During the 19th Century, both England and France
suffered a loss of stability. This instability sparked a thirst for existential
meaning in both societies. For France, confusion arose from their political and
social disruptions; in England, it was due to the ideological battles between
religion and science. In contrast to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland stories which promote self-creation of meaning,
Alexander Dumas’s The Count of Monte
Cristo stresses that personal meaning is only found through others and
ultimately God.
I'm going to post a shortened version of this on my Facebook.
This is interesting! I would be interested in reading a paper like this. I see what you mean though. In the comparison format it feels like there are too many things going on and it'd be hard to organize your paper. The concept of these books and their historical significance would make two great separate essays. So I guess the main thing you need to figure out is what connects the two texts and why that matters.
ReplyDeleteI did get a little bit lost at first with the connection between the history of England and France and your actual thesis. Perhaps you could more explicitly mention how each work ties into its respective country and time period, and/or focus your thesis on how the literature reflects the lack of personal identity that each country was experiencing at the time.
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