Free Comparative Literature Essay Examples & Topics
Updated:
688samples
Comparative literature explores the relationship between works of fiction of different cultures and times. Its purpose is to establish the connection between specific genres, styles, and literary devices and the historical period. At the same time, it provides an insight into the meaning hidden between the lines of a given text.
What is a literary comparison essay? This academic paper requires a specific methodology but follows the typical rules. A student is expected to perform comparative textual analysis of a short story, novel, or any other piece of narrative writing. However, it is vital to remember that only the pieces with something in common are comparable.
This is where all the challenges start. Without an in-depth literature review, it is not always clear which works can and should be compared. Which aspects should be considered, and which could be left out? The structure of a comparative essay is another stumbling rock.
For this reason, our team has prepared a brief guide. Here, you will learn how to write a successful comparative literature essay and, more importantly, what to write in it. And that is not all! Underneath the article, we have prepared some comparative literary analysis essay examples written by students like you.
How to Write a Comparative Essay
Comparative literary analysis requires you to know how to correlate two different things in general. So let us start from the basics. This section explains how to write a comparative paper.
A good comparison essay structure relies on two techniques:
Alternating or point-by-point method.
Using this technique, you dedicate two paragraphs for each new comparison aspect, one for each subject. It is the best way to establish similar and different features in the two novels. Such comparative analysis works best for research, providing a detailed and well-structured text.
1st Body Paragraph: Social problems in Steinback’s works.
2nd Body Paragraph: Social problems in Hemingway’s works.
3rd Body Paragraph: Psychological problems in Steinback’s works.
4th Body Paragraph: Psychological problems in Hemingway’s works.
5th Body Paragraph: Interpersonal problems in Steinback’s works.
Block or subject-by-subject method.
This approach means that you divide your essay in two. The first part discusses one text or author, and the second part analyzes the other. The challenge here is to avoid writing two disconnected papers under one title.
For this purpose, constantly refer the second part to the first one to show the differences and similarities. You should use the technique if you have more than two comparison subjects (add another paragraph for each next one). It also works well when there is little in common between the subjects.
1-3 Body Paragraphs: Description of rural labor in Steinback’s works.
4-6 Body Paragraphs: Description of rural labor in Hemingway’s works.
You will formulate a thesis and distribute the arguments and supporting evidence depending on the chosen structure. You can consult the possible options in our comparative literature essay examples.
How to Conduct Literary Comparison: Essay Tips
Let us move to the main point of this article: the comparison of literature. In this section, we will discuss how to write an ideal essay in this format.
We suggest you stick to the following action plan:
Choose literary works to compare. They should have some features in common. For example, the protagonist faces the same type of conflict, or the setting is the same. You should know the works well enough to find the necessary passages. Check the comparative literature examples below if you struggle with the step.
Select the topic, thinking of similarities. The broader the matter, the more challenging the writing. A comparative study of the protagonists in two books is harder than analyzing the same theme that appears in them. Characters may have little in common, making the analysis more complicated.
Find both differences and similarities. Once you’ve formulated the topic, make a list of features to compare. If the subjects are too different, choose the block method of contrasting them. Otherwise, the alternating technique will do.
Formulate a thesis statement that has a comparative nature. It should convey the gist of the essay’s argument. Highlight the relationship between the books. Do they contradict, supplement, develop, or correct each other? You can start the thesis statement with “whereas.” For example, “Whereas Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice are full of pride, this trait leads them to different troubles.”
Outline and list key elements. Select three to six comparable aspects depending on your essay’s expected length. Then, plan in what order you’ll present them and according to which technique.
Link elements and write. Distribute the features among the comparative paragraphs. If you wish to prove that the books are more different than alike, start with the most diverging factors and move to the most similar ones.
That’s it! Thank you for reading this article. For more examples of comparative literature essays, check the links below.
The poem was written in 1921 by the young Hughes who was just adding his voice to the plight of the African Americans at the time."We Wear the Mask" is a poem by the famous [...]
He thinks about the fact that revenge is not a good action to make his soul get to heavens. His is a prince of Norway, but likewise Hamlet did not receive the crown, he was [...]
Curry believed that the "stylistics of Faulkner's language...serves to subordinate Emily, ostensibly the subject of the tale, and to elevate the town as the truer subject".
This essay aims to explore the elements of defamiliarization that are evident in the two works and to summarize the points to show how the use of this technique differs in the stories.
After offering prayers to the dead, the people of the river offered the sheep to them and put the remaining parts in a pit that had been dug with shadows of the dead gathering around.
King of Thebes Creon is obligated to maintain the rules of the land because of his position of authority. Being an outsider and a woman, Antigone begins the play in a position of weakness.
First of all, speaking about similarities between the main characters of Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", it should be stated that both of them are an embodiment of men of strong [...]
In Milton's 'Paradise Lost', the image of hell is clearly visible during the depiction of Satan's fall and also Adam and Eve's fall and the epic concerns the Judo-Christian legend of the fall of men; [...]
The aspects of human nature that George Orwell criticizes in his work 1984 compared to today's world Orwell in the novel 1984 represents the modern society be it capitalist or communist.
As a result, their narratives, in tone, in mood, in presentation of self, in degree and kind of analysis of the world around them, reflect these differences.
Macbeth ascends to the throne, he is determined to hold on to the throne, and so he must get rid of Banquo and his family because the witches had predicted that the throne would go [...]
The present paper argues that whereas in "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt justice is executed fully at the end of the novel due to the fact that all members of the group are punished [...]
As aforementioned, the plot of the two versions of this story is the same; the storyline of the two versions carries a clandestine love affair between Anna and Gurov with a happy conclusion where the [...]
The three features which are discussed in this respect are the division of the two societies into social strata, the use of state power and control over citizens, and the loss of people's individualities.
The essay shall analyze the power of social prejudices on the basis of the analysis of "Little things Are Big" by Jesus Colon and "Thank You Ma'am" by Langston Hughes.
This paper examines romantic love as the source of joy and fulfillment in "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Love is the source of pain and suffering in "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
When it comes to ethics, he suggests that the prince should only be concerned with actions that are beneficial to a leader and ones that promote the well-being of his state.
In this analysis, it is clear that mood in the two pieces of literature is enhanced by the characters and how they act and speak, the manner in which the author advances the plot and [...]
Despite the seeming difference in genre, stylistic choices, characters and settings, the novel Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes' poem A Dream Deferred have a lot in common; in fact, one [...]
He has the gift of imagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the Romanticism of Wordsworth there is the consciousness and will of a return to natural sources.
Both Geoffrey Chaucer and Dante Alighieri wrote in the Middle Ages and were the two most famous and most celebrated writers of that period."Both Dante and Chaucer were active in affairs of their times".
In contrast, the villains are made to capture the fears, and challenges of the societies represented by these epics. The import of these three epics lies in their historicism.
In relation to this concept is the fact that Lennie and George's dreams inspire the duo to be mutually cooperative and loving as is evident through Gorge's action of covering up for Lennie's deficiencies when [...]
The queens in Hamlet and Macbeth play a pivotal role in the life of the heroes of the play. She is portrayed as a mother who, in her awareness of Hamlet's crisis, feels guilty and [...]
As the narration progresses, fear arises in the reader or viewer, and finally, something horrific happens."The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of the Amontillado" share all of the features above, as [...]
Due to the grandmother's innocence, she believes Misfit is a 'good man' and thinks that he qualifies to be one of her children simply because he would not shoot a woman and he believes in [...]
One of the most famous examples of the use of the characters taken from Greek mythology in pop culture must be the mentioning of the famous goddess, Venus, in advertising, which is, in fact, based [...]
Despite this fact, both King and Thoreau had a common goal to expose the unjust laws that govern a society of civil resistance to unjust laws It should be stressed that both King and Thoreau [...]
As he comes to understand the difference between his servant's and his family's views on life, Ivan begins to realize that he has lived a life of moral death, a life empty of everything save [...]
It can be said that while both of these books address the issue of hidden methods of coercion, Nineteen-eighty Four provides a bleak vision of the future in which the whole of society is controlled [...]
The works by two famous American Puritan writers of the 17th century Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson reflect the main features of the Puritan writing because the authors discuss their personal experience concentrating on their [...]
The Old Major's speech as portrayed in the narrative Animal Farm has myriad of similarities and differences to the speech given by Martin Luther King Jr.in his attempt to liberate the black race from discrimination.
In both The Minister's Black veil and The Birthmark, Hawthorne's use symbolism of symbolism is conspicuous. Hawthorne's use of symbolism comes out clearly in The Minister's Black Veil and The Birthmark.
They are as follows: the presentation of the heroes, the consideration of the ethical themes, and the final stages of the plays the latter help to draw some ethical conclusions based on the peculiarity of [...]
By introducing the author's explanation of the attorney's intention 'letting go' of the past the author establishes the dynamic of men being bored by the seemingly mundane case. In contrast, Trifles relies on the content [...]
The book Fahrenheit 451 and the movie Equilibrium have some similarities and contrasts: Both the book and the movie delve into the topic of the suppression of free thought; in both cases, the concept of [...]
Although the plot is different in each of these poems, both Annabel Lee and The Raven share the themes of death and lost love, as well as the symbolic language.
This is because while the gods are obviously responsible for choosing the path that one's life is to take, it still takes the free will of the involved person to follow that path.
The tension in her relations with her parents contributes to the development of the necessity to prove that she is better than that, actually, that she is the best.
The tone in "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time" and in "To His Coy Mistress" is the same as the narrators move from persuasion to warning their subjects.
Of Cherokee descent, Harjo graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa and is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma.
The nature is one of the greatest mysteries of the world; the value assumptions about the place of individuals in nature and their relationship to their canine companions is the issue discussed in two nice [...]
In King Lear and A Thousand of Acres, the destinies of both King Lear and Larry Cook encounter unfair attitudes toward daughters and death, as a result. Lear and Larry are in despair because of [...]
The fact that both Faulkner and O'Connor were from the South and that they wrote during almost the same period led to many similarities in their style of writing like the religious themes and foreshadowed [...]
As the paper unfolds, the theme plays a vital role across the two novels since the authors successfully point out the conflicts that arise because of people's failure to recognize the dignity of others and [...]
As soon as the notorious prophecy of him murdering his father and marrying his mother is made aware to him, Oedipus runs away from his foster parents, being under the assumption that they are his [...]
The poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger" are written by William Blake while the poem "lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey" is written by William Wordsworth."The Lamb" appeared in Blake's songs of innocence [...]
It is through his adventures living as Tyler that the Narrator truly explores the dark side of his personality, living not by the laws of society but in direct contrast to them, until the Narrator [...]
It cannot escape our attention that Don Quixote's illusions are strongly associated with his commitment to "protect justice", therefore they cannot be discussed as "thing in itself", as it is the case with Hamlet's illusions, [...]
Much ado in the Illiad tells of the dishonor he suffered from Agamemnon, his decision to quit the field because of it, and the futile efforts of the Greeks to appease him and draw him [...]
This understanding forms the background of The Grapes of Wrath and As I Lay Dying analysis in this paper. The unity of structure and language in any comical genre take after carnivalistic folklore..".there is a [...]
This statement by the narrator is a significant tool of characterization because it reveals that the main character is insane. The narrator is also important in revealing the character of the old man.
The concept is interested in looking at the daily lives of individuals from both the lower and middle classes, whose character is determined by social factors. The movement covered the whole country since it was [...]
According to Louise, her marriage is fulfilling, yet emotionally, she is in a cage of inherent oppression. Moreover, Bertha alludes to the fact that she has never loved her husband in the romantic way except [...]
One of the essential motifs and symbols for the novel is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens."Mister Pip" not only has an allusion to the Dickens novel in the title, but the image of the book [...]
Driving to work involves the use of evolving technology as every car made today includes varying degrees of computerized information systems that inform the vehicle of important information everything from the need for an oil [...]
People tend to think that the mother is the one who always worries about the children more while the father is believed to be the strongest member of the family who is not allowed to [...]
The general impression of Emily Dickinson's poems is that they are very economical with words and the message being conveyed. The general impression of these poems is that the writer feels oppressed and discriminated against [...]
The formalist analysis of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep repeats the same mistake, as it focuses on the plot devices and tropes presented in the story.
The main conflict of the play is thoroughly intergenerational and lies in Willy's inability to accept the decision of his older son Biff, as the latter is willing to leave town to go to farmland [...]
In the novel, the author illustrates that the value of human life is perceived with respect to mortality. He claims that Ivan always yearned for the death of his father.
It is possible to compare and contrast two poems, "The Lamb" and "The Tyger", to understand how the poet managed to create evoking and appealing images.
In the film "The Black Swan" directed by Darren Aronofsky, Nina struggles to fit into the ultimate role of the play "The Swan Lake", as the Black Swan, even though she is comfortable playing the [...]
Here, the essay compares how the theme of colonization is captured in the novels, and goes ahead to explain the techniques employed by each author in conveying the theme.
The conflict can be identified at the beginning or in the middle of the story, and it is usually solved at the end. The actions and thoughts of the main characters lead to the resolution [...]
Sherlock Holmes operates beyond the limits of law and resorts to his methods of solving crimes. Batman is a deep character who has to fight his inner demons and deal with the memories of his [...]
Knights were expected to have honor, courage, honesty, respect, selflessness, and several other qualities of how a perfect knight was considered, like Olivier and Roland in The Song of Roland.
The villains in both "Othello" and "The Crucible" are unique in their proficiency in the use of language for manipulating others and their ability to use the current setting for achieving their goals; Abigail is [...]
This progression toward enlightenment can be most clearly seen by making a comparison between Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the situation in which the man and boy find themselves within McCarthy's novel, particularly in [...]
The work of art reflects the reality of life and hardship experienced by people: "The vision seemed to enter the house with me - the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the [...]
Margaret Atwood's book 'The Dancing Girls' is a collection of 16 short stories and the Dancing Girls is one of the stories and has given the name for the collection.
From the suffering of people in Haiti in the wake of several hurricanes that struck them in 2008 to individuals facing hunger and drought in various states of Africa, as well as the war-torn countries [...]
It will not be much of an exaggeration to suggest that the main theme, explored in the Sonnet 29, has to do with the sensation of frustration that people get to experience, after having realized [...]
Exploring the significance of the theme as well as the motifs of this piece, it becomes essential to understand that the era of modernism injected individualism in the literary works.
The setting of Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast is the world of merchants and nobility. The heroine of the story, Beauty, the youngest of the six children, and the most "handsome" of the three sisters [...]
It is a poem about the supernatural more than about a hero, which is the first difference between the current poem and 'The Odyssey'.'Divine Comedy' has 14, 233 lines, the number that is almost equal [...]
The book seems to make use of previous writings like Paradise Lost one of the books that the monster reads, Shakespeare and Don Quixote for instance, the Arabian lover and the sequence of the monster's [...]
In the case of "The Necklace," the story is centered around a woman whose identity does not match her aspirations and dreams of being a member of the wealthy class.
Using The Man in a Black Suit title, and not, for example, the Devil in a Black Suit or the Beast, King emphasizes one of the themes of the work: namely, the incarnation of the [...]
The comic book "prisoners of the sun: the adventures of Tintin is one example of the comic books and is a result of many comic strips that have been brought together to create a book.
For example, in his article Dodgson's Dark Conceit: Evoking the Allegorical Lineage of Alice, Andrew Wheat suggest that in Carroll's novel, the character of Alice is being presented as the challenger of 'undeniable truths', as [...]
In preparing for the performance, Hamlet provides the players with specific lines and actions to include within the overall play they are about to perform and gives them lengthy instructions as to the acting of [...]
On the other hand, to hypothesize and expand the concept of Heaven, it was first necessary to create a general framework of life after death and specify such issues as admissions to the various parts [...]
In Nausea, the main character is a well-traveled 30-year-old man afflicted with intense feelings of the meaninglessness of his own being, an experience he dubs 'nausea.' The main character and narrator, Roquentin, is portrayed as [...]
Transcendentalism was one of the brightest literary movements of the 19th century, in which a few people belonging to cultured and educated American society founded a movement that proclaimed the power and importance of the [...]
The idea of a person being in the center of the action and trying to overcome some problems connected with doom, fate and some other supernatural forces become peculiar to this kind of art.
Thus, it is possible to state that the journey described in Izumi Kyoka's "The Holy Man of Mount Koya" can remind the elements of the journey presented in Matsuo Basho's "The Narrow Road to Oku" [...]
Hansberry and Hughes introduce the same idea of a dream compared to a raisin dried up in the sun, but explain it in different ways in order to show how the interpretation of a thought [...]
Hence, the leading aspects and themes discussed in both poems are associated with the difficulties in decision-making, influence of life experience on the choices, and consequences of our actions.
The essay is a critical examination of how evil and good are portrayed in two literatures; Shakespeare's The Tempest and Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.
Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and [...]
Remembering the main idea of the myths which is to portray the creation of the specific natural phenomena via the God's actions, the relationships between people and Gods cannot be rejected in the book.
Despite their disobedience and eventual expulsion, the author portrays Adam and Eve as having a special place in God's creation and a destiny to fulfill.
In essence, The Lottery and The Metamorphosis are expository on misfortune as triggering alienation and unsettling the harmony of life to which one's community and family weaken in their duty of care and protection and [...]
In my opinion, in both Walker's and Kincaid's stories, there are the three themes of mother-daughter relationships, economic struggles, and societal expectations. In the case of Girl, the conflict is based on the concerns the [...]
The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast one of the main characters of literature - Oedipus and Hamlet, as well as to determine the qualities and skills of people which make them [...]
The book is based on the story of a farmer and his family, who, due to the problematic nature of the head of the family, are forced to change their place of residence: "None of [...]
1
Pages: 2
Words: 704
Headline Generator
We’ll help you brainstorm great title ideas for your essay, research or speech in no time!
Research Question Generator
Get a list of ideas for your essay or term paper. We’ve prepared the best research question generator.
Title Page Generator
Craft a paper title page with just a couple of clicks. Get it in APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard without any effort
