Your essay should be at least five pages, double-spaced, with a 12 pt Times New Roman font and in MLA format, with a Works Cited page at the end. It should include the following: An introduction which makes your frame of reference clear. Edward Said’s “Reflections on Exile” will be our frame of reference, for this essay and for the next, final one, so you will want to introduce the reader to this essay in the introduction. You will want to consider how his definition of exile as an “unhealable” rift between the self and its “true home” does and/or does not apply to each novel. In the paragraph following the introduction: A transition sentence that links the ideas in the Said essay to the literary works you will be analyzing. Introduce the reader to each novel and its historical context (two sentences for each novel will do). Then, make clear your grounds for comparison, or your rationale for comparing both novels. What do they have in common? (1-2 sentences). In the same paragraph, or in a different one, lead into your compare-and-contrast thesis statement, which should focus on the contrast. Here you need to address the source of exile (what creates the rift between the protagonist and his or her native country), the significance of the return to the native country and the denouement, or the issue of whether the protagonist does or does not overcome his or her estrangement from the native land. Your thesis statement should be about 2-3 sentences and include contrast words like “Whereas.” Compare-contrast thesis statement template (includes grounds for comparison): Both texts A and Text B….. However, whereas text A portrays/depicts/illustrates, text B……. In the body of your essay, you will need to develop your argument using a point-by-point organizational structure. You can break your topic (exile and migration) into subtopics and focus on the following: the circumstances behind each character’s migration, the source of his or her exile, the significance of the return to the native country and whether or not exile is overcome by the end of the novel. With each point, you will alternate in your analysis from The Reluctant Fundamentalist to Breath, Eyes, and Memory. Thus, after you finish discussing the circumstances of Changez’s migration to America in one or two paragraphs, you would shift to a discussion of Sophie’s migration to America, in one or two paragraphs. Be sure to link your analysis of each text with compare-and- contrast transition words (“Like,” “Unlike,” “On the other hand,” “Whereas,”) and that each of your paragraphs has a topic sentence that relates back to your compare-and-contrast argument. In your conclusion, you should NOT restate your argument; rather, you should explore the implications of your analysis. See “Ending the Essay: Conclusions,” Harvard College Writing Center (https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions). For instance, you might want to think about what reading these novels side-by-side reveals about the role that class and gender play in the experience of exile and migration.