You will be writing on at least three works:
-Purple Hibiscus
Les Misrables
One other major work of your choice from this semester (choose from Hamlet, Death and the King’s Horseman, The Elephant Man, Animal Farm, Red Scarf Girl, To Live, Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony)
Write an original comparative essay on at least three themes in the three works you choose.
Be specific!! Do not give general statements, use specific examples from the texts!
This is similar to the paper you just wrote, except that there are two required works and one choice. Comparison means addressing both similarities and differences. You need to decide which you are doing and then EXPLAIN WHY you have made the choice you have.
Small example:
In Things Fall Apart and Purple Hibiscus, the fathers, Okonkwo and Papa, are disappointed in their eldest sons for slightly different reasons. Okonkwo and Papa fear that Nwoye and Jaja, respectively, will not live up to the high standards they have set. As a result, Okonkwo is derisive toward Nwoye, always criticizing him, and Papa is strict and physically abusive toward Jaja. For Okonkwo, Nwoye does not fulfill a gendered sense of identity, as eldest son, whereas his daughter, Ezinma, has the characteristics he is seeking in a son. Consequently, Okonkwo shows Ezinma much more love and affection. However, in Purple Hibiscus, Papa seems to have a more generalized fear of failure in his children, and he is equally tough on his daughter, Kambili, as he is on his son, Jaja, abusing Kambili so severely that she is hospitalized and almost dies. Both Nwoye and Jaja turn on their fathers, but in very different ways, but both strike at the heart of the issues that divide them. For the Igbo traditionalist in Okonkwo, Nwoye’s departure for missionary school and learning the ways of the British undermines Okonkwo’s sense of Igbo identity. Papa, on the other hand, supports missionary education, to the neglect of Igbo values and family, while Jaja embraces his Autie Ifeoma and his Papa-Nnukwu, and sacrifices himself for his mother at the end of the book.
This example is just a beginning, a rough draft of a body paragraph. Dig in deeper to your explanations and comparisons once you have a beginning like this one.
Think of themes we have been discussing:
How Shall I Live my Life?
Death
Family and the complexities of family relationships (parent-child relationships, marital relationships, sibling relationships, etc.)
Colonialism and its impact
Culture and religion
Identity
Voice: how, where, when do you find your voice and how to use it
Sacrifice (of yourself for a loved one: small, daily sacrifices or major life-changing sacrifices)
Nature/nurture: in what ways do our genetic make-up guide how we act and in what ways do our experiences guide how we act? (think about the differences between Papa and Auntie Ifeoma in Purple Hibiscus)
