English literature coursework

hi,I am a year 12 english literature student about to do my NEA,for this we have to compare A streetcar named desire to another piece of lit,the three choices given are The Great Gatsby,Carol Anne Duffy poem collection (which you have to select poems from) and wild Sargasso sea,you are able to do your own choice if it is submitted to the exam board and accepted,I put forward The book The Colour Purple which main themes are race and gender,It has been accepted but I am unsure of the colour purple is a better option than the suggested ones,overall I am just unsure what to do as the colour purple and a streetcar named desire would have a strong link on gender but no so much on race.
Any replies would be really helpful thanks

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

Gabi26

Original post by Alisha-Jane07

I study 3 of these for my A levels, I'm in Y13, A Streetcar Named Desire, Gospels and Gatsby. A streetcar Named Desire does explore race to some extent. While the main characters are white there is the idea of Stanley being Polish, the way that Blanche speaks of him, particularly in Scene 4, 'king of the apes', the fact she calls him by his full name, emphasising his nationality. New Orleans was a cosmopolitan city, there was an intermingling of races (Scene 1 introduction). Belle Reve was a plantation, meaning the wealth came from slavery.
Gatsby doesn't really talk too much on race, it is very concentrated on Gatsby's relationship with Daisy and Nick's feelings of Gatsby or towards him, and the American Dream.
I'm not really sure how you would talk about race in Feminine Gospels, most of the poems do not have a named persona, they are ambiguous in a way.
Have you read the books you have been suggested?