World Lit Help - Need help with finalising a research question

[sweetnsimple786]

I could have sworn I answered this post when you made your last topic for it... =/

Okay so you're talking about the significance of these natural yet disconcerting...things.

You know... a pimple is like a protrusion from the skin and the stabbing is like an extrusion. Perhaps you can BS how this is significant and the authors meant to do this because it symbolizes something about each character?

If not...

Akutagawa and Marquez both use grotesque imagery related to the human body to to signify ______ in TextA and TextB, respectively.

Yeah, that's pretty simple.. sorry I can't think of another way to classify them at the moment. [Whenever I answer these kinds of questions, I always tell people to include the significance. If you make it work, this'll be a good thesis sentence. [see Thesis]

[Sandwich]

Can't you just keep it more or less as it is? "A comparison of the significance of the hanging intestines in X and the pimple in X".

Being perfectly honest, I would pick a theme over a particular piece of imagery. You're naturally limiting yourself by picking two quite small very specific things - not necessarily that you can't find enough to talk about as regards each of them, but in the way they're used.

I would always start from "what do I know and want to write about", never from "what will I write about, let's find it". Pick out something which gives you compelling points of comparison and a wide range of references, if I were you. Unless the pimple and hanging intestines are large recurring pieces of the plot in these novels (I haven't read them), pick something like "human suffering" or "the grotesque" and work the pimple/guts/whatever into a larger theme which is easier and more effective to compare. Honestly, I think you'll find it both easier and more satisfying to write. Ideally your question should be along the lines of "the significance of X in Y and Z", with one unified thing (X) being compared, as opposed to "the significance of X and Y in A and B". Pick the same theme to compare in both books and concentrate on how they are portrayed/used/expressed differently. In my opinion it's very difficult to do a good comparative piece when you're comparing two separate things without using them underneath some sort of overarching theme.

[Abu]

Please keep all your questions to one topic.

[bohemian03]

I could have sworn I answered this post when you made your last topic for it... =/

yeah sorry my computer wouldn't show any posts and i don't know what was going on so i just had to make another thread.

thanks so much for all your helpful comments. i've finally finished writing my first draft so i will see how it goes.