Chapter 8: Conclusion

Literary Criticism 
Page 7 
The perception of the Russian people, France has remained the country of the 
Revolution of 1789 and the homeland of the Rights of Man (Marinova, 2011: 114). From the 
1960s onward, French intellectuals outside of Russia strengthened this image by supporting 
the cause of Soviet dissidents. It is again in the name of human rights that France has 
attempted, since 1994, to soften the position of the Russian government with regard to 
Chechnya. 
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 
In this part of there will be consisted with three sub-parts. The first is the theoretical 
review about comparative literature and American school method in comparing literatures. 
The second part would be the section which deliberate the literature that will be compare in 
synopsis and author backgrounds. The three, last but not least, is the part where the 
comparative method is being applied in analyzing both of the works. As consideration, both 
works is well-known come from Russia and South Africa. 
1. Theoretical Review of American School 
Comparative literature has been a subject of concerns, for the primary excitement, 
after its proposition by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Abel Francois Villemain, and Matthew 
Arnold by the mid-1850s after its brief history of six decades, was replaced by questioning of 
the various terminology, nature and functions of Comparative Literature (Paranjape, 2015: 
15). 
By considering development of Comparative Literature in terms of its Schools, it is 
possible not only to comprehend its past but also to anticipate its future on the basis of the 
developments in the past. The French school focused on influence or reception with its basis 
on positivism (Jost, 1974: 74). The British Sch l stud ed n ‘plac ng’ n wh ch ‘plac ng’ f texts 
leads to shared enlightenment of scripts. The American School of comparative literature 
questioned the dominance of the French school and its principal practice in the post-World 
War II period with focus on interdisciplinary approach. It opened the scope of comparative 
literature through Henry Remak and Rene Wellek. 
Henry Remak founded the American school of comparative literature and also of its 
distinction from the French school. While the French school concerned itself w th ‘pr duct’, 
the A er can Sch l e phas zed n the ‘pr cess’ f the ‘pr duct’ coming into existence 
(Wehn, 1997: 361). Moreover, it opened up the frontiers of Comparative Literature and 
transgressed boundaries of the discipline. 

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Literary Criticism 
Page 8 
American scholars of Comparative Literature believed that the study of similarity was 
introduced by the schools, but actually it was reestablished by the American school. Moreover, 
Cao (2013: xxiii) deliberated into three parts. The first is the negation of the French school to 
analogy studies since the French school excluded analogy studies. The second is the reason 
why the American school emphasizes the transnational and interdisciplinary nature of 
Comparative Literature that comparing the products of different national literatures, 
comparing between literatures and other subjects, and sorting out the common aesthetic 
values and the universal laws in literature and literary development. Finally, the focus of the 
American school is the study of thematology, typology, stylistics, and so on. Among them, 
thematology is the study of writers of different countries and their different treatment on
the same subject, which includes the research on motif, situation, and image. 
The American School promotes largely tw the r es, na ely, ‘Parallel s ’ and 
‘Intertextual ty’. The the ry f ‘Parallel s ’ is derived from the idea of similarities in 
hu an ty’s s c al and h st r cal ev lut n, that s, har ny n the process of literary 
development (Enani, 2005: 41; Tӧtӧsy de Zepetnek, 1998: 16). 
Many comparatists in America and Eastern Europe had adopted The ‘Parallel’ the ry. 
According to Konrad, a Russian comparatist sees that this theory is derived from the idea of 
similarities in humanity's social and historical evolution, which means harmony in the process 
of literary development. There are similarities between the literatures of different peoples 
whose social evolution is analogous, irrespective of existence of mutual influence or direct 
relation between them found in study of parallelism (Short, 1986: 156). In advance, the
comparatist seeks to define the origins and evidences which emphasize collective
structures between works and authors, or the association of a occurrence with a
particular form. this theory account that literatures are unlike rendering to their 
determining national and historical backgrounds, it is important in the common
properties of literary phenomena to related with the national and historical attributes of each 
phenomenon.
Parallelism theory does not give importance to the link of causality and no importance 
to influence. There is a possibility of dealing with literary texts not being in contact of 
whatsoever kind but having similar contexts or realities. If influence exists between literary 
texts, the importance does not lie in the influence itself but rather in the context. If the context 
does not allow for influence to be effective, influence will never take place in the first place. 
This term “ ntertextual ty” was established by the poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in the 
1960s, and s nce then t’s been w dely accepted by p st dern l terary cr t cs and 
theoreticians (Allen, 2000: 3). The study of this terminology was a response to Ferdinand de 

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