good comparison essay topics

good comparison essay topics

Exploring the Art of Comparison: A Comparative Analysis of Key Themes in Literature

1. Introduction to Comparative Analysis

Reading instances of comparison leads to the opportunity to observe, in action, the art of comparison. When one text is compared with another – and those texts happen to deal with or intersect around the key themes that reside at the heart of literature – another genre is introduced, actually an interdisciplinary approach: comparative literature. Many times, the students of English literature are introduced to “a comparative study” as part of the syllabus. This approach to literature (that includes fiction, drama, and poetry) is insightful for readers to see one author/text through/alongside/pitted against another. Is androcentrism the reality in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Pat Barker’s The Man Who Wasn’t There? Or the reader is kept intrigued by the politics in literature and so he is caught in with what is symbolic of a T.S. Eliot poem with what Perturabo usurps into? The possibility is as vast as literature itself.

In modern academic settings, comparative literary studies involve the examination of similarities and differences among existing literary works and genres. In the realm of literary studies, “comparatists can focus on studying comparative literature (in the strict sense), world literature, or cultural theory. All would involve a form of comparison from which literary insights and theoretical understandings could be derived.” There are, in addition, three potential methodological approaches adopted by comparatists or even comparative approaches within literary theory being: thematic, biography, and theory-based. This article aims at exploring the importance of comparative analysis in English literature.

2. Choosing the Right Texts for Comparison

In order to conduct a comparative analysis, the successful acknowledgement of a variety of texts and their feasibility for comparison is a critical first step. Determining effective criteria for text selection is necessary for the subsequent analysis, as the scope and applicability of arguments are affected to a significant degree by the content of the texts being compared. The success of a particular selection of texts is a factor of a large number of elements, comprising, but not limited to, the presence of similarities, differences, scope, primary themes, setting, representative capacity, and focus. In order for this method to have a broad interpretation, automatic text equality is disregarded in favour of identifying elements common to numerous texts or in one single text but more developed or less developed in other texts.

Before an analysis can be conducted, therefore, selecting a statement that originates in the verbal material is necessary. As such, the following possessions of a confident text facilitate the planning of an analysis and guide selection. Texts appear to be particularly promising as candidates for comparative analysis when they have much in common, but also significant differences. A comparative study that explores the common factors will find a greater depth of information, of variation, and of importance in the prolonged degree of comparison, relative to the exploration of the same point in isolation. Tapping into commonality in this manner is particularly useful when the presence of opposites contributes to the creation of a dichotomy. The potential for there to be a feature present in one text and absent in another text – a binary opposition – is crucial to anyone attempting to give unique analysis of a comparative nature.

3. Key Elements of Comparison: Themes, Characters, and Settings

In comparative exploration, a principal theme is to look for similarities or differences in the two or more texts to which the analysis is directed. Although the aspects of the texts on which this analysis is based are not theoretical, we chose to have as the conceptual basis the elemental aspect of fiction, such as the analysis of the themes, characters, and settings. These elements, themes, characters, and settings are very crucial ones. For example, the main character of a story can have many elements of similarity when compared to others, but they can also have significant differences, mainly in the emotional fields. Moreover, spaces can represent places which can also be very different, especially according to the time the different works are set.

These elements in many ways can be interpreted, and this opens up the possibilities of meetings, reminders of different elements, and also gaps. It is worth recalling that in the development of the transformation of these different explanations, themes, or settings, it is necessary to try to reference both the work in which the character or space is present and also the one with which the important similarities or differences are striking. The possibility of creating comparisons can lead to further insights and research opportunities in this regard. After all, the thematic, subjective, or spatial analysis can hide elements that emerge in the subtext.

4. Analyzing Literary Techniques and Devices in Comparative Essays

Comparative essays are a product of intricate techniques, which have many literary devices that are integral to the text. An effective way to have students engage in literature and connote the emotion and meaning behind art is to produce a text that actively and openly compares selections or techniques from literary works. Every text opens with a paragraph with a supposition, topic sentence, and subtopic sentence. This subtopic paragraph opens with both a supposition and a topic sentence, both of which outline the paper. In the second paragraph, it introduces a second paragraph. This second paragraph introduces the process in which comparison will take place, by discerning the significance of the excerpts from the texts. The following three paragraphs focus upon the comparison of techniques between the works of Leo Tolstoy and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The ideas behind the evidence are supported by the author’s critical ideas. This comparison wholeheartedly focuses on the use of reassurance and comfort within the texts; it does not have an inner table.

Approach:

One of the primary things the author of such an analytical piece should want to do is focus upon importance. The author needs to, from the first paragraph, compare the feelings and retreat people take from art, for through art, and from art, one can communicate degrees of truth, without being born in their image. However, even with recognition of their humility and service to individuals, the artist is still above them, has the ability to tamper with people’s feelings and retreat and can decide to share it fully with no apprehensiveness nor secrecy. In the second paragraph, the author then introduces the idea of safety through literature and contains a relaxed attitude, beginning with the words “then” and “this”, reassuring its readers of comfort. The texts, of which hare passages are from the Tolstoy narrative called The Cossacks, and from the Fitzgerald edited tale entitled The love of the Last Tycoon. In discussing the quotes, The subordinate panel, if or not it is in belonging to the initial paragraph’s reassuring nature, does at least contain a phrasing that denotes that the narrator is not in line with the previous speaker and is going to evaluate this assertion. The overall thesis of the entire comparative essay is also presented in the concluding paragraph. Through the evidence presented above, readers now understand that comparative essays introduce the variegated ways texts use and manipulate literary elements to convey deep reflections of human nature.

5. Conclusion: The Value of Comparative Analysis in Literature

Had this essay been longer, it would have been able to offer detailed close readings of each narrative in turn before emphasizing both the thematic depth offered by this short corpus and the findings provided by comparing differing genre and authorial approaches to the murder theme. These three narratives each made unique contributions to the postwar crime and detective fiction tradition, and these connections to extant literature also offer plenty of productive interpretive approaches for future study. Ultimately, this comparative analysis demonstrates, among other things, how different genres reveal differing aspects of the human condition: Fergusson explores the theme of callousness and the mystique of murder; a close reading of Wallant pointed out that his interest lay in an exploration of extreme isolation, dehumanization, and ‘otherness’; finally, Tóibín’s interest in the theme is quite clearly the description of the banality of evil.

In conclusion, there appears to be value in comparing and contrasting differing works’ treatments of shared themes, and the exploration of narrative elements as variably generic or authorial may be a useful way into the mores, values, worldviews, or philosophical moorings which condition those treatments. In these narratives, murder emerged as a means of exposing the entropy, horror, suffering, callousness, and banality of this life and world, and may be one inroad. Literary themes—just like personal preoccupations, philosophies, and outlooks—differ widely, and mapping them out would help to form an early understanding of any piece of literature. Fergusson, Wallant, and Tóibín all underline the sense that these characters have turned their backs on intricate and anchoritic engagements in favor of merely a life of crime. They have made themselves submit to all their natural inclinations and affectations, cut themselves off from everyone and everything, and absented themselves. 13 Literary studies of themes as old and quaint as murder, or as familiar as character, would considerably deepen understanding of literature and the human condition.