Using Comparative Literature In The ELT Classroom: Underlining The Post-Modern Sister Carrie In Some Girls: My Life In A Harem

KUMLU E.

5th World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES), Rome, Italy, 5 - 08 February 2013, vol.116, pp.502-508 identifier

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • Volume: 116
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.248
  • City: Rome
  • Country: Italy
  • Page Numbers: pp.502-508
  • Keywords: Sister Carrie, Some Girls, My Life In A Harem, Comparative Literature, City, Theodore Dreiser, Jillian Lauren
  • Dokuz Eylül University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Using comparative literature in the ELT classroom is a powerful tool to teach both the history of different cultures and to foster creative abilities. An example of such a comparative analysis is Theodore Dreiser's masterpiece Sister Carrie(1900) and Jillian Lauren's novel Some Girls: My Life in a Harem(2010). Through a comparative analysis, it can be ascertained that Dreiser's protagonist Caroline Meeber, Sister Carrie, symbolically intersects with Lauren's narrator. Like a post-modern Sister Carrie, Lauren's narrator underlines the historical, social, cultural and psychological forces behind becoming a woman through focusing on the binary opposition between 'the real and the unreal. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.