In this comparative-analysis essay, you need to describe, explore, and explain how different events, characters, or ideas in two literary texts are connected or related. You need to draw them together to show how they are similar and/or different. While “comparing” is widely accepted as including both similarities and differences, “contrasting,” however, means concentrating only on differences. To write a good compare-and-contrast essay, you must take your raw data—the similarities and differences you have observed—and make them cohere into a meaningful argument.
Here are the four techniques required to write an effective comparative-analysis essay. 1. Frame of Reference. This is the context within which you place the two things you plan to compare and contrast; it is the umbrella under which you have grouped them. The frame of reference may consist of an idea, theme, question, problem, or theory; a group of similar things from which you extract two for special attention. For example, if you plan to write a comparative-analysis essay on The Kite Runner and King Lear, your “frame of reference/umbrella” can be the study of parent and child (especially adult-child) relationship.
More specifically, you may focus on the father-son relationship, comparing and contrasting the relationship between Baba and Amir (The Kite Runner) and that between Gloucester and Edgar (King Lear).
It’ll be equally interesting if you focus on the father-daughter relationship, comparing and contrasting the relationship between General Taheri and Soraya (The Kite Runner) and that between King Lear and Cordelia (or that between Bill and Carolina in Having Hope at Home).
The Term Paper on Disabled and Refugee Blues, contrast and compare experiences
Disabled and Refugee Blues, written by Wilfred Owen and W. H. Auden respectively, are both responses to exile and isolation and a cry for those who are suffering from them. Disabled, written in 1917, was a response to the isolation caused by disability and especially that of war veterans. Auden’s, Refugee Blues, written in 1939 on the outbreak of the Second World War, was criticism of the ...
2. Thesis.
As in any argumentative essay, your thesis statement will convey the gist of your argument, which necessarily follows from your frame of reference. But in a compare-and-contrast, the thesis depends on how the two things you’ve chosen to compare actually relate to one another. Do they extend, corroborate, complicate, contradict, correct, or debate one another? In the most common compare-and-contrast essay (which focuses on differences), you can indicate the precise relationship between A and B by using the word “whereas” in your thesis:
Whereas both Amir and Cordelia cherish deep affection for their alone (single) parents, Baba and King Lear, due to their different dispositions and socio-cultural backgrounds, have created a very different future for their children. Whether your paper focuses primarily on difference or similarity, you need to make the relationship between A and B clear in your thesis. This relationship is at the heart of any compare-and-contrast essay. 3. Organizational Scheme. Your introduction will include your frame of reference, grounds for comparison, and thesis.
There are two basic ways to organize the body of your essay. •In text-by-text, you discuss all of A, then all of B. •In point-by-point, you alternate points about A with comparable points about B. If you think that B extends A, you’ll probably use a text-by-text scheme; if you see A and B engaged in debate, a point-by-point scheme will draw attention to the conflict. Be aware, however, that the point-by- point scheme can come off as a ping-pong game. You can avoid this effect by grouping more than one point together, thereby cutting down on the number of times you alternate from A to B.
But no matter which organizational scheme you choose, you need not give equal time to similarities and differences. In fact, your paper will be more interesting if you get to the heart of your argument as quickly as possible. 4. Linking of A and B. All argumentative essays require you to link each point in the argument back to the thesis. Without such links, your reader will be unable to see how new sections logically and systematically advance your argument. In a compare-and-contrast essay, you also need to make links between A and B in the body of your essay if you want your essay to hold together.
The Term Paper on The Kite Runner 9
The story of the Kite Runner is fictional, but it is rooted in real political and historical events ranging from the last days of the Afghan monarchy in the 1970s to the post-Taliban near present-day. Hosseini also pulls from his own memories and experiences growing up in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of Kabul and his adaptation to life in California. Khaled Hosseini’s aim was to not only call ...
To make these links, use transitional expressions of comparison and contrast such as: similarly, moreover, likewise, on the contrary, conversely, on the other hand. More Suggested Topics (Frame of Reference) on the Oral Essay/Formal Speech 1. The Destruction of Absolute Evil—Assef (The Kite Runner) and Edmund (King Lear) 2. Violent Villains—Assef (The Kite Runner) and Cornwall (King Lear) 3. Social (Il)Legitimacy—Edmund (King Lear) and the Title Hero in “The Bastard” 4.
Sibling Rivaries—Amir and Hassan (The Kite Runner) and Cordelia, Goneril, Regan (King Lear) 5. Mental Health Issue—Olivia (“Almost Better”) and Mad King Lear 6. Orphanhood—Sohrab (The Kite Runner) and “Who I’m Not” 7. Courtship and Marriage—Amir/Soraya (The Kite Runner) and Nerin/Michael (“The Adjuster”) 8. Friendship, Service, and Sacrifice—Kent (King Lear) and Rahim Khan (The Kite Runner) 9. Character Development—Amir (The Kite Runner) and Albany (King Lear) 10. Character Development—Edgar (King Lear) and Amir (The Kite Runner)
