Free Comparative Literature Essay Examples & Topics
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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.
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 [...]
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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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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".
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 [...]
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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 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; [...]
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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 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 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 [...]
Through the years the author got the new vision of his poems what was expressed by the difference between the imagery of Introductions and the Song's of Nurse in the Songs of Innocence and Songs [...]
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, [...]
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.
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.
The names of places, characters, and events are the same in both the book and the movie. In contrast, in the movie, the story revolves around Bilbo and the dwarves.
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
For Dante, the Divine Comedy was not a substitute for the two Testaments, but an extension of them and because of this, Inferno is a critical part because it serves as a reminder of the [...]
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.
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 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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Walk Whitman was born in the first half of the 1800s and Robert Frost in the second. The use of figurative speech in poetry gives the poems a capacity to reach out to the hearts [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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.
Generally, one is to keep in mind that Baraka is recognized to be one of the most important representatives of the black community, and the theme of racism in The Dutchman has, therefore, some historical [...]
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" [...]
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.
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 [...]
Science fiction has found its place among the 'great' literatures of the word and hence a contribution in the field of literature. Some of the most sales in literature are in the genre of science [...]
The woman in the poem is a virgin as seen in the title of the poem 'She being Brand' and he expresses sex with this woman as ungraceful, awkward and unskillful.
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.
This paper will look at the features of the stories and characters of Beatrice and Georgiana to demonstrate their main differences with the same ending of their stories.
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 [...]
His creation is gentle at the start, but after the people start to resent it because of its looks, the monster runs and hides from the society. When Victor refuses to create a spouse for [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Iago's reports and the loss of the handkerchief appear to Othello reliable proofs of Desdemona's unfaithfulness, and under the effect of anger the protagonist is both unable and unwilling to do further investigation.
The Setting in Robinson Crusoe and Paradise Lost: The Town of Hull and Heaven as Harbingers of Disobedience, Defiance, and Revolt The setting at the beginning of Paradise Lost and Robinson Crusoe provide a fertile [...]
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 following is the thesis statement for this comparative poem analysis: Langston's and Nikki's poems are differently similar as they address identical theme of race in different structures and expressions I Too Langston wrote this [...]
Primarily known for his four romances Gables The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance and in particular his magnum opus, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne's short stories have become a cult classic as well, [...]
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.
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.
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.
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 [...]
The presence of the evil eye in the loved old man is the catalyst that leads to the narrator's madness. As the narrator continues to stare at the eye revealed in the small light of [...]
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.
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 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 [...]
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".
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 [...]
On the other hand, Mina, who is portrayed as the typical modest and moral woman in the Victorian era, ends up being spared of criticisms and punishments in spite of her involvement with the Dracula [...]
The two literary works under consideration are the poem The Everlasting Regret by Bai Juyi-Yi and the play The Autumn of the Lustrous Emperor of Tang: Rain on the Wutong Tree by the famous Chinese [...]
It was written after the Restoration, but the powerful voice of the poet declared that the spirit of the Revolution was not broken, that it still lived in the hearts of the people.
They differ in that in "What It's like to be a Black Girl", the girl desires to recognize with the society and likeness of her African American predecessor's slave possessors, while in that of the [...]
In the opening chapters of the novel, the author introduces the initial situation by illustrating the life of Esther, a college student, working as an intern at a women's magazine in New York together with [...]
The opening scene of The Tragedy of Macbeth starts with the words "fair is foul and foul is fair" that Polanski takes from the end of the Shakespeare's scene.
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 [...]
Literature is one of the art forms invented by the humanity to reflect the phenomena of the objective reality. As contrasted to Twain's work, "The Law of Life" by London is a depiction of positive [...]
The sole aim of all the religions is to make the people realize the value of life and to make the most of the same but doing holy acts and by not indulging in undesirable [...]
Evidence, suggesting that the author is a little bit ironic is the language of the poem. Judging from the grammatical constructions, and the vocabulary, it is possible to conclude, this text is a bright example [...]
Both of the works serve as detailed and deep reflections of the histories and cultures of the countries they came from and elaborately portrayed the relationships between men and women, religions and spirituality, and the [...]
There is only one "dancing" character in Yamauchi's literary work and though the woman is not the protagonist of the short story, the theme of dancing becomes a central one due to the strength and [...]
The poet addresses the reader, saying that if the reader had witnessed his father's removal of the splinter he would have thought he was planting something in the boy's hand, something that led to his [...]
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.
Although the theme of shame is central to both Anna Karenina and The Idiot, the nature of this feeling is explained differently: Tolstoy regards shame as the result of a person's actions, while Dostoevsky considers [...]
