Malibu Hess
In 500-600 words, compare Boxers and Saints with another text (something we have read in class or something else of your choice). You obviously won’t be able to do a complete and thorough comparative analysis. Simply choose a specific idea or element of the texts for comparison. For example, as discussed in class, you could compare the way Boxers and Saints presents two perspectives in two books with the way Wide Sargasso Sea presents two perspectives. This post will let you dig more deeply into comparison and the significance of choosing texts / themes to set up your comparison in Major Project 2 (which involves comparative analysis).
I have decided to compare Boxers and Saints to the book “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. I chose this book based off of perspectives that we have talked about in class. In Anne Frank’s diary, she speaks about her violent experiences and times and events during the holocaust. It also has a different perspective of a time period that she is going through. Race and sexuality and gender were all very big discriminations during this time. So, therefore Anne had to struggle with all of these things. During class, I spoke about the destinies of boxers and saints whether that was for the Boxer Rebellion that Boxers had, or a religious destiny that Saints had. I compare destiny because something in Anne made her feel as though to write this diary. It was especially hard when she was going through this time period, as the choices Boxers and Saints had made. They followed what they felt was right. I have had to read both of these books, and they were honestly pretty difficult reads. The things that happen in these books are hard to swallow and make the readers sympathize with what they are going through. These events are awful things; holocaust, saints family disowning her, the rebellion. Anne’s diaries were something that just showed off her identity, which also relates to Boxers and Saints. The choices we make affect our identity, or at least in my opinion. Finding these characters’ sense of selves and identity was a big part in these books. Boxers felt like his identity while Saints felt like hers was religion. Anne felt as though hers was the holocaust and evrything she was going through during this time. These time periods during both books were very violent and hard time periods and the things that had happened during these times were not things children should have to deal with. Another comparison is that neither of these books are for children. The violence such as decapitation and holocaust events are very serious and scary events for children. Back to destinies, these things were all events that these characters had chosen to write about the decisions they had to make. Things that make these books different from each other are that they are very different situations. Although they are both violent and serious, they are different events. Anne was dealing with a whole Holocaust event nd the gender roles were complety different. The perspective she wrote about was in a sense, too mature for young adults as long as with Boxers and Saints.
