Comparative Essay Study Guide

Four texts

1925

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

USA — Jazz Age / Prohibition
Novel · unreliable 3rd-person narrator (Nick Carraway)

1996

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

USA — non-fiction narrative
Based on Chris McCandless · hybrid journalism / biography

2005

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro

UK — dystopian literary fiction
Retrospective 1st-person narrator (Kathy H.)

2000–03

Persepolis 1–2

Marjane Satrapi

Iran/Europe — graphic memoir
Autobiographical · black-and-white illustration

Form notes — important for authorial choice questions

Fitzgerald uses Nick as an unreliable narrator — his admiration for Gatsby creates ironic distance from the critique of the American Dream
Krakauer uses a hybrid form (journalism, biography, personal essay) — multiple perspectives on McCandless acknowledge the author's own bias and limitations
Ishiguro uses retrospective first-person; Kathy's calm, passive voice mirrors the clones' conditioned acceptance of their fate — narrative voice as ideological symptom
Satrapi uses black-and-white graphic memoir — stripping colour creates moral starkness and mirrors the binary thinking of revolutionary ideology; form is inseparable from argument

Theme mapping by pairing

Identity

Similarity Self-reinvention

Both Gatsby (James Gatz → Jay Gatsby) and McCandless (adopts "Alexander Supertramp") construct entirely new identities to escape their origins
Both reject the values of the class they were born into — Gatsby pursues old money; McCandless flees it
Authorial irony in both: Fitzgerald critiques reinvention as tragic self-deception; Krakauer admires yet mourns McCandless's idealism

Difference

Gatsby reinvents to belong to society; McCandless reinvents to escape it — opposite directions
Gatsby's identity is performative (possessions, parties, "old sport"); McCandless's is anti-materialist and spiritual
Fitzgerald's critique is ironic; Krakauer's sympathy is more ambivalent and explicitly stated

Conflict

Similarity Individual vs society / the American Dream

Both protagonists are in conflict with the hollowness of American society and its material values
Both are ultimately destroyed by their idealism — Gatsby by a bullet, McCandless by an indifferent Alaskan wilderness
Both texts use the American landscape as a symbol of the promise and failure of the Dream

Literary devices

Fitzgerald: the green light — symbol of the perpetually unattainable; fades once Daisy is "possessed"
Krakauer: the Alaskan wilderness — symbol of pure freedom that becomes fatal; nature as indifferent sublime
Both use pathetic fallacy — landscape reflects and amplifies the protagonist's internal state
Fitzgerald: the Valley of Ashes — industrial wasteland as symbol of those discarded by the capitalist dream

Setting

Fitzgerald: Long Island / New York — claustrophobic social geography; where you live encodes class (East vs West Egg vs Valley of Ashes)
Krakauer: vast, open American wilderness — setting as liberation and danger, not confinement
Both use America itself as a character — the landscape carries the weight of the Dream's mythology

Perspective

Both texts use a mediating narrator who is not the protagonist (Nick; Krakauer) — creates sympathy and critical distance simultaneously
Nick is morally complicit in Gatsby's world; Krakauer is a journalist reconstructing McCandless from outside — very different relationships with their subjects
Both narrators are aware they may be romanticising their subject — this self-awareness is itself a literary device

Identity

Similarity Constructed / imposed identity

Gatsby's identity is a fabrication maintained through will and performance; the clones' identities are literally manufactured — both are externally determined
Both texts ask: can identity exist independently of what society imposes on you?
Neither protagonist fully understands themselves — Gatsby doesn't know Daisy has moved on; Kathy doesn't fully confront her fate until very late

Difference

Gatsby actively and desperately constructs his identity; the clones passively accept theirs — agency and resistance vs compliance and conditioning
Gatsby's tragedy is individual self-deception; the clones' tragedy is systemic oppression

Conflict

Similarity Disposability and social exclusion

Fitzgerald's Valley of Ashes and Ishiguro's clone programme both represent people discarded by society for its own comfort and profit
Both texts critique societies that look civilised on the surface but are morally hollow

Literary devices

Both use dramatic irony: the reader understands the horror before (or more fully than) the narrator does
Ishiguro: deferrals and euphemisms ("donations," "completing") — same evasive quality as Nick's polished narration
Elegy — both novels are retrospective laments; tone of loss pervades every line

Setting

Hailsham: controlled, pastoral — beauty concealing a prison; Gatsby's mansion: opulence concealing emptiness
Both settings create false security and false promise for their inhabitants
Strongest setting comparison of all three pairings: both authors use place to critique societies that appear civilised but are morally corrupt

Perspective

Both Kathy and Nick narrate retrospectively — hindsight colours the telling with melancholy and a sense of missed significance
Both are unreliable: Kathy is ideologically conditioned; Nick is romantically infatuated with Gatsby's world
Ishiguro's restraint and understatement vs Fitzgerald's lyrical excess — opposite authorial styles producing the same elegiac effect: a deliberate choice worth discussing

Identity

Similarity Identity under pressure

Both Gatsby and Marji must perform identities that are not fully their own under oppressive circumstances (class expectations; revolutionary Iran)
Both texts question whether authentic selfhood is possible when external forces demand conformity

Difference

Gatsby's identity crisis is individual and psychological; Marji's is collective and political — personal vs national identity
Marji retains critical self-awareness, irony, and humour throughout; Gatsby loses himself entirely in delusion
Gender: Satrapi foregrounds female identity specifically and the politics of the female body (the veil); Fitzgerald's female characters are largely defined through the male gaze

Conflict

Similarity System vs individual

Both texts dramatise individuals crushed by larger ideological systems: capitalist class structure and theocratic regime
War and violence provide the backdrop for both — WWI's aftermath shapes Gatsby's world; the Iran-Iraq War shapes Persepolis
Both explore how ideology is internalised — characters police themselves as much as they are policed

Literary devices

Satrapi: black-and-white art creates stark visual contrast — moral clarity, but also critiques black-and-white thinking itself
Fitzgerald: colour symbolism (green=dream; white=false purity; gold=corrupt wealth; grey=wasteland) structures the moral landscape
Both use visual/aesthetic contrast to encode ideological meaning — very strong comparison for "authorial choices"

Setting

Tehran: setting is politically charged — the veil, the streets, the school become sites of conflict and identity negotiation
Long Island: setting encodes class and aspiration — geography as destiny
Both use geographically specific, culturally embedded settings to speak to universal themes of belonging, exclusion, and the self in society

Perspective

Both use first-person retrospective narrators — but Satrapi narrates as a child growing into political consciousness; Nick begins as a detached adult observer
Both texts are shaped by what the narrator does not yet know or admit — dramatic irony built into the retrospective form
Satrapi's personal voice explicitly challenges Western monolithic narratives about Iran — perspective as a political act; Nick's limited perspective enables and perpetuates Gatsby's mythology

Key quotes to memorise

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Nick Carraway — final line, Ch. 9 · The Great Gatsby

Identity Conflict Perspective Setting

Extended metaphor of boats vs current = individual effort against forces beyond one's control. Works for every theme. Covers the American Dream, time, illusion, and the futility of Gatsby's project.

The Great Gatsby — Fitzgerald, 1925

"Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

Gatsby to Nick, Ch. 6

IdentityConflict

"Her voice is full of money."

Gatsby on Daisy, Ch. 7

SettingIdentityConflict

Into the Wild — Krakauer, 1996

"Happiness only real when shared."

McCandless's journal (used as Krakauer epigraph)

IdentityConflictPerspective

"Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

Thoreau — annotated and underlined by McCandless in his copy of Walden

IdentityConflict

Never Let Me Go — Ishiguro, 2005

"We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."

Kathy H., Ch. 23

IdentityPerspectiveConflict

"The problem... was that you were told and not told."

Miss Lucy to the students

PerspectiveConflictIdentity

Persepolis 1–2 — Satrapi, 2000–2003

"I was nothing. I was a mistake. I had to forget the past and face the future."

Marji, after returning from Vienna

IdentitySettingPerspective

"I wanted to be justice, love, and the wrath of God all in one."

Young Marji, Ch. 1

IdentityPerspectiveConflict

Essay structure — ~800 words

Five-part structure

1

Introduction — 80–100 words

Name both texts, authors, dates of publication. State the theme (identity / setting / conflict / perspective). Write a clear, arguable thesis — one sentence making a specific claim about how the theme is explored differently or similarly. Briefly signal your two or three main points.

"While Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby and Ishiguro's 2005 Never Let Me Go both explore identity as a social construction, Fitzgerald presents it as a tragic individual delusion, whereas Ishiguro implicates an entire society in the systematic suppression of selfhood."

2

Paragraph 1 — First point (~170 words)

Topic sentence stating the point clearly. Embed a quote from Text 1 — analyse the language, literary device, and its effect on the audience. Bring in a quote from Text 2. Compare or contrast directly. End with a link back to your thesis. Use connectives: Similarly… / In contrast… / Both authors… / Whereas…

3

Paragraph 2 — Second point (~170 words)

New topic sentence covering a different aspect of the theme. Maintain the comparison throughout. Consider authorial choices explicitly: form, structure, narrative voice, historical context of publication.

4

Paragraph 3 — Nuance or counterargument (~170 words)

Introduce a qualification, complication, or counterargument. "However, Fitzgerald complicates this reading by…" This demonstrates critical thinking and awareness that texts resist simple interpretations. Link to effect on the audience and authorial intent.

5

Conclusion — 80–100 words

Restate the thesis in different words — do not repeat it verbatim. Summarise how each text approaches the theme. Offer a final evaluative statement: which text handles the theme more effectively, and why? No new quotes or new ideas.

Linking phrases to use under exam conditions

Topic sentence

"Both [A] and [B] present [theme] as…"

Introducing a quote

"Fitzgerald reinforces this through Gatsby's claim that…" / "Satrapi illustrates this visually when…"

Analysing effect

"This [metaphor / symbol / irony] suggests… and creates in the reader a sense of…"

Linking texts

"Similarly, Ishiguro…" / "In contrast to Fitzgerald's approach, Krakauer…" / "Whereas Gatsby's identity is…, Kathy's…"

Authorial choice

"Fitzgerald's use of an unreliable narrator allows him to…" / "Satrapi's choice of the graphic memoir form enables…"

Conclusion

"Ultimately, both authors suggest that… though [Text 1] does so through [X], while [Text 2]…"

Best pairings by question theme

Identity

Gatsby + Persepolis

Strongest contrast: individual vs political identity; gender and the body; irony vs delusion

Setting

Gatsby + Into the Wild

American landscape as dream and threat; geography as fate vs geography as freedom

Conflict

Gatsby + Persepolis

System vs individual; colour/visual symbolism in both; ideology made visible

Perspective

Gatsby + Never Let Me Go

Strongest pairing: both retrospective unreliable narrators; elegy; what the narrator conceals