Examples:
1. Eveline by James Joyce was very similar to that book I referred to from the introduction that I can't remember that title of. They both feature female protagonists hell bent on changing their lives for the better, and in my head, neither exactly succeeds. Eveline is stuck in Ireland with her abusive dad, and the girl from the book abandons her family who may or may not need her to learn, which she does feel guilty about. So having read the book, reading Eveline was very easy, because I knew they would have the same eventual meaning.
2. Not surprisingly, there's another book I read in junior high that that I don't remember the title or character's names but can totally remember the entire plot. This book and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and very much related to me. In the book with no memorable title, the teen protagonist breaks social norms by exiting his family's survival bunker after a supposed nuclear holocaust, while Huck Finn does the same thing, breaks social norms by running away from his guardian, his dad, and most of the aspects of his life. This breaking of social boundaries by teenage boys (or close to it, how old is Huck?) helped me connect the two novels and understand Huck Finn significantly more because his actions didn't seem so out of left field to me.
3. The Odyssey by Homer was really confusing to me freshman year until I related it to Shrek. I know, strange. I realized the basic structure is the same for both: a quest. Male protagonists going off to save princesses and have to kick butt along the way. I would never have understood a word of Homer if I hadn't been able to pull elements of Shrek into the piece to almost translate it.
Okay, this is funny. Each of these examples I used contains an older piece or classic and a newer piece. It seems like I read all the newer pieces first and used them to understand the older ones, even though they'd actually been written later!
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