Comparing two works

[popolili]

Hi everyone.... I'm new here.
For my thesis, I have to compare two literary works (novels/plays) from different authors. The two works can be from the same period or not. The stories must share the same issues and from both of the books, we can get one conclusion. The works can be compared from its characterisations or conflicts.
I am completely stuck on what two to choose. I really appreciate any suggestions :)
Thank you!

[Pumpkin337]

Choose authors you like and works you are familiar with.

[Iain Sparrow]

Last year I read The Last Man by Mary Shelley, published in 1826. It is the first that I know of apocalyptic science fiction novel... might be interesting to compare it to a modern day novel that touches on the same themes, one of those end of the world as we know it novels... with zombies.:) Perhaps The Last Man(1826) by Shelley, and I am Legend(1954) by Matheson.

[mal4mac]

Just mentally run through all the books you've ever read and see if there is some theme connecting two of them that you would find interesting to explore. For instance, I'd be tempted to tackle the theme of "Big Brother is watching you" by comparing Orwell's 1984 and Dave Egger's The Circle, or the theme of "the rural idyll" by comparing (say) Thoreau's Walden and Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. Or what about going for the "big theme" of "The Great American Novel" by comparing two novels that are contenders foe the title, and saying what you think makes them contenders (or not!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Novel

[illiterati]

Hi everyone.... I'm new here.
For my thesis, I have to compare two literary works (novels/plays) from different authors. The two works can be from the same period or not. The stories must share the same issues and from both of the books, we can get one conclusion. The works can be compared from its characterisations or conflicts.
I am completely stuck on what two to choose. I really appreciate any suggestions :)
Thank you!

Pick the two you like to read the most.

More importantly: keep the focus narrow and concrete. The more stringently you are able to do this--and most people are unable to do it--the better your paper will be.

For example--don't writer about gender, ambiguous moral choices, or notions of justice in two works. Compare the presence / occurrence function of: clothing; doorways; kissing; pauses in dialogue--anything, but keep it narrower and more concrete than you think is feasible. Once you think you have something narrow and concrete, make the topic narrower and more concrete.

Though counter-intuitive, this will do several things for you: it will force you to develop specific, nuanced, concrete claims. When you do move into bigger ideas, your claims will be more interesting--I don't care about your conception of moral ambiguity (I put more trust in my own), but I'm very interested to see how you work from two novels' uses of, say, red scarves, to themes of constraint and passion. Or something.

Here's a chapter from Writing Analytically that has a lot of compressed, clear, and helpful strategies for increasing your ability to think and write effectively in this way:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BweCCve6rs1xcHAwNENsT2otX0E/edit?usp=sharing

If you read and employ some of these strategies, I guarantee your teacher will be impressed (more importantly, you'll write a more interesting paper)

-M