Write a short essay comparing and contrasting the theme of equality in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party,” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” Compare and contrast essays are a bit different than regular literary analysis essays in that they critically discuss the similarities and differences of two texts, then synthesize meaning out of the differences. (This strategy essentially follows the process of what we in the humanities call “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.”) This essay will require more than one draft in order to synthesize a decent thesis and cannot be satisfactorily completed the night before the due date. Remember to include a topic sentence and your thesis statement near the beginning of your essay and provide ample support for your assertions. Also be sure to properly reference your quotations and sources, and to include a “Works Cited” page at the end of your essay. You should quote from each poem at least once (but probably no more than twice each). First, introduce the reader to the subject of equality in the two texts, then discuss the different ways each text approaches the topic. What is the significance here? Do they depict equality in the same way? Do the texts agree on the concept of equality? Is there a “right way” to think about the topic and a “wrong way?” Try thinking about the texts from a Marxist perspective. Remember Marxist theory is rooted in the idea of class stratification, and that equality of the classes is the only way for our society to evolve into a truly equal system. How can this theory help us to understand the points of the texts? After you’ve contrasted the two texts, synthesize a thesis statement about the theme of equality as depicted in both texts and write your introduction. For this assignment you should quote from each story at least once, and the quotations must conform to MLA standards: they should be properly introduced and grammatically correct with proper documentation in a “Works Cited” page at the end of the essay. If you choose to utilize secondary material, it must be quoted properly with proper documentation. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, a very serious offence. Copying sources from the internet and not citing them is plagiarism; paraphrasing without acknowledging the source is plagiarism; submitting work that you yourself did not do is also plagiarism.
