A suggestion for structuring your answer: using the sample written by Mr. Allen on the cartoon strip and the extract from The Blindfold Horse. Read both texts carefully and make sure you understand them before you begin.
In introduction:
Instead of stating the obvious e.g. Text A is a cartoon strip by…and text B is an extract from a memoir written by Shusa Guppy blah blah, make an immediate connection between the two.
Texts 3 and 4 – a cartoon strip from 1986 entitled ‘Cathy’ and an extract from a memoir by
Shusha Guppy entitled The Blindfold Horse – have in common the subject matter of gender
roles, particularly the roles of women, in both Western and Middle Eastern societies.
Establish audience and purpose:
The cartoon strip is of the type found in Western newspapers and has an adult audience in mind.
The extract from the memoir, published in 1988 and so dealing with a similar time period as
the cartoon strip, is based on personal experience and is set in Iran. Thus we can see that by
nature of the contrasting text types (satirical cartoon compared to serious memoir), and
settings (The United States in the West compared to Persia / Iran in the East), but with the
similar context of time (1986 and 1988), comparing these texts with reference to the
message they are sending out about the roles of women in society allows for a wider insight
into international attitudes and how these are conveyed in literary and non‐literary texts.
Compare overall message of texts and in what ways they provide an interesting comparison.
Through contrasting the effects of the features specific to each text type, through
comparing the concept of pre‐determination presented in both texts, and through exploring
the common theme that progressive views are held back by societal dogma, it is possible to
develop a broader insight into gender roles by viewing these very different texts together.
Here you have set up your ‘bigger picture’ understanding and you are ready to move into detail. The remainder of your comparative commentary does not have to follow this order but it does have to cover all of the following:
Structure or layout and the reasoning behind it
The cartoon strip, ‘Cathy’ by Cathy Guisewhite, follows conventional forms of the cartoon,
ending a four‐tile strip with a traditional punch‐line. In this particular comic, the mother of a
new‐born baby defiantly makes a stand against gender stereotyping by announcing to the
nurse in tile one that she is not going to reveal the baby’s gender to preserve her from
prejudiced attitudes. In the first three tiles, the cartoonist focuses on the image of the
mother as she becomes increasingly exasperated with the depth and prevalence of this
attitude that she is trying to oppose. While in the first tile she is smiling at her idealism, the
nurse’s reaction – to make the assumption that the baby is a boy and to list associated
stereotypes about having a ‘strong fist’ and a ‘mischievous sparkle’, ironically directly
opposing the mother’s motivations behind her silence – removes the smile by tile two (as
she turns to look at the baby with a slightly quizzical look), and provokes her to lose her cool
and shout, ‘She’s a girl! A tough, strong girl!’ as suddenly as by tile three. The cartoonist has
included two beads of sweat flying from her brow to show her anger and frustration,
something also characterized by the two exclamation marks as she enforces the fact that,
given her previous logic, the stereotypical view of a boy being ‘tough’ and ‘strong’ can alsoapply to a girl. However, the real joke comes, in line with convention, in the final tile. Here
the nurse remains oblivious to the mother’s outburst, remaining cool and calm as she
completely undermines her own previously inaccurate prejudices by now asserting that it is
obvious the child is a girl because of her ‘precious little dimple’. While the three previous
tiles zoomed in ever closer in order to display the mother’s expressions, this final tile
establishes a medium shot again, and the mother’s flat lack of expression highlights the
cartoon’s message that any attempts to overcome society’s gender stereotyping are futile
as people will do it anyway. Perhaps better to focus all on one text here…
and now text B structure and layout and the reasoning behind it:
Similarly, Text 4 also adheres to the conventions of its text type, in this case those of the
memoir. The text is a personal memory told in the first person. It begins the discussion from
‘my mother’s labour’ as she gives birth to the writer of the text. However, the message
about being born as a female into Persian society is made clear through the tone of the
discussion early in the extract. Guppy describes the ways in which her father ‘congratulated’
her mother over the births of her two elder brothers, and describes the fact that even her
sister was a ‘welcome variety’. Bring in tone However, it is when she says that ‘I just happened’ that we see, through the matter‐of‐fact and slightly embittered tone, how uncelebrated was her
arrival into the world (announced only by the Nanny), and that her father remained in his
study until the matter was cleaned up. Indeed, Indeed, the semi‐rhetorical question that Guppy
relays to the reader, the one in which she asked her father whether he would have
preferred a boy, was answered in the affirmative. The tone of confession and emotive
subject matter, as the writer explores personal, familial issues, is all indicative of the
traditional style of the memoir. However, as this piece develops and discusses the changing
face of Persia at this time (presumably, given the date of publication, sometime in the
1960s), we learn that the first person narrative perspective has indeed left Persia and the
family to take up life in Europe, married to an Englishman. There is a certain irony at the end,
in a similar vein to the ending of the cartoon strip, in that despite the writer’s mother’s
‘incredulous’ laughter at the thought of her daughter’s future lying elsewhere, and despite
the ‘rapidly changing Persia’, the writer does end up leaving home perhaps, as in the perhaps, as in the cartoon, because of the frustrating attitudes that surround her.
Message and purpose of texts (giving examples from text)
In order to achieve their own specific purposes, both texts present the concept of predetermination. This concept is portrayed in the cartoon strip simply through the development of the narrative, while the emotional effect is best seen through the image of the mother’s face and the fact that her expression is magnified in tiles two and three. Despite the mother’s best efforts at protecting her child from gender stereotyping even through the comically extreme and ridiculous lengths of refusing to identify its gender, it’s clear that people are going to stereotype anyway. This is represented by the nurse who, despite the mother’s wishes, proceeds to leap to judgements and explain just how and why the child must be a boy. In the end the child’s mother is ultimately hypocritical as she is so upset not only by this going against her wishes but also that anyone could think her precious daughter was a boy. This causes her to go back on her initial intention and announce that she is a girl. By contrast, the predetermined role of a woman in the higher class society Guppy is born into is enforced by her father ironically during the birth of her brothers:
‘Father congratulated Mother with a quotation from Firdowski’s The Book of Kings:
“Sufficient unto women is the art of
Producing and raising sons as brave as lions”’
This suggests that a woman’s entire ambition and destiny is simply in her role as a mother,
raising not just children, but male children.
This notion of predetermination is continued with the motif of fortune‐telling, and that ‘they said’ (the choice of the word suggesting it is a belief that Guppy is segregated from now) that one’s destiny is ‘written on the brow’, despite the family’s lack of belief in ‘charlatans’ who manipulate such religious teachings.
Show an understanding of the ‘scope’ of the texts:
The extract concludes with the writer jokingly questioning whether her future was really
written ‘after all’, since one famous Indian yogi with ‘extraordinary power to foresee the
future’ correctly predicted that her future lay elsewhere. At the heart of the text, the
suggestion is that the key determiner in one’s future, however, is the prevalent attitudes of
the society itself. Guppy’s mother is incredulous at the thought that the daughter will leave
the family; such a prospect for a woman would have been extremely unusual. However, by
the time the memoir is written, Guppy is married to an Englishman, living in Europe and reflecting on growing up in Persia.
More comparison of texts and more discussion of stylistic features: ( I have highlighted a few)
Building upon this concept of predetermination, both texts present the common theme of
progressive views being held back by societal dogma. Clearly the mother in Text 3, the
cartoon strip, is progressive in her thinking about traditional gender roles and in her
revolutionary efforts, however misguided, at helping to protect her own child from such
stereotyping. It is hyperbolic and tongue‐in‐cheek, of course, in keeping with the purpose
and audience of the particular text type. However, the nurse here is representative of
society as a whole and she represses the mother’s progressive ideal within the space of two
tiles of the cartoon strip. The tone of the last tile and the expression on the mother’s face
suggests she has already given up on this idea and society’s status quo and gender
stereotypes will prevail. By contrast, this theme is presented through the arrogant,
dismissive tone of opponents to the ‘emancipation’ of women that has already begun in
Persia in the early years of Guppy’s life. She describes her own life choices – ‘radical
adolescent politics’ and choosing a life in the West – as causing ‘endless trouble’ to her
parents with their more conservative views. Moreover, through the use of direct speech, we
as a reader can hear the words of others who persuasively mock progressive views
regarding women’s rights: ‘God knows how far they will go when they start enjoying their
liberty’. Here the hyperbolic tone and blasphemous exclamation is patronizing, implying not
only that women will irresponsibly ‘enjoy’ their freedom, but that they then might want
even more equality and opportunity. This male (though not necessarily exclusively so)
perspective is a concerned one, suggesting that their place at the top of the hierarchy is
unjustifiably under threat. Finally, her own mother’s reaction to the suggestion that she will
leave provokes her to mock her with sarcasm about marrying an ‘Ambassador’. The
surrounding attitudes within a society prove to be powerful in these two extracts at holding
back any pretensions to progressive thinking and action. However, in Text 4, it is stated
explicitly that Persia is developing in its attitudes, symbolized by the abolition of the veil,
and Guppy herself is able to make an independent stand, even though she has to leave the country to do so.
In conclusion reiterate understanding both of the texts and the reasons why they have been put together:
In selecting these very different texts for comparison, it is evident that we as readers can
learn more about one through developing an understanding of the other. For this pair of
texts, the cartoon strip ‘Cathy’ and the extract from Guppy’s memoir, it is possible to learn a
little more about societies’ attitudes towards gender roles, specifically those of women.
While the initial point of comparison seems to be that both texts are written at similar time
periods but in very different settings, in actual fact it seems to be the time period that
Guppy is writing about that is more interesting. We can assume that, for her to be writing in
the late 1980s, the period of her birth and young childhood described, when the Indian yogi
is talking of her future, is the 1950s or early 1960s. Thus there is a certain irony in the fact
that Guppy escapes the oppressive Persian society (despite its alleged progression) only to
end up in a Western society that, according to the ‘Cathy’ cartoon, suffers from similar gender stereotyping.