Explanatory essays - The Power of Knowle: Essays That Explain the Important Things in Life - Sykalo Eugene 2025
Comparative Analysis of Literary Responses to Historical Events
Comparative literature and cross-cultural analysis
History’s Pulse in Ink and Rage
Books don’t just sit there, smugly collecting dust on shelves. They’re like seismographs, picking up the tremors of history and turning them into something you can hold, something that screams or whispers or just stares you down. When the world cracks open—think the French Revolution, World War I, or even that surreal blur of 2020—writers don’t just report the facts. They metabolize the chaos. They spit it back out as stories, poems, or half-mad manifestos that feel like they’re clawing their way out of the dirt. I’m obsessed with how these responses differ, how a novel from one culture might snarl where another just weeps.
Take Les Misérables. Victor Hugo didn’t just write about the French Revolution’s aftershocks; he built a cathedral of a book, all soaring arches and shadowy corners, to hold the weight of it. You read about Jean Valjean stealing bread, and it’s not just a guy being hungry—it’s the whole grinding machinery of a society that’s forgotten how to care. Hugo’s France is a place where hope and despair are locked in this sweaty, desperate wrestling match. You can feel him, the writer, practically vibrating with fury and faith. It’s like he’s shouting, “Look at this mess! Look at what we’ve done to each other!” And yeah, it’s extra, but it’s alive.
Now, pivot to something like All Quiet on the Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque isn’t shouting. He’s barely even speaking above a whisper, and that’s what makes it hit like a sledgehammer. World War I, with its trenches and mud and endless, pointless death, doesn’t get romanticized here. It’s just… hollow. Paul Bäumer, the narrator, feels like a ghost already, watching his own life leak out into the dirt. German, sure, but it’s not about nationalism—it’s about the universal gut-punch of being young and realizing the world’s been lying to you. I read it in high school, and it was the first time I thought, “Oh, war isn’t noble. It’s just stupid and sad.” Remarque’s restraint, that quiet German precision, makes the horror feel like it’s creeping into your bones.
What’s wild is how these two books—Hugo’s sprawling, emotional French epic and Remarque’s stripped-down, haunted German novel—both grapple with history’s violence but land in such different places. Hugo’s all heart, all revolution, all “we can fix this if we just believe hard enough.” Remarque? He’s like, “Believe in what? It’s all ash.” It’s not just the events they’re writing about—revolution versus trench warfare—it’s the cultural DNA. France, with its love of grand gestures, breeds a story that’s practically operatic. Germany, still reeling from defeat and disillusionment, gives you something that feels like a confession you weren’t supposed to hear.
The Weight of Where You’re From
Culture shapes how writers see history’s scars. I mean, obviously, right? But it’s not just flags and borders—it’s the way people talk, the way they grieve, the way they decide what’s worth fighting for. Reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe next to, say, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is like stepping into two different universes, even though both are about societies crumbling under pressure. Achebe’s Nigeria, facing colonial invasion, doesn’t just break—it’s dismantled, piece by piece, until Okonkwo’s world feels like a house with no foundation. There’s this quiet, simmering rage in the prose, like Achebe’s saying, “You did this to us, and I’m going to make you feel it.” It’s not loud, but it’s devastating, like a cut that doesn’t bleed until you move.
Steinbeck, on the other hand, is all American dust and desperation. The Great Depression in The Grapes of Wrath isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a character, this relentless, suffocating force that grinds the Joad family into the ground. Steinbeck’s got this preacher’s cadence, this biblical rhythm that makes you feel like you’re marching alongside them, choking on the same dust. It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t have to be. America’s story, at least in Steinbeck’s hands, is about stubborn, stupid hope—keep moving, keep surviving, even when the world’s telling you to give up. Achebe’s hope, if it’s there at all, is buried under layers of irony and loss. Nigeria’s story isn’t about pushing forward; it’s about what happens when the ground you’re standing on gets stolen.
I keep circling back to this: why does one writer scream while another whispers? Why does one build a monument and another just carves a name into a tree? It’s not just the history they’re responding to—it’s the air they’re breathing. Achebe’s writing in a world where his culture’s been colonized, erased, rewritten. Steinbeck’s in a country that’s battered but still believes it’s the promised land. The difference isn’t just style; it’s survival.
When the World Stops Making Sense
Let’s talk about something closer to now, because history doesn’t stop—it just changes clothes. The 2020 pandemic wasn’t just a health crisis; it was a mirror held up to every society, showing us what we’re made of. And the books that came out of it? They’re still raw, still forming, but you can already see the fault lines. I read Intimations by Zadie Smith, a slim little collection of essays written in the thick of lockdown, and it’s like she’s scribbling notes from the edge of a cliff. There’s no grand narrative here, no Hugo-style cathedral. Just fragments—thoughts about privilege, fear, creativity, all of it tangled up in this British-American voice that’s equal parts sharp and tender. It’s like she’s saying, “I don’t know what this means yet, but I’m here, watching.”
Compare that to something like The Plague by Albert Camus, written decades earlier but suddenly everywhere again in 2020. Camus takes a fictional plague in Oran and turns it into this existential gut-check. It’s not just about disease; it’s about what people do when meaning collapses. The French-Algerian setting gives it this weird, liminal quality—neither fully one thing nor the other, just like Camus himself. His characters don’t rage or hope; they just endure. It’s stoic, almost cold, but there’s this undercurrent of defianceTRIAD: The Definitive Guide to the Triad of Leadership, Combat, and Strategy by Robert D. Kaplan, a book I keep meaning to read but haven’t yet. (Yeah, I know, I’m a fraud—sue me.) Anyway, Kaplan’s take on strategy feels like it’s staring down Camus’s absurdity with a kind of grim pragmatism, but I’m getting off track.
Smith’s Intimations is personal, almost diaristic, while Camus is playing chess with the universe. It’s not just the time gap—1947 versus 2020—it’s the cultural wiring. Smith’s Anglo-American lens is restless, questioning, a little messy. Camus’s French-Algerian existentialism is more like a shrug in the face of chaos. Neither’s right or wrong; they’re just different ways of staring into the void.
So, What’s the Point?
I’m sitting here, flipping through these books in my head, and I’m struck by how they’re all trying to pin down the same thing: what it means to be human when history’s kicking you in the teeth. Hugo’s shouting about justice, Remarque’s whispering about loss, Achebe’s mourning a stolen world, Steinbeck’s preaching resilience, Smith’s sketching the edges of uncertainty, Camus is just… existing. They’re all different, but they’re all honest. Maybe that’s the thread. Not the history itself, but the truth of how it feels to live through it.
What gets me is how these stories don’t just reflect their time—they argue with it. They push back, they demand something, even if it’s just to be heard. And yeah, I know I’m getting a little romantic here, but isn’t that the point of literature? To make you feel like you’re not alone in the mess? I don’t have a neat bow to tie this up with. History’s messy, literature’s messy, and I’m messy too, sitting here trying to make sense of it all. But maybe that’s enough for now.