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What books for English lit a2 coursework?

For one piece of my A2 course, I have to choose two books and compare an aspect present in both of them. I am aiming for an A this year but I'm finding choosing books a little difficult.

For one choice I've come up with the theme of revenge, and the books I can think of are:
Wuthering heights
The count of Monte Cristo
The Scarlet Letter

Or the mental illness in either:
It's kind of a funny story
The yellow wall-paper
The bell jar

Since I have already read Wuthering heights, I'm kind of leaning towards comparing the theme of revenge in that and the Scarlet letter.
I'd definitely consider going with the ones you're most comfortable with. I did A Level English Lit last year, but luckily my teachers chose the books for us. If you've read Wuthering Heights and you feel like it'll give you an advantage because you've already read it, go for that. But your other theme is good as well.

If you need to buy new books for this Wordery has a ton of discounts right now for A Level related books, so really the bottom line is: Do you want to stick with what you know or take a risk with different books?

Hope this helps :biggrin:
Original post by Maryam101
For one piece of my A2 course, I have to choose two books and compare an aspect present in both of them. I am aiming for an A this year but I'm finding choosing books a little difficult.

I would go with the books you know best and are most comfortable doing. When I did English I always made sure I chose the ones that most interested me along with what ones I could get the best grade in. If you know Wurthering Heights well and like it you could do that one as you can get more information for it much more easily.

I'd have gone with Wurthering Heights/ Bell Jar
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evantej
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Original post by Maryam101
For one piece of my A2 course, I have to choose two books and compare an aspect present in both of them. I am aiming for an A this year but I'm finding choosing books a little difficult.

For one choice I've come up with the theme of revenge, and the books I can think of are:
Wuthering heights
The count of Monte Cristo
The Scarlet Letter

Or the mental illness in either:
It's kind of a funny story
The yellow wall-paper
The bell jar

Since I have already read Wuthering heights, I'm kind of leaning towards comparing the theme of revenge in that and the Scarlet letter.

Of the two topics I would be more included to go for 'mental illness' because you will gain lots of marks by talking about how the authors present the character's 'mental illness' in the works (e.g. it is often not the events described themselves but the irrational levels of introspection involved, and you can talk about technical aspects of grammar involved when describing this). You could select lots of works to compare - Dostoevsky's The Double is an older example while Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a recent example - but I would not stress the mental illness too much as you are not a clinician (i.e. there are actually specific forms of language used by people with mental illness but you do not know this obviously). To be on the safe side just say you are going to compare how different authors represent mental illness.

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