Intertextuality and Comparative Analysis of Character and/or Themes

  Compare OR contrast an element of one literary text with another text we’ve read in Conference of the Birds and The Pillow Book. Examine and analyze the similarities or differences in a set of characters, a specific narrative element, a structural device, or a certain theme—any of these you might recognize from your own reading or from our class discussions. Write a paper that 1) provides an in-depth analysis of this and 2) makes an argument about the significance of these points of similarity or contrast. Why does it matter? And how does our understanding of each text deepen from looking at them side by side? What do you understand more fully, more richly? How does a close examination of one of these equip you to understand and more fully analyze the other?