E314V||Arab-American Literature Instructor: Micklethwait

Fall 2005

Final Comparative Analysis Essay

Rough draft due Tuesday, Nov. 22.

Individual draft conferences by appointment Monday, Nov. 28 and Tuesday, Nov. 29.

Final draft due Thursday, Dec. 8.

Minimum 8 pages.

For the final essay, you will undertake a critical comparison of two texts. These two texts will be entirely of your choosing either from those in our course packet or other Arab-American literary texts, though you are also encouraged to compare an Arab-American text to a literary piece from another ethnic American literature with my approval. You may choose an early mahjar text (Rihani, Gibran, Naimy or Abu Madi) and compare it to a contemporary text, or you may compare two contemporary texts. Whatever texts you choose, they should present a challenging comparison: i.e., the similarities or differences that you discuss in your essay should not be obvious.

Additional requirement: for this paper, I want you to use two secondary sources to support your analysis. These sources may either be factual studies of historical or sociological data or they may be books or essays on literary theory (e.g. Wayne C. Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction if you’re writing about prose). Consult with me about the topic you’re working on and we’ll discuss ideal secondary sources.

Some suggested topics:

Choose two texts that deal with a similar topic (i.e., adolescence, immigration, racism, gender, assimilation, etc.) and explain how their different approaches demonstrate either a historical transformation (if comparing an early text to a contemporary one), a difference in the authors’ circumstances (age, gender, religion, location).

If you prefer not to deal just with literary texts, one interesting topic would be to compare theories of culture and assimilation (bridging the East and West) in The Book of Khalid and in the essays on Arab-American literature by Lisa Suheir Majaj and/or Khaled Mattawa.

In executing your comparison, be especially mindful of the genres you are dealing with. If your pieces are prose, use the elements of narrative structure we have discussed (exposition, character, crisis, resolution, etc.). If your pieces are poetry, talk about elements like imagery and figurative language, voice, mood, meter, stanzas, repetitions, etc.