At first I thought that this might not be such a good idea because one is a short story and the other is a poem, but it occurs to me that you might enjoy the challenge of comparing and contrasting the two. What they have in common is the theme of disillusionment, or disenchantment. They also deal heavily in the theme of love. You might compare the characters of the two love objects. The girl...
At first I thought that this might not be such a good idea because one is a short story and the other is a poem, but it occurs to me that you might enjoy the challenge of comparing and contrasting the two. What they have in common is the theme of disillusionment, or disenchantment. They also deal heavily in the theme of love. You might compare the characters of the two love objects. The girl in "Araby" is a very young, simple, innocent type; whereas the Lady in "La Belle Dame sans merci" is extremely complicated, sinister, and dangerous. We are not sure she is real or only a spirit. "Araby" is a modern story, whereas "La Belle Dame sans merci" is very deliberately medieval. The narrator of "Araby" is telling his own story. The narrator of Keats' poem is telling the story of another man, a knight at arms, who fell in love with a supernatural woman and was just another one of her many conquests.
I would assume that your thesis would have to do with the fact that the two pieces were written many years apart and deal with different kinds of love, yet they are similar in evoking strong feelings of disappointment, disillusionment, and disenchantment. Although the narrator of "Araby" is still very young, he is just as much in love with Mangan's sister as the knight was with the Belle Dame sans merci. Both lovers are left "forlorn," to use Keats' word.
If you feel like writing such an essay, you ought to go ahead with it. You may come up with ideas that will surprise you. Our intuition is often the best guide in choosing topics and developing them.
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