a character refuses or fails to do is evidence too.
- Trusting a narrator's or another character's judgment of someone without considering their perspective.
On the exam
- Multiple-choice questions often ask what a character's action "suggests" about their motives or how one character's comparison reveals their view of another.
- In the literary argument essay, explaining a character's competing motives is an easy way to show complexity.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 3.1 Expectations, motives and a character's perspective. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House (1879), Act III, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp (1910)
Helmer's statement that “Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin” (paragraph 5) reveals that he
Nora's description of herself as Helmer's “doll-wife” and her father's “doll-child” (paragraph 4) suggests that she has been treated as
Susan Glaspell, Trifles (first performed 1916), from Plays (1920)
Mrs. Hale's replies to the County Attorney's criticism of the dirty towels and pans (paragraphs 12 and 14) chiefly reveal her
The stage direction describing the County Attorney speaking “with the gallantry of a young politician” (paragraph 11) suggests that his politeness toward the women is
0 of 4 answered