For this essay, use two of the texts we have read thus far in the course to make an argument about the lives of women in the early twentieth century. Keep in mind that I’m not asking you to do a traditional comparison/contrast essay, in which you spend most of your time listing the ways in which two things are similar and then the ways in which they are different. Rather, I’m asking you to perform a comparative analysis. This kind of paper tends to rely heavily on “close reading,” often with two close readings placed side by side and evaluated. Typically in comparative analyses, you will want to argue that there is a striking similarity between two texts that seem on the surface very different; or you want to show some startling contrast or difference between two texts that seem, on the surface, very similar. A third strategy would be to look at one work through the lens of the other. In this case, you will really focus on an analysis of one text but will use terms, ideas, structures, or the like from a second text as a “lens” to look, in a new way, at the first text. In all cases, the goal of this kind of paper is not only a greater understanding of the two texts (though this is indeed one goal), but also a greater understanding of the ways we approach and understand the texts themselves, along with the literary and social milieus surrounding them.

Suggested Topics: 

• According to W.E.B Dubois, “all Art is propaganda and ever must be” (para 29). Does this statement apply to Nella Larsen’s Quicksand? In other words, is the novel (or does it try to be) propaganda?
• Would Virginia Woolf classify Nella Larsen’s protagonist Helga Crane an Edwardian or Georgian character?
• What do any of the texts we read on writing (Woolf, Du Bois, Pound, Wallace) understand the purpose of writing to be?
• How do Du Bois and Wallace understand the relationship between writing and race?
• How does Dorothy Parker’s “A Telephone Call” extend, complicate or contradict her appraisal of Emily Post’s book in “Mrs. Post Enlarges on Ettiquette?”

• Some other grounds for comparison that could work across multiple pairings:
  • portrayals of marriage or married life
  • characterizations of the rules of dating/ searching for a partner
  • uses of humor (remember that even Helga Crane is always laughing)
  • inconsistent or ridiculous social rules