What does each text achieve through its formal choices, and what are their respective limitations?
Comparative analysis
Two Articles: 1. Kafka_Metamorphosis 2. Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary/Diary of a Madman”
For this paper assignment, I would like you to write a comparative essay in which you will bring two of the works we have studied this semester (by two different writers) into conversation with one another. Neither of your readings can be the same reading you wrote about for Paper 1.
Rather than choosing two texts that you like the most, and forcing them into conversation, I want you to think hard about a question or problem raised by the literature we have studied this semester, and think about how two different texts may change our understanding or perspective on the given question/problem depending on the formal and generic strategies of the literature in question.
Some possible “umbrella” topics include:
Realism and Reality: to what degree do two literary texts give us a sense of “reality”? How does reality change in appearance depending on the authors’ use of narration, description, point of view (focalization), or imagery? What does each text achieve through its formal choices, and what are their respective limitations? What is the text’s relationship to “meaning”? Is it direct, indirect, or hostile? How do writers differ in their use of syntax, word choice, imagery, metaphor, tone, etc.? And how does this change the perspective on the world that the literary text gives us?
Self and Society: how do two literary texts convey the difficulty of understanding and dealing with the relationship between oneself and one’s society? How does this change depending on the point in history in which a writer is writing, where in the world they are writing from, their gender, racial, and class identity, their political or religious commitments, and so on–all of these things can, whether directly or indirectly, inform the qualities of a literary text.
Environment and Nature: How do authors deal with different kinds of environments, both human environments (cities and domestic homes) and natural environments? How are these environments represented? What kind of literary devices do authors use to capture them? How are humans positioned in relation to their environment? How does genre, style, and social and historical context impact upon the way environment and nature is represented?
History and Power: How do authors deal with power inequalities, and the legacies of historical violence and trauma? What representational strategies do they employ to do so?
Obviously, your topic will become more specific as you choose your texts and focus on the precise questions raised by them. For example, you might want to write about how cities are portrayed in two poems (Senghor and Paz perhaps), and explore the topic of “Environment and Nature” in that way. You may want to contrast de Castro’s view of nature with the view of the city found in Cavafy. You might want to discuss how third person narration and first person narration produce different kinds of characters in Flaubert versus Mansfield, and thereby address the topic of “Realism and Reality”. You might want to discuss how the diary form allows for the exploration of the psychology of social outcasts in Lu Xun and Ding Ling, thereby addressing both “Realism and Reality” and “Self and Society” at one and the same time. You might want to analyze the essayistic style of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place and compare how it explores the legacies of colonialism to Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s poetry, or Adichie or Ngũgĩ’s stories, thereby addressing “History and Power.” You might discuss Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and describe their respective approaches to “realism”, thereby addressing how the topics of “Realism and Reality” and “History and Power” overlap.
This by no means exhausts the possibilities. What matters is that you spend a good amount of time thinking about your choice of topic.
Preparation:
I strongly recommend letting me know which topic you want to write about, and which two texts you think you want to use for your comparison. A poor choice of texts to compare can set your paper back before you even start writing. If you aren’t sure which two texts to choose, I will happily recommend a pairing to you.
Answer preview what does each text achieve through its formal choices, and what are their respective limitations?
APA
1540 words