Write a compare-and-contrast essay that exhibits accurate analysis of the following topic: Analyze how a certain theme from America’s literary history is shown through two different works and authors. These works must be from the same literary time period; however, the pieces, as well as the theme, are entirely up to you. Please use this opportunity to exercise your freedom as a literary scholar to investigate themes and pieces of the utmost interest to you. You are not limited to the authors and works studied in this unit.

Choose a theme from the following list:
Religion and Faith
Community and Responsibility
The American Dream
Disillusionment of Man
The Meaning of Freedom
The Journey to Identity

As you begin to think about different topics or themes that you would like to analyze for your portfolio project, reflect on what you have already studied this school year in English 11. During the course of this year, you have studied the following literary time periods:

Early and Colonial America (Puritanism)
Romanticism
Realism
Modernism
Postmodernism

Summary: compare and contrast 2 stories from the same era with the same theme

Explanation: Although the genres of fiction, poetry, drama, and literary nonfiction are different, all writing within these genres has themes. Each theme is not merely the topic of the writing but is a truth the author wants the reader to understand. For example, love is a topic commonly explored by writers.

A photograph of a stage production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It is of the famous balcony scene.

Source: romeo_juliet_0400_filtered, Daniel_dimarco, Flickr

To read a play like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and to say its theme is “love” is to miss the point that Shakespeare is trying to make about love. Romeo's and Juliet’s families despise each other and forbid the teens’ love. This forbidden love ultimately leads to the deaths of the young lovers. Shakespeare wants us to understand that love is more than an emotion; it is a force that can cause violence and destruction.

Understanding Theme

A painting portrait of Queen Anne Boleyn of England

Source: Anneboleyn2, Wikimedia

If theme is a way of seeing the world through the author’s eyes, then as we read works by different authors that tackle the same theme, we will see their differing viewpoints about the same topic.

Let’s take a look at an example. The lines below are from the poem “O Death, Rock Me Asleep” attributed to Anne Boleyn. It was presumably written while she waited for her execution in 1536.

Farewell, my pleasures past,

Welcome, my present pain!

I feel my torments so increase

That life cannot remain.

The theme of this poem is that death is a welcome relief from the torments of life.

A photograph of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. He is a man in his 30s wearing a jacket and bow tie.

Source: Dylan Thomas photo, Wikipedia

Now, read this stanza from “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” written by Dylan Thomas in 1951 for his dying father.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

How might you figure out the theme of this poem? You can start by asking questions such as the ones that follow. Even if you can’t answer all of the questions about a work, it’s good to keep them in mind.

what motivates odysseus to tell a lie to the cyclops