physical characteristics
duration of light
brightness
noise
materials that compose it
physical characteristics
duration of light
brightness
noise
materials that compose it
inventor
dates of invention and development
process of development
first models
acceptance by society
inventor
dates of invention and development
process of development
type of energy
how the energy is used
physical description
leaves
stem
flowers
fruit
type of soil needed
Narrow Your Focus (in this essay, as in any essay). For example, if you compare two religions, focus on one particular aspect which you can discuss in depth and detail, e.g., sin in Buddhism vs. sin in Christianity, or salvation in two religions. Or if your topic is political, you might compare the Conservative attitude to old growth logging vs. the Green Party's attitude to old growth logging, or the Conservative attitude to the Persian Gulf War vs. the NDP attitude to the same war.
Each paragraph should deal with only one idea and deal with it thoroughly . Give adequate explanation and specific examples to support each idea. The first paragraph introduces the topic, captures the reader's attention, and provides a definite summary of the essay. It may be wise to end the first paragraph with a thesis statement that summarizes the main points of difference (or similarity). For example, "Submarines and warships differ not only in construction, but in their style of weapons and method of attack." This gives the reader a brief outline of your essay, allowing him to anticipate what's to come. Each middle paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that summarizes the main idea of that paragraph (ex. "The musical styles of Van Halen and Steely Dan are as differing in texture as are broken glass and clear water"). An opening sentence like this that uses a metaphor or simile not only summarizes the paragraph but captures the reader's attention, making him want to read on. Avoid a topic sentence that is too dull and too broad (ex. "There are many differences in the musical styles of Van Halen and Steely Dan").
VARY THE STRUCTURE
The structure of the comparison essay may vary. You may use simultaneous comparison structure in which the two things are compared together, feature by feature, point by point. For example, "The electric light bulb lasts 80 hours, while the gas lamp lasts only 20 hours . . . ." Or as in this example (comparing two American presidents):
Consider how perfectly Harding met the requirements for president. Wilson was a visionary who liked to identify himself with "forward-looking men"; Harding was as old-fashioned as those wooden Indians which used to stand in front of cigar stores, "a flower of the period before safety razors." Harding believed that statemanship had come to its apogee in the days of McKinley and Foraker. Wilson was cold. Harding was an affable small-town man, at ease with "folks"; he was an ideal companion to play poker with all Saturday night. Wilson had always been difficult of access; Harding was accessible to the last degree. etc.
Don't use simultaneous structure all the way through the essay, however. It becomes monotonous. Use it sparingly. For most of the essay, use parallel order structure .
In parallel order structure you compare the two things separately but take up the same points in the same order. For example, you may spend half a paragraph on "thing A" and the other half of the paragraph on the corresponding characteristics of "thing B." Or, if you have enough material, devote one paragraph to the physical characteristics of an electric bulb lamp, and the next paragraph to the physical characteristics of the gas lamp.
Or say everything there is to say about the electric bulb lamp (its physical characteristics, history of development and operation), followed by everything there is to say about the gas lamp.
For the sake of variety you may switch to simultaneous comparison at one point in the essay, and then switch back to parallel order structure for the rest of the essay. In fact, there are many ways to structure a comparison essay; use whichever organization works best for your particular paper. Here are a few sample organizational methods. "A" stands for "thing A" (ex. electric lamp) and "B" stands for "thing B" (ex. gas lamp). Each number (1,2,3, etc.) stands for a different aspect of that thing (ex. physical characteristics, operation, history of development).
A1 | A1 | A1 | |
B1 | A2 | B1 | |
A2 | A3 | B2 | Each separate line stands |
B2 | B1 | A2 | for a separate paragraph |
A3 | B2 | A3 | |
B3 | B3 | B3 |
Comparative Essay
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Comparative essay is a common assignment for school and college students. Many students are not aware of the complexities of crafting a strong comparative essay.
If you too are struggling with this, don't worry!
In this blog, you will get a complete writing guide for comparative essay writing. From structuring formats to creative topics, this guide has it all.
So, keep reading!
A comparative essay is a type of essay in which an essay writer compares at least two or more items. The author compares two subjects with the same relation in terms of similarities and differences depending on the assignment.
The main purpose of the comparative essay is to:
A comparative essay is also known as compare and contrast essay or a comparison essay. It analyzes two subjects by either comparing them, contrasting them, or both. The Venn diagram is the best tool for writing a paper about the comparison between two subjects.
Moreover, a comparative analysis essay discusses the similarities and differences of themes, items, events, views, places, concepts, etc. For example, you can compare two different novels (e.g., The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Red Badge of Courage).
However, a comparative essay is not limited to specific topics. It covers almost every topic or subject with some relation.
A good comparative essay is based on how well you structure your essay. It helps the reader to understand your essay better.
The structure is more important than what you write. This is because it is necessary to organize your essay so that the reader can easily go through the comparisons made in an essay.
The following are the two main methods in which you can organize your comparative essay.
Point-by-Point Method
The point-by-point or alternating method provides a detailed overview of the items that you are comparing. In this method, organize items in terms of similarities and differences.
This method makes the writing phase easy for the writer to handle two completely different essay subjects. It is highly recommended where some depth and detail are required.
Below given is the structure of the point-by-point method.
|
Block Method
The block method is the easiest as compared to the point-by-point method. In this method, you divide the information in terms of parameters. It means that the first paragraph compares the first subject and all their items, then the second one compares the second, and so on.
However, make sure that you write the subject in the same order. This method is best for lengthy essays and complicated subjects.
Here is the structure of the block method.
Therefore, keep these methods in mind and choose the one according to the chosen subject.
Mixed Paragraphs Method
In this method, one paragraph explains one aspect of the subject. As a writer, you will handle one point at a time and one by one. This method is quite beneficial as it allows you to give equal weightage to each subject and help the readers identify the point of comparison easily.
Here, we have gathered some steps that you should follow to start a well-written comparative essay.
The foremost step in writing a comparative essay is to choose a suitable topic.
Choose a topic or theme that is interesting to write about and appeals to the reader.
An interesting essay topic motivates the reader to know about the subject. Also, try to avoid complicated topics for your comparative essay.
Create a list of similarities and differences between two subjects that you want to include in the essay. Moreover, this list helps you decide the basis of your comparison by constructing your initial plan.
Evaluate the list and establish your argument and thesis statement .
The basis for comparison is the ground for you to compare the subjects. In most cases, it is assigned to you, so check your assignment or prompt.
Furthermore, the main goal of the comparison essay is to inform the reader of something interesting. It means that your subject must be unique to make your argument interesting.
In this step, you have to gather information for your subject. If your comparative essay is about social issues, historical events, or science-related topics, you must do in-depth research.
However, make sure that you gather data from credible sources and cite them properly in the essay.
An essay outline serves as a roadmap for your essay, organizing key elements into a structured format.
With your topic, list of comparisons, basis for comparison, and research in hand, the next step is to create a comprehensive outline.
Here is a standard comparative essay outline:
Subject B Analysis Subject B Analysis
|
Now that you have the basic information organized in an outline, you can get started on the writing process.
Here are the essential parts of a comparative essay:
Start off by grabbing your reader's attention in the introduction . Use something catchy, like a quote, question, or interesting fact about your subjects.
Then, give a quick background so your reader knows what's going on.
The most important part is your thesis statement, where you state the main argument , the basis for comparison, and why the comparison is significant.
This is what a typical thesis statement for a comparative essay looks like:
The body paragraphs are where you really get into the details of your subjects. Each paragraph should focus on one thing you're comparing.
Start by talking about the first point of comparison. Then, go on to the next points. Make sure to talk about two to three differences to give a good picture.
After that, switch gears and talk about the things they have in common. Just like you discussed three differences, try to cover three similarities.
This way, your essay stays balanced and fair. This approach helps your reader understand both the ways your subjects are different and the ways they are similar. Keep it simple and clear for a strong essay.
In your conclusion , bring together the key insights from your analysis to create a strong and impactful closing.
Consider the broader context or implications of the subjects' differences and similarities. What do these insights reveal about the broader themes or ideas you're exploring?
Discuss the broader implications of these findings and restate your thesis. Avoid introducing new information and end with a thought-provoking statement that leaves a lasting impression.
Below is the detailed comparative essay template format for you to understand better.
Comparative Essay Format
Have a look at these comparative essay examples pdf to get an idea of the perfect essay.
Comparative Essay on Summer and Winter
Comparative Essay on Books vs. Movies
Comparative Essay Sample
Comparative Essay Thesis Example
Comparative Essay on Football vs Cricket
Comparative Essay on Pet and Wild Animals
Comparative essay topics are not very difficult or complex. Check this list of essay topics and pick the one that you want to write about.
Writing a compelling comparative essay requires thoughtful consideration and strategic planning. Here are some valuable tips to enhance the quality of your comparative essay:
Transition words are crucial for guiding your reader through the comparative analysis. They help establish connections between ideas and ensure a smooth flow in your essay.
Here are some transition words and phrases to improve the flow of your comparative essay:
Check out this blog listing more transition words that you can use to enhance your essay’s coherence!
In conclusion, now that you have the important steps and helpful tips to write a good comparative essay, you can start working on your own essay.
However, if you find it tough to begin, you can always hire our college paper writing service .
Our skilled writers can handle any type of essay or assignment you need. So, don't wait—place your order now and make your academic journey easier!
How long is a comparative essay.
A comparative essay is 4-5 pages long, but it depends on your chosen idea and topic.
Here are some tips that will help you to end the comparative essay.
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A step-by-step guide with instructions, outlines, and samples
Writing a great comparative essay means highlighting the similarities and differences between two things in a systematic manner. Start by choosing the parameters (items) to compare, write an outline, and fill in the details for each section. Make sure to have an introduction and conclusion.
The comparative essay is one form of document that you will probably be expected to write at some point over the course of your college career. The purpose of this article is to provide you with a thorough overview of the comparative essay. Specific things that will be addressed include:
Explanation of comparative models, how to analyze subjects, elements of a good comparative essay, how to write a great comparative essay.
By the end of this article, you should feel more confident about your own knowledge of what a comparative essay is and the best ways to go about writing one (if you haven't decided to buy a comparative essay from Ultius ).
The fundamental purpose of a comparative essay is to elaborate the similarities and differences between two things in a systematic manner.
An effective comparative essay will leave the reader with much greater clarity about the natures and properties of the things that have been compared.
This could potentially serve as a basis for making a decision in favor of one or the other thing.
A comparative essay is different from, for example, an argumentative essay in that the comparative essay does not make a case for either of the two things under comparison. Rather, the point is to simply set up the comparison so that the reader will have as much information about the two things as possible.
Argumentative essay | Comparative essay | |
To make a clear case for a position on a given subject or a plan of action | To highlight the similarities and differences between one object and another object | |
Objective, first-person or third-person, appeals to reason and evidence, some subjective anecdote allowed | Objective, third-person, appeals to reason and evidence, personal anecdote should be avoided | |
"The Republican Party is a threat to the long-term stability and well-being of America, so everyone must vote Democrat." | "The Republicans and the Democrats disagree on a lot, but they also have some underlying similarities." | |
Philosophical journals, political magazines, editorials | Scholarly journals, more viewpoint-neutral magazines |
The comparative essay is an important form of document because when you have to make a decision or choose a side in an argument, you will want to know as much as possible about the two options under consideration—and a good comparative essay on the subject can bring out both the similarities and the differences between the options, thereby clarifying the stakes at play.
For example, a comparative essay could address the similarities and differences between any of the following pairs:
By developing a comparative essay on any of these pairs, you can not only understand each item of under comparison is a more thorough way, you can also get closer to figuring out which item you prefer.
For example, a solid comparative essay on revolution vs. reformism could not only help you understand what each of these items entails, it can also help you figure out whether you would rather be a revolutionary or a reformist. Likewise, if you only have time to binge watch one show, then a comparative essay could help you figure out whether you would prefer to go with Game of Thrones or Westworld .
When writing a comparative essay, there are several models you can use in order to ensure that you set up your comparison as effectively as possible.
The Venn diagram is a classic, and surely, you're familiar with it. This is the model of two overlapping circles, where each circle belongs to one item of comparison: features shared by both items (similarities) go in the overlapping middle zone, whereas features that are not shared go in the outer areas. For example, here is a Venn diagram that compares humans against gorillas.
When using the Venn diagram model, it is important to note that the differences must be symmetrical. In other words, every difference you list on one side of the comparison must be matched by a difference on the other side.
For example, if you were comparing Apple and Amazon, then for the parameter of "founder," you can list "Steve Jobs" in one circle and "Jeff Bezos" in the other. But it wouldn't make sense if you just listed one or the other: you must list something for each of the items of comparisons under the selected parameter of comparison.
In the Venn diagram above, the first parameter is "language," so for humans it is listed that we have a capacity of language, whereas for gorillas it is listed that they do not.
You don't need to worry about this kind of symmetry when it comes to the similarities, since you will list the same thing for both items of comparison (which means you only have to list it once, in the overlapping zone). In the example, above, the fact that both humans and gorillas are mammals is thus listed just once in the middle.
The dialectical method is important within the discipline of philosophy, and it has been used to great effect by thinkers such as Socrates and Hegel and Kierkegaard.
This involves holding two ideas or items in tension with each other, to better clarify not only the ideas themselves but also the dynamic relationship that exist between the ideas. The first idea is called the thesis , and the second idea is called the antithesis .
For example, Romanticism could be dialectically compared against the Enlightenment that came before it, because Romanticism was in some ways a rejection of the previous worldview.
Need help? Essay writing services from Ultius can help you produce a great sample compare and contrast essay.
So, by setting up a comparison between Romanticism and the Enlightenment, it becomes possible to see both the continuities (or similarities) between the one and the other, as well as the contradictions (or differences) between them.
Enlightenment | Romanticism | |
reason, logic | imagination, passion | |
Western Europe | Western Europe | |
science, rationality, objective truth | poetry, enchantment, subjective truth | |
superstitious religion | overbearing rationality | |
yes | yes |
Berlin, Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism . Princeton: Princeton U P, 2013. Print.
From the table above, it is clear that we are able to understand both Romanticism and the Enlightenment better if we set them up in terms of dialectical contrast.
Clearly, they are different in some important ways (logic vs. passion, for example), but we can also see that they are in continuity with each other (both happened in Western Europe and responded to previous developments). This comparison also leads one to wonder about whether it would be possible to make a synthesis that takes the best from both the thesis and the antithesis
A good comparative essay can lead one to ask such questions and pursue such lines of inquiry.
To analyze your subjects for a comparative essay, you need to identify clear parameters, or axes, in terms of which your two selected items can be compared. For example, in the table above, Romanticism and the Enlightenment were compared along the axis of " epistemology ". But that axis won't be relevant to all subjects.
Your job when preparing to write a comparative essay is to identify the specific axes that are relevant for the items that you are comparing. Why is the comparison interesting, and what insights are you trying produce? The answers to those questions will determine how you decide to frame your comparison.
For example, we could compare the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) against the Democratic Party in terms of the axis of membership. This would reveal that the DSA has far fewer registered members than does the Democratic Party.
We could also compare them on the axis of healthcare policy, where it may be found that the DSA and the Democratic Party agree about the importance of universal coverage. When we look at the axis of economics, though, we may find that the DSA is much more radical in its proposals than the Democratic Party.
Axis | DSA | Democratic Party |
relatively few members | one of the major parties | |
values universal coverage | values universal coverage | |
calls for a radical restructuring of all economic relations | tends to seek reform and regulation within capitalism |
In principle, any one thing in the world could be compared with any other thing in the world. For example, you could compare your shoe with the moon, and conclude that one similarity is that they both exist within the Milky Way galaxy.
But this would be a meaningless point (even if it may make for some interesting poetry). It is important for you to figure out what exactly you are trying to determine through your comparative essay. What is your purpose for writing it?
This will help you choose two items where setting up a dialectical contrast between them will produce actual insight, and it will also help you to choose the proper parameters by which to compare those items.
For example, suppose that you are running a business, and there are two expansion options open in front of you. It would be logical for you to compare and contrast these options, since this will help ensure that you are making your decision with as much knowledge and insight as possible.
Likewise, one parameter that you are sure to consider is: which option will make your business the most money? If you pick parameters that are meaningless, then you will obtain no real insight that can help you make the important decision.
Once you have identified both the two items of comparison and the axes along which they will be compared, you can proceed to analyze the items by applying the axes in the form of a table or rubric.
This is what has been done, for example, in the tables that have been developed above in this article. In the left-most column, list the parameters you have selected in order to compare your items. Then, in the top-most row, list the items.
Then go ahead and list the relevant details for each parameter for each of the two items. This will produce a table where you can see how each item measures up against the other for each parameter.
Business axis | Marketing | Human Resources |
Profits | Raise prices | Cut staff |
Increase customer base | Pursue advertising | Hire expert |
Saving money | Cut ad budget | Cut/reduce staff |
The important thing is to be systematic when you are making your comparison: it should not seem random or arbitrary. Thus, it is important to carefully select both the items and the parameters for comparison, and then to proceed to address each item/parameter combo in turn.
There are several elements that are a part of any good comparative essay.
A strong comparative essay has well-chosen items for comparison, with the comparison producing actual insights of value through the juxtaposition of the two items. If the items appear to be chosen for no apparent reason, or if the comparison does not in fact produce insight, then the comparative essay would be quite weak (or at any rate pointless).
The comparative essay is not meant to make an argument in favor of one thing or another, but it is meant to produce knowledge and insight about the two things under comparison. In order to compare and contrast items in an effective way, the two items must be different enough from each other, but they should also not be so different that it just feels absurd to even compare them at all.
Items | Good or bad? | Rationale |
Democracy and communism | Good | They belong to the same class (ideology), but they are substantially different on some parameters (like liberty) |
Democracy and potatoes | Bad | They don't belong to the same class, so there is no natural basis for comparison |
Potatoes and rice | Good | They belong to the same class (food), and there's an obvious axis of comparison (nutrition) |
A good comparative essay not only includes well-selected items of comparison, it also includes well-selected parameters of comparison. Between any two selected items, you could theoretically make an endless number of comparisons.
But a good comparative essay identifies parameters of comparative in terms of salience , or the reasons why anyone would be interested in the comparison in the first place. This can be difficult, because in principle, any comparison could be interesting, depending on the audience of the comparative essay and the intended purpose of the essay.
For example, one could use the parameter of zodiac sign to compare Romantic artists against Enlightenment artists.
This could be very interesting to people who are very serious about the zodiac, but it would probably seem ridiculous to just about everyone else.
But if you were writing for an audience of zodiac fanatics, then this comparison could actually be a success.
So, there is no parameter of comparison that is "inherently" bad. Rather, the point is to find parameters that highlight specific salient aspects of the selected items.
For example, when comparing Romanticism against the Enlightenment, core values would be a solid parameter of comparison, because that will surely help produce insights about how worldviews changed from the one paradigm to another.
If you want your comparative essay to be a success, then it absolutely must have strong organizational structure . This is because an effective comparison must be easy for your reader to follow. It can't just jump all over the place at random, which not only be confusing but could also result in the reader forgetting what the point of the comparison was in the first place.
In general, there are two ways in which you can organize your comparative essay. In the first format, each of the parameters would be considered in the section for similarities and the section for differences.
In the first format the comparative essay is organized in terms of similarities and differences, whereas in the second format the essay is organized in terms of parameters of comparison.
In the second format, both similarities and differences would be considered within each of the parameter sections.
Both these are formats are good, and a strong comparative essay could be built around either one.
The important thing is to have a clear system and to not make your comparisons random.
There needs to be an organizational structure that your reader can easily follow.
There are steps you can follow in order to ensure that your comparative essay has all the elements that will be required in order to make it great.
If you have selected two items for your comparative essay, then you should start by asking yourself why you selected those two items. What is it about the two items that made you think it would be a good idea to compare them? (Or if you were assigned the two items, then why do you think those items were selected by your professor?)
The point here is that the items selected for a comparative essay are non-random. They are selected because that specific comparison should be able to yield interesting insights (unlike research papers ).
For example, if you are writing a comparative essay on the dogs vs. cats, then are you writing this from the perspective of evolutionary biology? Or are you perhaps writing it in order to inform potential pet owners who are debating whether they want a dog or a cat?
The purpose of your essay will determine what parameters you will select in order to compare your two items. This means that you should have an intended audience in mind, and you should also have specific questions you would like to know more about.
Intention | Example of an appropriate parameter |
To better understand the evolution of dogs and cats | Biological taxonomy |
To determine whether someone should get a dog or a cat | Risk of allergies |
To evaluate the relative popularity of dogs vs. cats | Number of pet owners in the nation |
In short, in order to develop effective parameters for your comparative essay, you have to ask yourself why you are writing it and who would be interested in the insights produced by the essay. This can help ensure you select both appropriate items and appropriate parameters for comparison.
It is very important that you do not just jump into your comparative essay and start writing it without a plan. That is a recipe for disaster, and the comparisons will almost certainly turn out random and confusing. Rather, you should begin with a solid outline .
A good outline will do three main things:
For example, here is how an outline could look for a comparative essay on Romanticism vs. the Enlightenment.
In this sample outline, the format that is used dedicates a paragraph to each of three parameters of comparison, and both similarities and differences are addressed for each of those parameters.
This is the kind of logical flow that you will need to have in order for your comparative essay to turn out great.
A comparative essay is not a place to get too creative with your writing, whether in terms of organization or in terms of style.
Rather, you should focus on simply carrying out your comparison, point-by-point and in a way that is easy for your reader to follow. This can get a little tedious, so if that is a problem for you, then you should make sure that you set aside enough time to work on your comparative essay little by little.
For example, if your essay has three parameters, then you could write a section on the first parameter today, the second parameter tomorrow, and the third parameter the next day.
The important thing is for you to ensure that you consider each of your two selected items in terms of each of your selected parameters. This needs to be done in a smooth and logical manner, such that your reader knows where you are in the comparison. There should be no jumping around, and there should be no departure from the basic format or structure.
Best practices/tips.
We have now arrived at the end of this guide, and you should have a much better idea of what makes a comparative essay successful and how you can go about writing one. It may be helpful to now summarize some of the main points that have been addressed here.
Let's address five main points.
The two items that will be compared in your comparative essay should be carefully selected. The items should have some shared features and be in the same "class" of items, but they should also have substantial differences to which you are trying to call attention. If the items are too similar, then there would be no point in the comparison, but if they are too different, that can also make the comparison meaningless.
Your comparative essay shouldn't compare anything and everything between your two items; rather, the parameters should be specifically selected to highlight specific, salient similarities and differences. In order to determine what parameters would be effective, you have to ask yourself why you are writing your comparative essay and what sort of insights you intend to produce about the items being compared.
The Venn diagram is one tool that can be very helpful in conceptualizing your comparative essay, especially if you are a more visual kind of learner. Tables, rubrics, and outlines will also work to help ensure that you are developing a strong backbone of logic and systematic reasoning for your comparative essay. These and other tools may even help you reconsider your initial choices of items and parameters, if you realize that significant insights are not being produced.
There are two main ways in which to structure an effective comparative essay, which have been described above. You can dedicate one section to similarities and one section to differences; or, you can dedicate a section to each of the parameters of comparison. This second option is usually more effective, especially if you are new to comparative essays. But either way, it is crucial that you stick to your chosen format and do not jump around and confuse the reader.
If you are still uncertain about how to write a successful comparative essay, then Ultius is here to help. Our writer help section has many tools like this one available on various types of essays; we have a huge writer help section that contains all sorts of information on pretty much any writing-related questions you may have; and we also have elite professional writers who can produce a sample comparative essay for you on any subject of your choosing. We are here for you, and if you have any further questions about how to write a comparative essay, then you should feel free to reach out.
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Compare and contrast essays are academic papers in which a student analyses two or more subjects with each other. To compare means to explore similarities between subjects, while to contrast means to look at their differences. Both subjects of the comparison are usually in the same category, although they have their differences. For example, it can be two movies, two universities, two cars etc.
Good compare and contrast papers from college essay writer focus on a central point, explaining the importance and implications of this analysis. A compare and contrast essay thesis must make a meaningful comparison. Find the central theme of your essay and do some brainstorming for your thesis.
This type of essay is very common among college and university students. Professors challenge their students to use their analytical and comparative skills and pay close attention to the subjects of their comparisons. This type of essay exercises observance and analysis, helps to establish a frame of reference, and makes meaningful arguments about a subject. Let's get deeper on how to write a compare and contrast essay with our research writing services .
Now that you know what is compare and contrast essay and are set with your topic, the first thing you should do is grab a piece of paper and make a list with two columns: similarities and differences. Jot down key things first, the most striking ones. Then try to look at the subjects from a different angle, incorporating your imagination.
If you are more of a visual learner, creating a Venn diagram might be a good idea. In order to create it, draw two circles that overlap. In the section where it overlaps, note similarities. Differences should be written in the part of the circle that does not overlap.
Let’s look at a simple example of compare and contrast essay. Let one of the subjects be oranges, and the other one be apples. Oranges have thick peel, originally from India, and are tropical fruit. These characteristics pertain only to oranges and should be in the part of the circle that does not overlap. For the same section on apples, we put thin peel, originated in Turkey or Kazakhstan, and moderate to subtropical. In the section that overlaps, let’s say that they are both fruit, can be juiced, and grow on trees. This simple, yet good example illustrates how the same concept can be applied to many other complicated topics with additional points of comparison and contrast.
This format of visual aid helps to organize similarities and differences and make them easier to perceive. Your diagram will give you a clear idea of the things you can write about.
Another good idea for brainstorming in preparation for your comparison contrast essay is to create a list with 2 columns, one for each subject, and compare the same characteristics for each of them simultaneously. This compare and contrast format will make writing your comparison contrast paper argument a breeze, as you will have your ideas ready and organized.
One mistake you should avoid is simply listing all of the differences or similarities for each subject. Sometimes students get too caught up in looking for similarities and differences that their compare and contrast essays end up sounding like grocery lists. Your essay should be based on analyzing the similarities and differences, analyzing your conclusions about the two subjects, and finding connections between them—while following a specific format.
So, how do you structure this compare and contrast paper? Well, since compare and contrast essay examples rely heavily on factual analysis, there are two outline methods that can help you organize your facts. You can use the block method, or point-by-point method, to write a compare and contrast essay outline.
While using the block structure of a compare and contrast essay, all the information is presented for the first subject, and its characteristics and specific details are explained. This concludes one block. The second block takes the same approach as the first for the second subject.
The point-by-point structure lists each similarity and difference simultaneously—making notes of both subjects. For example, you can list a characteristic specific to one subject, followed by its similarity or difference to the other subject.
Both formats have their pros and cons. The block method is clearly easier for a compare and contrast essay writer, as you simply point out all of the information about the two subjects, and basically leave it to the reader to do the comparison. The point-by-point format requires you to analyze the points yourself while making similarities and differences more explicit to the reader for them to be easier to understand. Here is a detailed structure of each type presented below.
Example thesis: Cars and motorcycles make for excellent means of transportation, but a good choice depends on the person’s lifestyle, finances, and the city they live in.
Body Paragraph 1 - LIFESTYLE
Body Paragraph 2 - FINANCES
Body Paragraph 3 - CITY
Body Paragraph 1
Body Paragraph 2
Body Paragraph 3
Use the last paragraph to evaluate the comparisons and explain why they’re essential. Giving a lot of facts can be intense. To water it down, try to give the reader any real-life applications of these facts.
Depending on the structure selected, you can begin to create an outline for your essay. The typical comparison essay follows the format of having an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion — though, if you need to focus on each subject in more detailed ways, feel free to include an extra paragraph to cover all of the most important points.
To make your compare and contrast essay flow better, we recommend using special transition words and phrases. They will add variety and improve your paper overall.
For the section where you compare two subjects, you can include any of the following words: similarly, likewise, also, both, just like, similar to, the same as, alike, or to compare to. When contrasting two subjects, use: in contrast, in comparison, by comparison, on the other hand, while, whereas, but, to differ from, dissimilar to, or unlike.
Arguments for any essay, including compare and contrast essays, need to be supported by sufficient evidence. Make good use of your personal experiences, books, scholarly articles, magazine and newspaper articles, movies, or anything that will make your argument sound credible. For example, in your essay, if you were to compare attending college on campus vs. distance-based learning, you could include your personal experiences of being a student, and how often students show up to class on a daily basis. You could also talk about your experience taking online classes, which makes your argument about online classes credible as well.
The biggest tip dissertation writing services can give you is to have the right attitude when writing a compare contrast essay, and actively engage the reader in the discussion. If you find it interesting, so will your reader! Here are some more compare and contrast essay tips that will help you to polish yours up:
Now that you know everything there is to know about compare and contrast essays, let’s take a look at some compare and contrast examples to get you started on your paper or get a hand from our essay helper .
Different countries across the world have diverse cultural practices, and this has an effect on work relationships and development. Geert Hofstede came up with a structured way of comparing cultural dimensions of different countries. The theory explains the impacts of a community’s culture on the values of the community members, and the way these values relate to their behaviors. He gives scores as a way to help distinguish people from different nations using the following dimensions: long-term orientation, individualism, power distance, indulgence, necessity avoidance, and masculinity. Let us examine comparisons between two countries: the United Kingdom and China — based on Hofstede’s Six Dimensions of Culture.
Over the last two decades, the demand from consumers for organic foods has increased tremendously. In fact, the popularity of organic foods has exploded significantly with consumers, spending a considerably higher amount of money on them as compared to the amount spent on inorganic foods. The US market noted an increase in sales of more than 10% between 2014 and 2015 (Brown, n.p). The increase is in line with the views of many consumers that organic foods are safer, tastier, and healthier compared to the inorganic foods. Furthermore, considering the environmental effects of foods, organic foods present less risk of environmental pollution — compared to inorganic foods. By definition, organic foods are those that are grown without any artificial chemical treatment, or treatment by use of other substances that have been modified genetically, such as hormones and/or antibiotics (Brown, n.p).
Still feeling confused about the complexities of the compare and contrast essay? Feel free to contact our paper writing service to get a professional writing help.
When choosing a topic for your comparison essay, remember that subjects cannot be drastically different, because there would be little to no points of comparison (similarities). The same goes for too many similarities, which will result in poor contrasts. For example, it is better to write about two composers, rather than a composer and a singer.
It is extremely important to choose a topic you are passionate about. You never want to come across something that seems dull and uninspiring for you. Here are some excellent ways to brainstorm for a topic from essay writer :
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College students should consider providing themselves with a chance to use all topic examples. With enough revision, an advantage is gained. As it will be possible to compare arguments and contrast their aspects. Also, discuss numerous situations to get closer to the conclusion.
For example:
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Choosing a topic can be a challenging task, but there are plenty of options to consider. In the following sections, we have compiled a list of 150 compare and contrast essay topics to help you get started. These topics cover a wide range of subjects, from education and technology to history and politics. Whether you are a high school student or a college student, you are sure to find a topic that interests you. So, read on to discover some great compare and contrast essay ideas.
When attending a college, at any time your professor can assign you the task of writing this form of an essay. Consider these topics for college students from our team to get the grades you deserve.
Some topics for the compare and contrast essay format can be boring. To keep up motivation, doing a research , have a look at these topics. Maybe they can serve you as research paper help .
When writing essays for high school, it is good to keep them informative. Have a look at these compare and contrast sample topics.
At some point, every science student will be assigned this type of essay. To keep things at flow, have a look at best compare and contrast essay example topics on science:
Studying Physical Education? Or a gym fanatic? Have a look at our compare and contrast essay topics for sports and leisure.
Culture can have several meanings. If you’re a Religious Studies or Culture student, take a look at these good compare and contrast essay topics about culture.
What about writing an essay which is out of the ordinary? Consider following these topics to write a compare and contrast essay on, that are unique.
Sometimes, it may be a requirement to take it back a notch. Especially if you’re new to these style of writing. Consider having a look at these good compare and contrast essay topics that are pretty easy to start off.
We all enjoy at least one of these things. If not, all of them. Why not have a go at writing a compare and contrast essay about what you have been recently watching or listening to?
Sometimes, art students are required to write this style of essay. Have a look at these compare and contrast essay topics about the arts of the centuries.
Almost every student at any stage of academics is assigned this style of writing. If you’re lacking inspiration, consider looking at some of the best compare and contrast essay topics to get you on track with your writing.
In all types of academics, these essays occur. If you’re new to this style of writing, check our easy compare and contrast essay topics.
Deciding upon good compare and contrast essay topics for psychology assignments can be difficult. Consider referring to our list of 10 psychology compare and contrast essay topics to help get the deserved grades.
From time to time, your teacher will assign the task of writing a compare and contrast essay. It can be hard to choose a topic, especially for beginners. Check out our easy compare and contrast essay topics for sixth graders.
Sometimes, it is good to have a laugh. As they always say : 'laughter is the best medicine'. Check out these funny compare and contrast essay topics for a little giggle when writing.
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How to start a compare and contrast essay, how to write a thesis for a compare and contrast essay.
Daniel Parker
is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.
is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.
Tips for crafting effective compare and contrast essays.
Comparing and contrasting is a common method used in academic writing to analyze the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. Whether you are a student working on an assignment or a professional writing a research paper, mastering the art of compare and contrast essays can greatly enhance your writing skills.
In this article, we will explore useful tips and provide examples to help you create compelling and well-structured compare and contrast essays. From understanding the purpose of the essay to organizing your thoughts and arguments effectively, we’ll cover key strategies to ensure your essay is clear, concise, and engaging.
Compare and contrast essays can be a challenging but rewarding type of academic writing. By comparing and contrasting two or more subjects, you can deepen your understanding of complex topics and improve your critical thinking skills. To help you write effective compare and contrast essays, follow these tips:
1. Choose an appropriate topic: Select two or more subjects that have some similarities and differences. This will make it easier to compare and contrast them effectively.
2. Develop a clear thesis statement: Your thesis statement should clearly state the purpose of your essay and the main points you will be comparing and contrasting.
3. Create a structure: Organize your essay in a way that makes it easy for the reader to follow. You can use a point-by-point or block structure, depending on your preference.
4. Provide evidence: Support your comparisons with evidence from the subjects you are analyzing. This could include quotes, statistics, or examples.
5. Use transitions: Transition words and phrases help to guide the reader through your essay and make it easier to follow your arguments.
6. Revise and edit: After you have written your essay, be sure to revise and edit it carefully. Check for grammar and spelling errors, as well as clarity and coherence.
By following these tips, you can write successful compare and contrast essays that impress your readers and demonstrate your understanding of the subjects you are analyzing.
When writing a compare and contrast essay, it is crucial to follow a clear structure to ensure that your arguments are presented effectively. The basic structure of this type of essay typically includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Introduction: This section provides an overview of the topics being compared and contrasted. It should also include a thesis statement that highlights the main point of the essay.
Body Paragraphs: The body of the essay is where you provide detailed comparisons and contrasts between the two subjects. Each paragraph should focus on a specific point of comparison and include evidence to support your arguments.
Conclusion: In the conclusion, you should summarize the main points of the essay and restate the thesis. This section should also provide a final thought or insight to leave a lasting impression on the reader.
By following this structure, you can ensure that your compare and contrast essay is well-organized and easy for readers to follow.
When it comes to writing a compare and contrast essay, choosing the right topics is crucial. The topics you select will determine the focus of your essay and set the tone for the rest of your writing. Here are some tips for choosing the right topics:
Before you start writing a compare and contrast essay, it is essential to gather and organize all the necessary information. Begin by selecting the subjects you want to compare and contrast. Make sure they have enough similarities and differences to make your essay informative and engaging.
Once you have chosen your topics, gather relevant information from credible sources. This can include books, academic journals, articles, and reputable websites. Take detailed notes and highlight key points that you can use in your essay. Organize your information in a systematic way to make it easier to reference and use while writing.
Consider creating a T-chart or Venn diagram to visually map out the similarities and differences between your subjects. This can help you see the relationships between the two topics more clearly and guide your essay structure.
By effectively gathering and organizing information, you will set a strong foundation for your compare and contrast essay and ensure that your arguments are well-supported and coherent.
One of the key elements of a successful compare and contrast essay is a strong thesis statement. Your thesis statement should clearly outline the main points you will compare and contrast in your essay. It should also convey your overall argument and the significance of the comparison. Here are some tips for developing a strong thesis statement:
1 | Be specific: Make sure your thesis statement is clear and concise. Avoid vague language and provide a specific comparison or contrast. |
2 | Focus on the main idea: Your thesis statement should capture the main point of your essay and guide the reader on what to expect. |
3 | Provide a rationale: Explain why the comparison or contrast you are making is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the topic. |
4 | Use parallel structure: Ensure that the elements being compared or contrasted are presented in a parallel structure within the thesis statement. |
By following these tips, you can develop a strong thesis statement that sets the foundation for a well-organized and effective compare and contrast essay.
When writing a compare and contrast essay, it’s important to keep in mind a few tips and tricks to make your essay effective and engaging. Here are some strategies to help you craft a compelling piece:
1. Begin with a Strong Thesis Statement:
Start your essay with a clear and concise thesis statement that highlights the main points of comparison and contrast. This will help guide your reader through the rest of the essay and provide a roadmap for your argument.
2. Organize Your Essay Carefully:
Structure your essay in a logical and coherent manner. You can choose to arrange your points by subject or point-by-point, but make sure your essay flows smoothly from one section to the next.
3. Use Transition Words:
Transition words and phrases like “similarly,” “in contrast,” and “however” can help signal the relationship between different ideas and improve the overall coherence of your essay.
4. Provide Concrete Examples:
To illustrate your points effectively, include specific examples and evidence to support your comparisons. This will add depth and credibility to your argument.
5. Revise and Edit:
Finally, don’t forget to revise and edit your essay before submitting it. Check for spelling and grammar errors, ensure your ideas are clear and well-supported, and make any necessary adjustments to improve the overall quality of your writing.
By following these tips and tricks, you can write an effective compare and contrast essay that engages your reader and effectively communicates your ideas.
1. Online Learning vs. Traditional Classroom Learning
This essay compares and contrasts the benefits and drawbacks of online learning and traditional classroom learning. It discusses factors such as convenience, interaction with instructors, and learning outcomes.
2. iOS vs. Android: A Comparison of Smartphone Operating Systems
This essay delves into the differences between iOS and Android operating systems, comparing their user interface, app availability, customization options, and overall performance. It aims to help readers make informed decisions when choosing a smartphone.
3. Vegetarianism vs. Veganism: Contrasting Plant-Based Diets
This essay explores the distinctions between vegetarianism and veganism, focusing on their dietary restrictions, ethical considerations, environmental impact, and health benefits. It aims to assist individuals in understanding the differences and choosing the diet that aligns with their values and goals.
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Updated 12 Jul 2024
Learning how to write a comparative essay is a major as well as basic task of colleges and universities alike. Topics can wildly differ, from comparison of liberalism in Canada and the US to similarities and differences between reading and watching TV. Level of complexity depends on your educational level as well as major, but rules of writing are identical. Reason why writing comparative essays is so important is that they teach you how to analyse objects in all their entirety, drawing similarities between them before making a rational and evidence-based decision on which of them is better, more harmful, more interesting, etc. There is a clear structure showing how compare and contrast essay must look like, and it’s crucial to know about it if you want to get the best grade.
Compare essay is a piece of writing that provides similarities or differences analysis of two or more objects, determines which one among them corresponds to the outlined criteria most. Purpose here is to prove that something should be chosen among other objects based on some requirements — for example, you can prove that one idea is more logical, more attractive, or on the contrary, less popular than another. Such analysis develops critical thinking and makes sure that your future decisions are supported by evidence. That’s why learning how to write a comparative essay is essential regardless of your education: you can be a student at McGill University or a freshman at college in Red Deer, your comparative essay writing skills will be evaluated in similar ways because knowing how to analyse and compare/contrast objects is useful in all possible life spheres.
There are two major ways in which you can write comparative essay, alternating and block. Let’s regard them both so you could understand their peculiarities and decide on the one you like best.
Comparative essay introduction is the same for both methods. You introduce your topic, mention some basic facts to intrigue your readers, end it with a thesis. Differences start in the body. Alternating method means that in the body you’ve developed for your paper, you’ll be focusing on a chosen point for comparison at a time and analyze objects A and B together in each paragraph. Let’s imagine that your task is to compare Domino’s and In & Out pizzas. This is the kind of comparative essay outline you might have. Comparison essay format:
Block method is different since it entails comparing object A in the first paragraph and then focusing on object B in the second. Here, you’re basically regarding two objects separately: the most important thing is to add a few sentences that would link them both in paragraphs about object B. Still, sounds confusing? Check the outline below, it’ll help understand how to write a comparative analysis essay by using this method.
Now that you’ve learned how to structure body of comparative essay, it’s time to regard what introduction and thesis should entail. Don’t know how to start a comparative essay? It’s a common problem but easily solved.
First, pick your topic. Add some hook into the first sentence of the introduction to immediately intrigue your audience. Then, name two objects you’ll be comparing; provide briefly their background description. For instance, with aforementioned pizzas example, you can mention how both companies are very popular, also have a long service history. That’ll be more than enough.
Comparative essay thesis is most important writing aspects. Here, you should state the main opinions. Following mentioned example, you should say that one pizza is better than another, then provide reasons why. Treat opposite sides well, as if they are present! You should always be objective. Let’s check five comparison essay thesis examples.
Seeing something is always better than merely reading about it, no matter how detailed it is. We’ve already detailed previous example, so let’s pick thesis #3 and write short sample essay on it. Note that in actual academic setting, this essay would have to be longer as general comparison essay length is five paragraphs.
‘Hannibal’ and ‘Sherlock’: Superiority of Character Development Some TV shows gain such immense popularity that almost everyone has heard of them. ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Sherlock’ are a good example of this phenomenon. They are both critically acclaimed as well as character-focused shows, but their quality differs, which can be seen on the development of Will Graham and John Watson respectively. Character development in ‘Hannibal’ TV show is more realistic than that in ‘Sherlock’ because the protagonists act more consistently and the end-goal of their growth corresponds to what was implied at the beginning. Protagonists in ‘Hannibal’ behave more consistently than they do in ‘Sherlock’. From the first season of ‘Hannibal’, Graham is portrayed as person who wants to be good but who is murderer at heart. Watson, on the contrary, is shown as hero who can kill another person but who is always motivated by noble goals. Later, though, while Graham becomes darker with each subsequent season, Watson loses his ideals. He turns unrecognizable without any apparent reason. When he was ready to sacrifice everything for his partner Sherlock before, eventually, he joyfully beats him up when he is weakened physically. This way, Will’s development is consistent while that of John has no logical basis. Development of these characters can be traced throughout all seasons, but at the end of both shows, they arrive at different points. Graham becomes full-fledged murderer who can no longer hide that he enjoys killing, which corresponds to initial idea of ‘Hannibal’ introduced back at its start. Unlike him, Watson regresses. Instead of becoming more noble and mature as it was implied in the first seasons of ‘Sherlock’, he suddenly turns into monster who is incapable of critical thinking, forgives murder of innocents, engages in brutality. Thus, ‘Hannibal’ fulfilled its goal regarding character development while ‘Sherlock’ forgot about its own plans. Both ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Sherlock’ are interesting shows but the former is superior. Its characters are more believable and stay true with its initial ideas. Therefore, ‘Hannibal’ does considerably better job in developing its protagonists.
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Comparative essay generator.
Academic institutions always provide writing exercises to students so that the level of understanding that the students can have about a particular subject manner is widened. One of the most common academic essay examples that’s given as writing assignment to students is the comparative essay. A comparative essay, also known as comparison essay or compare and contrast essay, is the type of essay that specifically analyzes two subject matters. There are a lot of academic fields where writing a comparative essay can be beneficial to students and their educational undertaking.
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A comparative essay can either compare or contrast two topics, theories, materials and other subjects of discussion. However, there are activities where both comparisons and contrasts are necessary to be presented. If you are required to write a comparative essay but is unaware on how you can do one effectively, you can browse through the samples that we have gathered for you so you can be more knowledgeable on how to structure both the content and layout of this kind of essay.
A comparative essay is a type of academic writing where the writer analyzes and discusses the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. These subjects can be theories, works of literature, historical events, scientific processes, or social phenomena, among others. The main purpose of a comparative essay is to highlight the contrast and comparison to derive a deeper understanding or to make a point about the subjects being examined.
Introduction.
Hook: Start with a compelling sentence to grab attention. Background Information: Provide necessary background information on the subjects being compared. Thesis Statement: Clearly state the basis of comparison and what you aim to prove or reveal through the essay.
Each body paragraph should focus on a specific point of comparison, discussing both subjects:
Comparing themes in “1984” by george orwell and “brave new world” by aldous huxley.
Hook: Imagine living in a world where your every move is monitored, and your very thoughts are not your own.
Background Information: “1984” by George Orwell and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley are seminal works of dystopian fiction that explore the grim futures of societies controlled by oppressive governments.
Thesis Statement: While both “1984” and “Brave New World” depict societies where governments have stripped away individual freedoms, they differ significantly in their portrayal of surveillance, control mechanisms, and the response of the individual to these oppressions.
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Different college essay examples are written based on different sets of instructions. Depending on the writing task that you have at hand, the things that you may include in your comparative essay may vary. However, the concept of making a comparative essay remains the same. For it to be clearer in your mind, here is how a comparative essay works:
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Before writing a comparative essay, you first need to arm yourself with the information that you need. This will allow you to create a comparative essay that is filled with relevant and helpful information. More so, this can help you veer away from committing common essay mistakes if you are already in the process of actual content writing.
The way that you plan to present your ideas, especially if they are backed up with facts, can make your comparative essay more successful. Listed below are the steps that you may use when developing the content of your comparative essay.
You may think that this is a very long process just for developing the ideas that you will present. In a way, you may be right. However, being prepared and ready on how you will attack and execute the writing assignment can make it easier for you to create a valid discussion.
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Aside from knowing the idea of what you will write about, the structure of your essay or the organization of your essay’s content can affect the smooth flow of your discussion. Even during last minute essay writing activities, you can still come up with an outstanding comparative essay if you are already knowledgeable on how you can organize your essay’s idea, content, structure, and discussion. Listed below are some of the ways on how you can efficiently organize your comparative essay’s content.
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Just like descriptive essay examples and other kinds of academic essays, a comparative essay can be created in different ways. Each writer has various techniques that can be applied when doing this particular kind of essay. Since there are no strict rules when it comes to crafting a comparative essay, all you need to ensure is that your comparative essay is comprehensive, understandable and credible. Here is how you can effectively write your actual comparative essay:
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In comparison to evaluation essay examples , a comparative essay is more keen with regards the assessment of two subjects. If you will write a comparative essay, you need to have an idea of the impacts of different factors to the result that you may get at the end of the writing activity. Listed below are some of the elements or factors that you need to take into consideration when writing a comparative essay.
With the samples that we have in this post, it will be faster for you to identify the points of discussion that you need to provide. Again, comparative essays vary from one another in terms of content. Ensure that you are fully aware of the writing instructions given to you so you can plan your comparative essay’s content and structure accordingly.
Always refer to the guidelines and tips that we have specified so you can create effective decisions in every step of your comparative essay development. Do not be afraid to write what your thoughts. As long as these thoughts are based on factual references, then it will be easy for you to have a comparative essay that can achieve its purpose or reason for creation.
the art of writing a comparative essay lies in the delicate balance of presenting similarities and differences in a clear, coherent manner. This type of essay encourages critical thinking and develops analytical skills, crucial for academic success. For further guidance on creating effective comparative essays, the UNC Writing Center offers a detailed resource on comparing and contrasting ( UNC Writing Center ). This link provides valuable insights and examples, helping students refine their comparative writing skills. By mastering the comparative essay, students not only enhance their writing abilities but also deepen their understanding of contrasting subjects, an essential skill in many academic and professional fields.
Text prompt
Write a comparative essay on cats vs. dogs as pets: which are better and why?
Compare in a comparative essay the effects of online learning vs. traditional classroom learning on students.
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Topics cover education, technology, pop culture, sports, animals, and more.
Do your writers need some inspiration? If you’re teaching students to write a compare and contrast essay, a strong example is an invaluable tool. This round-up of our favorite compare and contrast essays covers a range of topics and grade levels, so no matter your students’ interests or ages, you’ll always have a helpful example to share. You’ll find links to full essays about education, technology, pop culture, sports, animals, and more. (Need compare-and-contrast essay topic ideas? Check out our big list of compare and contrast essay topics! )
When choosing a compare and contrast essay example to include on this list, we considered the structure. A strong compare and contrast essay begins with an introductory paragraph that includes background context and a strong thesis. Next, the body includes paragraphs that explore the similarities and differences. Finally, a concluding paragraph restates the thesis, draws any necessary inferences, and asks any remaining questions.
A compare and contrast essay example can be an opinion piece comparing two things and making a conclusion about which is better. For example, “Is Tom Brady really the GOAT?” It can also help consumers decide which product is better suited to them. Should you keep your subscription to Hulu or Netflix? Should you stick with Apple or explore Android? Here’s our list of compare and contrast essay samples categorized by subject.
Private school vs. public school.
Sample lines: “Deciding whether to send a child to public or private school can be a tough choice for parents. … Data on whether public or private education is better can be challenging to find and difficult to understand, and the cost of private school can be daunting. … According to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, public schools still attract far more students than private schools, with 50.7 million students attending public school as of 2018. Private school enrollment in the fall of 2017 was 5.7 million students, a number that is down from 6 million in 1999.”
Read the full essay: Private School vs. Public School at U.S. News and World Report
Sample lines: “Home schooling, not a present threat to public education, is nonetheless one of the forces that will change it. If the high estimates of the number of children in home schools (1.2 million) is correct, then the home-schooling universe is larger than the New York City public school system and roughly the size of the Los Angeles and Chicago public school systems combined. … Critics charge that three things are wrong with home schooling: harm to students academically; harm to society by producing students who are ill-prepared to function as democratic citizens and participants in a modern economy; and harm to public education, making it more difficult for other parents to educate their children. … It is time to ask whether home schooling, charters, and vouchers should be considered parts of a broad repertoire of methods that we as a society use to educate our children.”
Read the full essay: Homeschool vs. Public School: How Home Schooling Will Change Public Education at Brookings
Sample lines: “The three main types of parenting are on a type of ‘sliding scale’ of parenting, with permissive parenting as the least strict type of parenting. Permissive parenting typically has very few rules, while authoritarian parenting is thought of as a very strict, rule-driven type of parenting.”
Read the full essay: What Is Authoritative Parenting? at Healthline ADVERTISEMENT
Sample lines: “Face masks can prevent the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2. … However, covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate. Positive emotions become less recognizable, and negative emotions are amplified. Emotional mimicry, contagion, and emotionality in general are reduced and (thereby) bonding between teachers and learners, group cohesion, and learning—of which emotions are a major driver. The benefits and burdens of face masks in schools should be seriously considered and made obvious and clear to teachers and students.”
Read the full essay: Masked Education? The Benefits and Burdens of Wearing Face Masks in Schools During the Pandemic at National Library of Medicine
Sample lines: “In recent years, book bans have soared in schools, reaching an all-time high in fall 2022. … The challenge of balancing parent concerns about ‘age appropriateness’ against the imperative of preparing students to be informed citizens is still on the minds of many educators today. … Such curricular decision-making should be left to the professionals, argues English/language arts instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky. ‘Examining texts for their appropriateness is not a job that noneducators are trained to do,’ she wrote last year, as the national debate over censorship resurged with the news that a Tennessee district banned the graphic novel Maus just days before Holocaust Remembrance Day.”
Read the full essay: To Ban or Not: What Should We Really Make of Book Bans? at Education Week
Netflix vs. hulu 2023: which is the best streaming service.
Sample lines: “Netflix fans will point to its high-quality originals, including The Witcher , Stranger Things , Emily in Paris , Ozark , and more, as well as a wide variety of documentaries like Cheer , The Last Dance , My Octopus Teacher , and many others. It also boasts a much larger subscription base, with more than 222 million subscribers compared to Hulu’s 44 million. Hulu, on the other hand, offers a variety of extras such as HBO and Showtime—content that’s unavailable on Netflix. Its price tag is also cheaper than the competition, with its $7/mo. starting price, which is a bit more palatable than Netflix’s $10/mo. starting price.”
Read the full essay: Netflix vs. Hulu 2023: Which is the best streaming service? at TV Guide
Sample lines: “In the past, we would have to drag around heavy books if we were really into reading. Now, we can have all of those books, and many more, stored in one handy little device that can easily be stuffed into a backpack, purse, etc. … Many of us still prefer to hold an actual book in our hands. … But, whether you use a Kindle or prefer hardcover books or paperbacks, the main thing is that you enjoy reading. A story in a book or on a Kindle device can open up new worlds, take you to fantasy worlds, educate you, entertain you, and so much more.”
Read the full essay: Kindle vs. Hardcover: Which is easier on the eyes? at Books in a Flash
Sample lines: “The iPhone vs. Android comparison is a never-ending debate on which one is best. It will likely never have a real winner, but we’re going to try and help you to find your personal pick all the same. iOS 17 and Android 14—the latest versions of the two operating systems—both offer smooth and user-friendly experiences, and several similar or identical features. But there are still important differences to be aware of. … Owning an iPhone is a simpler, more convenient experience. There’s less to think about. … Android-device ownership is a bit harder. … Yet it’s simultaneously more freeing, because it offers more choice.”
Read the full essay: iPhone vs. Android: Which is better for you? at Tom’s Guide
Sample lines: “Cord-cutting has become a popular trend in recent years, thanks to the rise of streaming services. For those unfamiliar, cord cutting is the process of canceling your cable subscription and instead, relying on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu to watch your favorite shows and movies. The primary difference is that you can select your streaming services à la carte while cable locks you in on a set number of channels through bundles. So, the big question is: should you cut the cord?”
Read the full essay: Cutting the cord: Is streaming or cable better for you? at BroadbandNow
Sample lines: “The crux of the comparison comes down to portability versus power. Being able to migrate fully fledged Nintendo games from a big screen to a portable device is a huge asset—and one that consumers have taken to, especially given the Nintendo Switch’s meteoric sales figures. … It is worth noting that many of the biggest franchises like Call of Duty, Madden, modern Resident Evil titles, newer Final Fantasy games, Grand Theft Auto, and open-world Ubisoft adventures like Assassin’s Creed will usually skip Nintendo Switch due to its lack of power. The inability to play these popular games practically guarantees that a consumer will pick up a modern system, while using the Switch as a secondary device.”
Read the full essay: PS5 vs. Nintendo Switch at Digital Trends
Sample lines: “Have you ever wondered what is the difference between Facebook and Instagram? Instagram and Facebook are by far the most popular social media channels used by digital marketers. Not to mention that they’re also the biggest platforms used by internet users worldwide. So, today we’ll look into the differences and similarities between these two platforms to help you figure out which one is the best fit for your business.”
Read the full essay: What is the difference between Facebook and Instagram? at SocialBee
Sample lines: “In short, digital watches use an LCD or LED screen to display the time. Whereas, an analog watch features three hands to denote the hour, minutes, and seconds. With the advancement in watch technology and research, both analog and digital watches have received significant improvements over the years. Especially in terms of design, endurance, and accompanying features. … At the end of the day, whether you go analog or digital, it’s a personal preference to make based on your style, needs, functions, and budget.”
Read the full essay: Digital vs. Analog Watches—What’s the Difference? at Watch Ranker
Sample lines: “Art has always been a reflection of human creativity, emotion, and cultural expression. However, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), a new form of artistic creation has emerged, blurring the lines between what is created by human hands and what is generated by algorithms. … Despite the excitement surrounding AI Art, it also raises complex ethical, legal, and artistic questions that have sparked debates about the definition of art, the role of the artist, and the future of art production. … Regardless of whether AI Art is considered ‘true’ art, it is crucial to embrace and explore the vast possibilities and potential it brings to the table. The transformative influence of AI art on the art world is still unfolding, and only time will reveal its true extent.”
Read the full essay: AI Art vs. Human Art: A Side-by-Side Analysis at Raul Lara
Christina aguilera vs. britney spears.
Sample lines: “Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera was the Coke vs. Pepsi of 1999 — no, really, Christina repped Coke and Britney shilled for Pepsi. The two teen idols released debut albums seven months apart before the turn of the century, with Britney’s becoming a standard-bearer for bubblegum pop and Aguilera’s taking an R&B bent to show off her range. … It’s clear that Spears and Aguilera took extremely divergent paths following their simultaneous breakout successes.”
Read the full essay: Christina Aguilera vs. Britney Spears at The Ringer
Sample lines: “The world heard our fantasies and delivered us two titans simultaneously—we have been blessed with Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles. Our cup runneth over; our bounty is immeasurable. More remarkable still is the fact that both have released albums almost at the same time: Ed’s third, Divide , was released in March and broke the record for one-day Spotify streams, while Harry’s frenziedly anticipated debut solo, called Harry Styles , was released yesterday.”
Read the full essay: Harry Styles versus Ed Sheeran at Belfast Telegraph
Sample lines: “Based on the original story of the same name, this movie takes a completely different direction by choosing to break away from the cartoony form that Seuss had established by filming the movie in a live-action form. Whoville is preparing for Christmas while the Grinch looks down upon their celebrations in disgust. Like the previous film, The Grinch hatches a plan to ruin Christmas for the Who’s. … Like in the original Grinch, he disguises himself as Santa Claus, and makes his dog, Max, into a reindeer. He then takes all of the presents from the children and households. … Cole’s favorite is the 2000 edition, while Alex has only seen the original. Tell us which one is your favorite.”
Read the full essay: The Grinch: Three Versions Compared at Wooster School
Malcolm x vs. martin luther king jr.: comparison between two great leaders’ ideologies .
Sample lines: “Although they were fighting for civil rights at the same time, their ideology and way of fighting were completely distinctive. This can be for a plethora of reasons: background, upbringing, the system of thought, and vision. But keep in mind, they devoted their whole life to the same prospect. … Through boycotts and marches, [King] hoped to end racial segregation. He felt that the abolition of segregation would improve the likelihood of integration. Malcolm X, on the other hand, spearheaded a movement for black empowerment.”
Read the full essay: Malcolm X vs. Martin Luther King Jr.: Comparison Between Two Great Leaders’ Ideologies at Melaninful
Sample lines: “The contrast is even clearer when we look to the future. Trump promises more tax cuts, more military spending, more deficits and deeper cuts in programs for the vulnerable. He plans to nominate a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency. … Obama says America must move forward, and he praises progressive Democrats for advocating Medicare for all. … With Obama and then Trump, Americans have elected two diametrically opposed leaders leading into two very different directions.”
Read the full essay: Contrast Between Obama and Trump Has Become Clear at Chicago Sun-Times
Lebron james vs. kobe bryant: a complete comparison.
Sample lines: “LeBron James has achieved so much in his career that he is seen by many as the greatest of all time, or at least the only player worthy of being mentioned in the GOAT conversation next to Michael Jordan. Bridging the gap between Jordan and LeBron though was Kobe Bryant, who often gets left out of comparisons and GOAT conversations. … Should his name be mentioned more though? Can he compare to LeBron or is The King too far past The Black Mamba in historical rankings already?”
Read the full essay: LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant: A Complete Comparison at Sportskeeda
Sample lines: “Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were largely considered the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the majority of the time they spent in the league together, with the icons having many head-to-head clashes in the regular season and on the AFC side of the NFL Playoffs. Manning was the leader of the Indianapolis Colts of the AFC South. … Brady spent his career as the QB of the AFC East’s New England Patriots, before taking his talents to Tampa Bay. … The reality is that winning is the most important aspect of any career, and Brady won more head-to-head matchups than Manning did.”
Read the full essay: NFL: Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning Rivalry Comparison at Sportskeeda
Sample lines: “The Celtics are universally considered as the greatest franchise in NBA history. But if you take a close look at the numbers, there isn’t really too much separation between them and their arch-rival Los Angeles Lakers. In fact, you can even make a good argument for the Lakers. … In 72 seasons played, the Boston Celtics have won a total of 3,314 games and lost 2,305 or a .590 winning mark. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Lakers have won 3,284 of 5,507 total games played or a slightly better winning record of .596. … But while the Lakers have the better winning percentage, the Celtics have the advantage over them in head-to-head competition.”
Read the full essay: The Greatest NBA Franchise Ever: Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers? at Sport One
Sample lines: “Is soccer better than football? Soccer and football lovers have numerous reasons to support their sport of choice. Both keep the players physically fit and help to bring people together for an exciting cause. However, soccer has drawn more numbers globally due to its popularity in more countries.”
Read the full essay: Is Soccer Better Than Football? at Sports Brief
Mobile home vs. tiny house: similarities, differences, pros & cons.
Sample lines: “Choosing the tiny home lifestyle enables you to spend more time with those you love. The small living space ensures quality bonding time rather than hiding away in a room or behind a computer screen. … You’ll be able to connect closer to nature and find yourself able to travel the country at any given moment. On the other hand, we have the mobile home. … They are built on a chassis with transportation in mind. … They are not built to be moved on a constant basis. … While moving the home again *is* possible, it may cost you several thousand dollars.”
Read the full essay: Mobile Home vs. Tiny House: Similarities, Differences, Pros & Cons at US Mobile Home Pros
Sample lines: “It is clear that both stores have very different stories and aims when it comes to their customers. Whole Foods looks to provide organic, healthy, exotic, and niche products for an audience with a very particular taste. … Walmart, on the other hand, looks to provide the best deals, every possible product, and every big brand for a broader audience. … Moreover, they look to make buying affordable and accessible, and focus on the capitalist nature of buying.”
Read the full essay: Whole Foods vs. Walmart: The Story of Two Grocery Stores at The Archaeology of Us
Sample lines: “The key difference between artificial grass and turf is their intended use. Artificial turf is largely intended to be used for sports, so it is shorter and tougher. On the other hand, artificial grass is generally longer, softer and more suited to landscaping purposes. Most homeowners would opt for artificial grass as a replacement for a lawn, for example. Some people actually prefer playing sports on artificial grass, too … artificial grass is often softer and more bouncy, giving it a feel similar to playing on a grassy lawn. … At the end of the day, which one you will choose will depend on your specific household and needs.”
Read the full essay: Artificial Grass vs. Turf: The Real Differences Revealed at Almost Grass
Sample lines: “Maximalists love shopping, especially finding unique pieces. They see it as a hobby—even a skill—and a way to express their personality. Minimalists don’t like shopping and see it as a waste of time and money. They’d instead use those resources to create memorable experiences. Maximalists desire one-of-a-kind possessions. Minimalists are happy with duplicates—for example, personal uniforms. … Minimalism and maximalism are about being intentional with your life and belongings. It’s about making choices based on what’s important to you.”
Read the full essay: Minimalism vs. Maximalism: Differences, Similarities, and Use Cases at Minimalist Vegan
Sample lines: “You’ve heard buzz over the years that following a vegetarian diet is better for your health, and you’ve probably read a few magazine articles featuring a celeb or two who swore off meat and animal products and ‘magically’ lost weight. So does ditching meat automatically equal weight loss? Will it really help you live longer and be healthier overall? … Vegetarians appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than meat eaters. Vegetarians also tend to have a lower body mass index, lower overall cancer rates and lower risk of chronic disease. But if your vegetarian co-worker is noshing greasy veggie burgers and fries every day for lunch, is he likely to be healthier than you, who always orders the grilled salmon? Definitely not!”
Read the full essay: Vegetarian vs. Meat Eating: Is It Better To Be a Vegetarian? at WebMD
Similarities and differences between the health systems in australia & usa.
Sample lines: “Australia and the United States are two very different countries. They are far away from each other, have contrasting fauna and flora, differ immensely by population, and have vastly different healthcare systems. The United States has a population of 331 million people, compared to Australia’s population of 25.5 million people.”
Read the full essay: Similarities and Differences Between the Health Systems in Australia & USA at Georgia State University
Sample lines: “Disadvantages of universal healthcare include significant upfront costs and logistical challenges. On the other hand, universal healthcare may lead to a healthier populace, and thus, in the long-term, help to mitigate the economic costs of an unhealthy nation. In particular, substantial health disparities exist in the United States, with low socio-economic status segments of the population subject to decreased access to quality healthcare and increased risk of non-communicable chronic conditions such as obesity and type II diabetes, among other determinants of poor health.”
Read the full essay: Universal Healthcare in the United States of America: A Healthy Debate at National Library of Medicine
Sample lines: “Physician aid in dying is a controversial subject raising issues central to the role of physicians. … The two most common arguments in favor of legalizing AID are respect for patient autonomy and relief of suffering. A third, related, argument is that AID is a safe medical practice, requiring a health care professional. … Although opponents of AID offer many arguments ranging from pragmatic to philosophical, we focus here on concerns that the expansion of AID might cause additional, unintended harm through suicide contagion, slippery slope, and the deaths of patients suffering from depression.”
Read the full essay: Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying at National Library of Medicine
Compare and contrast paragraph—dogs and cats.
Sample lines: “Researchers have found that dogs have about twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than what cats have. Specifically, dogs had around 530 million neurons, whereas the domestic cat only had 250 million neurons. Moreover, dogs can be trained to learn and respond to our commands, but although your cat understands your name, and anticipates your every move, he/she may choose to ignore you.”
Read the full essay: Compare and Contrast Paragraph—Dogs and Cats at Proofwriting Guru via YouTube
Sample lines: “Horses are prey animals with a deep herding instinct. They are highly sensitive to their environment, hyper aware, and ready to take flight if needed. Just like dogs, some horses are more confident than others, but just like dogs, all need a confident handler to teach them what to do. Some horses are highly reactive and can be spooked by the smallest things, as are dogs. … Another distinction between horses and dogs … was that while dogs have been domesticated , horses have been tamed. … Both species have influenced our culture more than any other species on the planet.”
Read the full essay: Giddyup! The Differences Between Horses and Dogs at Positively Victoria Stilwell
Sample lines: “Although the words ‘exotic’ and ‘wild’ are frequently used interchangeably, many people do not fully understand how these categories differ when it comes to pets. ‘A wild animal is an indigenous, non-domesticated animal, meaning that it is native to the country where you are located,’ Blue-McLendon explained. ‘For Texans, white-tailed deer, pronghorn sheep, raccoons, skunks, and bighorn sheep are wild animals … an exotic animal is one that is wild but is from a different continent than where you live.’ For example, a hedgehog in Texas would be considered an exotic animal, but in the hedgehog’s native country, it would be considered wildlife.”
Read the full essay: Exotic, Domesticated, and Wild Pets at Texas A&M University
Sample lines: “The pros and cons of zoos often come from two very different points of view. From a legal standard, animals are often treated as property. That means they have less rights than humans, so a zoo seems like a positive place to maintain a high quality of life. For others, the forced enclosure of any animal feels like an unethical decision. … Zoos provide a protected environment for endangered animals, and also help in raising awareness and funding for wildlife initiatives and research projects. … Zoos are key for research. Being able to observe and study animals is crucial if we want to contribute to help them and repair the ecosystems. … Zoos are a typical form of family entertainment, but associating leisure and fun with the contemplation of animals in captivity can send the wrong signals to our children.”
Read the full essay: Should Zoos Be Banned? Pros & Cons of Zoos at EcoCation
Plus, if you liked these compare and contrast essay examples check out intriguing compare and contrast essay topics for kids and teens ..
Android vs. iPhone? Capitalism vs. communism? Hot dog vs. taco? Continue Reading
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What is a comparative essay.
The comparative essay, in only its second year of being on the VCE English syllabus, is a cause for confusion for many students and teachers alike. Read on for one simple way to structure a comparative essay.
How to write an introduction for a comparative essay.
This can be structured in much the same way as a text response essay. Here, the only difference is that you will need to introduce both texts. Do not forget to make use of comparative language, which is an element of the VCAA criteria, which requires that students discuss "meaningful connections , similarities or differences between the texts”. Your introduction must address your overall contention, specific to the prompt, which should be an idea or concept running through your essay.
Aim for around two to four body paragraphs, which should be developed using breadth and a wide scope of ideas. A good way to construct these paragraphs is to base each around a premise or main idea, and you will explore both texts through the lens of this premise.
You can choose either to compare both texts throughout the paragraph, or to go into depth in one text and then transition into exploring the other. No matter which method you choose, make you mention to which extent the two texts are similar or different (it's not enough to say "they are different" or "they are similar").
Relate the end of your body paragraph back to the overall contention, bringing both texts explicitly into focus.
Like the intro, this can be very similar to a text response conclusion! Make sure to be clear and concise, and sum up your main points from your body paragraphs. Aim to end with a strong, clear point of analysis, shining new meaning on both texts.
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Writing a comparison usually requires that you assess the similarities and differences between two or more theories, procedures, or processes. You explain to your reader what insights can be gained from the comparison, or judge whether one thing is better than another according to established criteria.
1. Establish a basis of comparison
A basis of comparison represents the main idea, category, or theme you will investigate. You will have to do some preliminary reading, likely using your course materials, to get an idea of what kind of criteria you will use to assess whatever you are comparing. A basis of comparison must apply to all items you are comparing, but the details will be different.
For example, if you are asked to “compare neoclassical architecture and gothic architecture,” you could compare the influence of social context on the two styles.
2. Gather the details of whatever you are comparing
Once you have decided what theme or idea you are investigating, you will need to gather details of whatever you are comparing, especially in terms of similarities and differences. Doing so allows you to see which criteria you should use in your comparison, if not specified by your professor or instructor.
Based on this information, you could focus on how ornamentation and design principles reveal prevailing intellectual thought about architecture in the respective eras and societies.
3. Develop a thesis statement
After brainstorming, try to develop a thesis statement that identifies the results of your comparison. Here is an example of a fairly common thesis statement structure:
e.g., Although neoclassical architecture and gothic architecture have [similar characteristics A and B], they reveal profound differences in their interpretation of [C, D, and E].
4. Organize your comparison
You have a choice of two basic methods for organizing a comparative essay: the point-by-point method or the block method.
The point-by-point method examines one aspect of comparison in each paragraph and usually alternates back and forth between the two objects, texts, or ideas being compared. This method allows you to emphasize points of similarity and of difference as you proceed.
In the block method, however, you say everything you need to say about one thing, then do the same thing with the other. This method works best if you want readers to understand and agree with the advantages of something you are proposing, such as introducing a new process or theory by showing how it compares to something more traditional.
Building a point-by-point essay.
Using the point-by-point method in a comparative essay allows you to draw direct comparisons and produce a more tightly integrated essay.
1. Introduction
2. Body Sections/Paragraphs
3. Conclusion
Using the block method in a comparative essay can help ensure that the ideas in the second block build upon or extend ideas presented in the first block. It works well if you have three or more major areas of comparison instead of two (for example, if you added in a third or fourth style of architecture, the block method would be easier to organize).
Table of Contents
Academic essays that compare and contrast two or more topics are called “compare and contrast essays.”
Comparing two things involves looking for similarities, while contrasting two things involves doing the opposite.
Although there may be some distinctions between the two subjects being compared, in most cases, they belong to the same group. For instance, two movies, two institutions, two automobiles, etc.
A solid comparative article zeroes in on one key aspect, elucidating its significance and ramifications. The thesis of a compare and contrast essay needs to draw a substantial parallel between two points.
Topics for an essay should not be too dissimilar; otherwise, there will be no basis for comparison (similarities). Too many parallels, likewise, will lead to weak contrasts. If you want to write about music, choose two composers over one composer and one singer.
Picking a subject you care deeply about is crucial. Go for topics that excite and intrigue you. The following are some great techniques for coming up with ideas:
Wild and domesticated animals, Star Wars and Star Trek, private and public companies, etc.
Find entertaining and surprising facts that can be mined for excellent discussion points. To what extent do you know that chickens had a prehistoric ancestor?
For the most part, movies don’t live up to the books they’re based on. If you’re a fan of film and literature, television, video games, comics, etc., compare and contrast your favorite elements of each.
1. brainstorm points of agreement and disagreement.
As soon as you’ve decided on a subject, you should get a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. One for commonalities and the other for distinctions.
Get the most important and resonant points down first. After that, you should strive to imagine the topics from a new perspective.
Let’s look at a basic illustration to see what I mean. Let’s say oranges are one issue and apples are another.
Difference: Oranges are a tropical fruit with a particularly thick peel and an Indian heritage. Apples are from a temperate or subtropical origin (Turkey or Kazakhstan) and have a thin peel.
Similarity: Both fruits can be juiced and are grown on trees.
This simple example explains extending the same notion to cover more complicated issues by adding contrast and comparison.
Having your ideas prepared and organized in this way will make writing your comparison and contrast paper argument a breeze.
Avoid the common pitfall of merely cataloging every difference or similarity between topics. Students get caught up writing a compare and contrast essay and fail to explore similarities and differences.
Your essay should compare and contrast the issues, draw inferences, and link them using a predetermined structure.
The analysis of facts is crucial to the success of a compare and contrast paper. You can use either the block or point-by-point method to develop an outline for your comparison and contrast essay.
The block method is a time-tested framework for organizing the main elements of a compare and contrast essay. When you pick points of agreement and disagreement and organize them, the essay swiftly takes shape.
Using the block style, the first topic is introduced, and its qualities and details are discussed in length. One section is complete. The second section applies the same methodology to the second topic.
The format is a point-by-point rundown of every shared feature and divergent characteristic, carefully noting both topics simultaneously. You can compare and contrast the two topics by outlining their shared and differentiated features.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both formats. The block method is unquestionably simpler to write because all you have to do is list the similarities and differences between the two themes.
The point-by-point structure forces you to perform your analysis while making the similarities and contrasts between the two more transparent to the reader.
It explains how the comparisons stack up and why they matter in the final paragraph.
Once you’ve decided on an essay structure, you may start planning your paper. A standard essay will include an introduction , three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
If you need to go into greater depth with any of these topics, feel free to add an additional paragraph.
If you want your compare and contrast essay to read more smoothly, you should include transitional words and phrases. They will spice up your paper and make it better all over.
Similar, likewise, too, both, just like, similar to, the same as, and similarly are all viable options when making comparisons.
When contrasting thoughts, use “in contrast,” “in comparison,” “by comparison,” and “on the other hand.” Other words to utilize are “while,” “whereas,” “but,” “to differ from,” “dissimilar to,” and “unlike.”
You need to back up your claims in any essay, whether you’re writing a compare and contrast piece or an academic psychology paper.
Use anything at your disposal to bolster your case, be it first-hand experience, books, scholarly articles, magazine/newspaper articles, films, etc.
If you’re comparing traditional college to online education, you may compare how often you attend class to your distant learning experiences.
You can add credibility to your case concerning online classes by discussing your own experience taking them.
The first step in writing a good essay is identifying the topic and developing a thesis. Students frequently write a comparison essay while they are enrolled in higher education.
Students are pushed to develop their analytical and comparative abilities and focus intently on the details of their comparisons with their professors.
This essay format is useful for practicing close observation and analysis, setting the scene, and presenting convincing arguments.
Abir is a data analyst and researcher. Among her interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. As a humanitarian and educator, she actively supports women in tech and promotes diversity.
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Comparative is also known as 'Reading and Comparing', 'Comparative Essay' and less frequently, 'Compare and Contrast'. For our purposes, we'll just stick to 'Comparative'.
As its name may indicate, a Comparative is when you analyse and write on two texts, comparing their similarities and differences. In VCE, there are 8 pairs of texts Year 12s can choose from (or more accurately, your school chooses for you!). The most popular combination of texts include novels and films, however, plays also make it onto the list.
When you start doing Comparative at school, you will move through your texts just as you have for Text Response (except...instead of one text it's actually two) - from watching the film and/or reading the novel, participating in class discussions about similar and different themes and ideas, and finally, submitting one single essay based on the two texts. So yep, if you've only just gotten your head around Text Response, VCAA likes to throw a spanner in the works to keep you on your toes!
But, don't worry. The good news is all of your Text Response learning is applicable to VCE’s Comparative, and it's really not as hard as it might first appear. Here's a video I created introducing Comparative ( I've time-stamped it to start at 0:55 - when the Comparative section starts - thank me later! ).
What are teachers and examiners expecting to see in your essays? Below are the VCE criteria for Comparative essays (sourced from the VCAA English examination page ).
Note: Some schools may express the following points differently, however, they should all boil down to the same points - what is necessary in a Comparative essay.
Society, history and culture all shape and influence us in our beliefs and opinions. Authors use much of what they’ve obtained from the world around them and employ this knowledge to their writing. Understanding their values embodied in texts can help us, as readers, identify and appreciate theme and character representations.
For example: Misogyny is widespread in both Photograph 51 and The Penelopiad , and both writers explore the ways in which females deal with such an environment. Photograph 51 is set in the 1950s when women begun to enter the workforce, whereas The Penelopiad is set in Ancient Greece, a period when women were less likely to speak out against discrimination.
More about this later in 4. How To Prepare for Your Comparative SAC and Exam, Step 2: Understand both your texts - as a pair (below) .
While you should absolutely know how to embed quotes in your essay like a boss , you want to have other types of evidence in your Comparative essay. You must discuss how the author uses the form that he/she is writing in to develop their discussion. This encompasses a huge breadth of things from metaphors to structure to language.
For example: "The personification of Achilles as ‘wolf, a violator of every law of men and gods', illustrates his descent from human to animal..." or "Malouf’s constant use of the present voice and the chapter divisions allow the metaphor of time to demonstrate the futility and omnipresence of war..."
To learn more about metalanguage, read our What Is Metalanguage? post.
When examiners read essays, they are expected to get through about 12-15 essays in an hour! This results in approximately 5 minutes to read, get their head around, and grade your essay - not much time at all! It is so vital that you don’t give the examiner an opportunity to take away marks because they have to reread certain parts of your essay due to poor expression and grammar.
Comparative is the first Area of Study (AoS 1) in Unit 2 (Year 11) and Unit 4 (Year 12) - meaning that majority of students will tackle the Comparative SAC in Term 3. The number of allocated marks are:
The time allocated to your SAC is school-based. Schools often use one or more periods combined, depending on how long each of your periods last. Teachers can ask you to write anywhere from 900 to 1200 words for your essay (keep in mind that it’s about quality, not quantity!)
In your exam, you get a whopping total of 3 hours to write 3 essays ( Text Response , Comparative, and Language Analysis ). The general guide is 60 minutes on Comparative, however, it is up to you exactly how much time you decide to dedicate to this section of the exam. Your Comparative essay will be graded out of 10 by two different examiners. Your two unique marks from these examiners will be combined, with 20 as the highest possible mark.
Preparation is a vital component in how you perform in your SACs and exam so it’s always a good idea to find out what is your best way to approach assessments. This is just to get you thinking about the different study methods you can try before a SAC. Here are my top strategies (ones I actually used in VCE) for Comparative preparation that can be done any time of year (including holidays - see How To Recharge Your Motivation Over the School Holidays for more tips):
This doesn’t mean reading/watching your texts a specific amount of times (though twice is usually a recommended minimum), but rather, coming to an understanding of your texts. Besides knowing important sections, quotes, themes and characters (which are still important and which you should definitely know), here are some other matters which are also necessary to consider:
These kinds of questions are important because quite often in this area of study, you’ll be defending and interpreting your own ideas alongside the author’s. When you find a solid interpretation of the text as a whole, then no essay topic will really throw you off - because you’ll know already what you think about it. Moreover, because you’re comparing two texts in this section, understanding a text and being specific (e.g. 'both texts argue that equality is important' vs. 'while both texts A and B agree with the notion of equality, A focuses on ____ whereas B highlights ____') will help your writing improve in sophistication and depth.
If you need any more tips on how to learn your texts in-depth, Susan's (English study score 50) Steps for Success in Text Study guide provides a clear pathway for how to approach your texts and is a must read for VCE English students!
And, if you're studying texts you hate (ugh!), you'll also want to check out Lavinia's guide which teaches you how to do well even when you hate your texts .
Avoid simply drawing connections between the texts which are immediately obvious. When writing a Comparative, the key strategy that'll help you stand out from the crowd is the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy . I discuss this in more detail below, under 'eBooks'.
We'll use George Orwell's Animal Farm and Shakespeare's Macbeth as an example ( don't worry if you haven't studied either of these texts, it's just to prove a point ). The most obvious connection simply from reading the plot is that both Napoleon and Macbeth are powerful leaders. However, you want to start asking yourself more questions to develop an insightful comparison between the two men:
Q: How do they achieve power?
A: In Animal Farm , Napoleon is sly about his intentions and slowly secures his power with clever manipulation and propaganda. However , Shakespeare’s Macbeth adopts very different methods as he uses violence and abuse to secure his power.
Q: How do they maintain power?
A: Both Napoleon and Macbeth are tyrants who go to great length to protect their power. They believe in killing or chasing away anyone who undermines their power.
Q: What is the effect of power on the two characters?
A: While Macbeth concentrates on Macbeth’s growing guilty conscience and his gradual deterioration to insanity, Animal Farm offers no insight into Napoleon’s stream of consciousness. Instead, George Orwell focuses on the pain and suffering of the animals under Napoleon’s reign. This highlights Shakespeare’s desire to focus on the inner conflict of a man, whereas Orwell depicted the repercussions of a totalitarian regime on those under its ruling.
Check out our comparative scene analysis of The Longest Memory & The 7 Stages of Grieving for another example of understanding texts as a pair!
Having a list of comparative words will help you understand your texts as a pair, and helps make your life easier when you start writing your essays. Here's a list we've compiled below:
Feel free to download the PDF version of this list for your own studies as well!
Besides comparing ideas and themes, and having an understanding of what the text says, it’s also imperative that you understand HOW the texts say it. This type of analysis focuses on metalanguage (also known as literary devices or literary techniques). When you get technical with this and focus on metalanguage, it brings out more depth in your writing.
These kinds of understanding are important as they are evidentiary material for your arguments. What you say and believe the authors have said, as well as how you believe the texts differ, may rely heavily on these techniques. You'd then translate this analysis to develop your arguments further in your essay. For example:
His depiction of Chapel serves as a subversion of the conventional type of slave; he is 'half a slave, half the master' and belongs to 'another way of life'. His defiance and rebellion against the dictations of society is exemplified through his speech, which consists of rhythmic and poetic couplets, filled with flowery language; which ultimately challenges the idea of illiterate slaves.
Doing this study all by yourself can be rather daunting, so we've got your back. We specialise in supporting VCE English students by creating helpful videos, study guides and ebooks. Here are some just to get your started:
We create general study advice videos like this:
We also create Comparative pair-specific videos:
If you prefer learning through videos, check out our entire YouTube channel (and don't forget to subscribe for regular new videos!).
Our awesome team of English high-achievers have written up study guides based on popular VCE texts. Here's a compilation of all the ones we've covered so far including current and older text pairs:
Bombshells and The Penelopiad
I Am Malala and Pride
Reckoning and The Namesake
Reckoning and The Namesake (Quote Analysis)
Ransom and Invictus
Ransom and The Queen
Stasiland and 1984
Stasiland and Never Let Me Go
Stasiland and Never Let Me Go (yes this is a different guide to the one above!)
The Crucible and The Dressmaker
The Crucible and The Dressmaker (Understanding Context)
The Crucible and Year of Wonders
The Hate Race and Charlie's Country
The Longest Memory and Black Diggers
The Longest Memory and The 7 Stages of Grieving
The Penelopiad and Photograph 51
Tracks and Charlie's Country
Tracks and Into the Wild
Tip: You can download and save the study guides for your own study use! How good is that?
And if that isn't enough, I'd highly recommend my How To Write A Killer Comparative ebook. What's often the most difficult part of Comparative is finding the right examples and evidence to ensure that you're standing out against hundreds of other students studying VCE.
Unlike Text Response where there are over 30 texts for schools to choose from, Comparative only has 8 pairs of texts. This means that the likelihood of other students studying the same texts as you is much higher. And what does that mean?
It means that your competition is going to be even tougher. It's likely the character or quote you plan to use will also be used by other students. So, this means that there needs to be a way for you to differentiate yourself. Enter my golden CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy .
This strategy can be used for any example you wish to use, but by approaching your example with the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT mindset, you'll immediately be able to establish a unique perspective that should earn you some bonus marks.
If you've ever had a teacher tell you that you needed to ‘elaborate’, ‘go into more detail’, or ‘more analysis’ needed in your essays - this strategy will help eliminate all those criticisms. It will also show your teacher how you are comfortable writing an in-depth analysis using fewer examples, rather than trying to overload your essay with as many examples as possible because you barely have anything to say about each one.
To learn more about the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy, get a free preview of this study guide on the Shop page or at the bottom of this blog.
Once you've done some preliminary revision, it's time to write plans! Plans will help ensure you stick to your essay topic, and have a clear outline of what your essay will cover. This clarity is crucial to success in a Comparative essay.
Doing plans is also an extremely time-efficient way to approach SACs. Rather than slaving away hours upon hours over writing essays, writing plans will save you the burnout and get you feeling confident faster.
I've also curated essay topic breakdown videos based on specific VCE texts. In these videos, I explore keywords, ideas and how I'd plan an essay with corresponding examples/evidence.
Often, teachers will provide you with a list of prompts to practice before your SAC. Some teachers can be kind enough to nudge you in the direction of a particular prompt that may be on the SAC. If your teacher hasn’t distributed any, don’t be afraid to ask.
We have a number of free essay topics curated by our team at LSG, check some of them out:
I Am Malala and Made In Dagenham Prompts
Ransom and Invictus Prompts
Stasiland and Never Let Me Go Prompts
The Crucible and Year Of Wonders Prompts
The Penelopiad and Photograph 51 Prompts
Psst...see these fully annotated sample essays where we show you exactly how we analysed the prompt, brainstormed our ideas and created a plan for our essay:
Comparing Photograph 51 and The Penelopiad: Essay Topic Breakdown
Ransom and The Queen: Comparative Essay Topic Breakdown
The Longest Memory and Black Diggers - A Comparative Essay Breakdown
Yes, sad but it’s a fact. Writers only get better by actually writing . Even if you just tackle a couple of essays then at least you will have started to develop a thinking process that will help you to set out arguments logically, utilise important quotes and time yourself against the clock. It will help you write faster as well – something that is a major problem for many students. With that said, let's get into how to write a Comparative next.
Comparative essay structure.
Here are a couple of resources to get your Comparative essay structure sorted. Firstly a video (time-stamped at 1:38) :
Secondly, jump over to Sarah's (English study score 47) Compare the Pair: A Guide to Structuring a Reading and Comparing Essay post where she delves into two different types of Comparative essay structures.
Introduction.
In an introduction, you're expected to have the following:
Here's an example from Mida (English study score 43), in her post The Longest Memory and Black Diggers - A Comparative Essay Breakdown :
The hopes and dreams of oppressed individuals can be fulfilled to a certain extent. This degree of fulfilment, however, can ultimately become restricted by the entrenched beliefs and dictations of society; and thus, this process of fulfilment is presented to be difficult and rare to achieve. In Fred D’Aguiar’s novella, The Longest Memory , the hopes and dreams for equality and racial acceptance is revealed to coerce oppressed individuals to subvert social norms, all in an attempt to gain liberty and fairness. Similarly, Tom Wright’s play, Black Diggers , explores the collective yearning of oppressed Indigenous Australians who seek to gain a sense of belonging and recognition in society. Both D’Aguiar and Wright expose how the obstacles of social inequality, deep-rooted prejudice and beliefs can essentially restrict the fulfilment of such desires and dreams.
Try to keep your introduction to the point. There's no need to prolong an introduction just to make a set number of sentences. It's always better to be concise and succinct, and move into your main body paragraphs where the juicy contents of your essay resides.
Most of you will be familiar with TEEL learnt in Text Response. TEEL can stand for:
If your teacher or school teaches you something slightly different that's okay too. At the end of the day, the foundations are the same.
In Comparative, you can still use TEEL, except that you'll be making comparisons between the two texts throughout your paragraph.
The below example adopts the 'Alternate' Comparative essay structure where the first part of the body paragraph focuses on Text 1 ( The Longest Memory ) and the second half of the body paragraph focuses on Text 2 ( Black Diggers ).
The ambitions of the oppressed are achieved to a certain extent. However, they are not maintained and thus become restricted due to the beliefs and conventions entrenched in society. D’Aguiar asserts that a sense of liberation can indeed be achieved in the unjust system of slavery, and this is demonstrated through his characterisation of Chapel. His depiction of Chapel serves as a subversion of the conventional type of slave; he is 'half a slave, half the master' and belongs to 'another way of life'. His defiance and rebellion against the dictations of society is exemplified through his speech, which consists of rhythmic and poetic couplets, filled with flowery language; which ultimately challenges the idea of illiterate slaves. D’Aguiar also associates the allusion of the 'two star-crossed lovers' in regards to the relationship between Lydia and Chapel; who were 'forbidden' to 'read together'. Despite this, the two characters take on a form of illicit, linguistic, sexual intercourse with each other, as they 'touch each other’s bodies in the dark' and 'memorise [their] lines throughout'. Here, D’Aguiar illustrates their close intimacy as a form of rebellion against the Eurocentric society, who believed such interrelation between blacks and whites was 'heinous' and 'wicked'. The individualistic nature of Chapel is also paralleled in Black Diggers , where Wright’s portrayal of Bertie expresses the yearning for a sense of belonging. Just like Chapel, Bertie desires free will, and he decides to 'fight for the country'. This aspiration of his however, is restrained by both his Mum and Grandad; who in a similar manner as Whitechapel, represent the voice of reality and reason. Wright employs the metaphor of the Narrandera Show to depict the marginalisation and exclusion of Aboriginal people, as they will never be 'allowed through the wire', or essentially, ever be accepted in Australia. This notion of exclusion is further reinforced through Bertie’s gradual loss of voice and mentality throughout Wright’s short vignettes, as he soon becomes desensitised and is 'unable to speak'. Here, Wright seems to suggest that the silenced voices of the Indigenous soldiers depict the eternal suffering they experienced; from both the horrors of war, but also the continual marginalisation and lack of recognition they faced back home. Consequently, D’Aguiar and Wright highlight how the ambitions of young individuals are limited by the truths and history of reality, and are essentially rarely achieved.
Conclusions should be short and sweet. Summarise your main points while comparing the two texts (just as you have throughout your entire essay).
D’Aguiar and Wright both illustrate oppressed individuals fighting against the beliefs and conventions of society; in order to gain their freedom and achieve their hopes and dreams. However, both reveal the harsh truths of reality that ultimately inhibit and restrict the capacity of people’s ambitions. D’Aguiar and Wright compel their readers to try and grasp an understanding of the past of slaves and Aboriginal soldiers, in order to seek remembrance and closure of this fundamental truth. They both convey the need for memories and the past to never be forgotten; and instead remembered and recognised in history.
For further detail from Sarah (English study score 45), read her advice on 5 Tips For A Mic-Drop Worthy Essay Conclusion .
If you're looking for more A+ Comparative essay examples, then you can also get your hands on any of our LSG study guide ebooks. Each study guide has 5 comparative essays, all fully annotated so you can see into the mind of a high achiever. These comparative essay examples also adopt different essay structures (block, alternating, and integrated) so you can see all three in action.
Ransom & The Queen
The Crucible & The Dressmaker
The 7 Stages of Grieving & The Longest Memory
I Am Malala & Pride
Photograph 51 & My Brilliant Career
This blog guide is fantastic to get you started - there are certain strategies you can implement to ensure your Comparative essay wows your examiner and gives you an A-grade ranking. These strategies have been adopted by high-achievers in the past few years and have resulted in student achieving study scores of 45+. Make sure you don't miss out on these strategies by accessing a free sample of our How To Write A Killer Comparative ebook. In the meantime, good luck!
Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps. Click below to get your own copy today!
1. 'The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn't let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.'
Compare how a perceived sense of control shapes characters in both Never Let Me Go and Stasiland .
2. Compare how the texts explore the importance of memory in defining identity.
3. 'To conform is to be safe and to survive.'
Compare how this idea is examined in both texts.
4. 'I'll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head, and that'll be something no one can take away.' (Never Let Me Go)
Compare how these texts explore the consequences of denying history for affected individuals.
5. Compare how Never Let Me Go and Stasiland examine what it means to be human.
6. Compare how both texts explore the influence of being an outsider on one's understanding of society and their place in the world.
7. 'This society, it was built on lies – lie after lie after lie.' ( Stasiland )
Compare what the two texts say about wilful ignorance in society.
8. 'It is impossible to be free when you are unaware of your confines.'
Compare how the two texts explore freedom and confinement.
9 . 'When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human.' ( Stasiland )
'Poor creatures. What did we do to you?' ( Never Let Me Go )
Compare how Never Let Me Go and Stasiland explore how humanity can be irreparably broken.
10. Compare how these texts examine the sacrifices required for societal progression and change.
11. Compare what the two texts say about the inevitability of change and being forgotten.
12. Compare the ways these texts explore the influence of different types of human relationships on the individual.
13. 'Things have been put behind glass, but they are not yet over.' ( Stasiland )
Compare how Never Let Me Go and Stasiland demonstrate differing attitudes towards reality and the past.
14. Compare what the two texts suggest about the factors which shape an individual's world view.
15. 'We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.' ( Never Let Me Go )
'...a soul buckled out of shape, forever.' ( Stasiland )
Compare how Never Let Me Go and Stasiland explore the concept of souls in relation to one's identity.
Bombshells and The Penelopiad are studied as part of VCE English's Comparative. For one of most popular posts on Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative.
Bombshells is a collection of six monologues written by Joanna Murray-Smith, each featuring one female character who is symbolic of a specific stage in life and role. Together, they are a telling account of the struggles of being a woman in a modern world, and the monologue format allows the author to emphasise how they are simultaneously unique and universally relatable.
The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood’s retelling of Homer’s Odyssey from Odysseus’ wife Penelope’s point of view. The story is narrated first-person by Penelope who resides in the underworld, but is also peppered with spoken, sung or chanted testimonies from the twelve dead maids of the story who act as a Chorus, a traditional part of ancient Greek theatre. Although the story is old and much-retold, the voice is modern and the author’s messages concerning women and their position in the world and their relationship with men are universal, regardless of the historical period.
Prompt: How do Bombshells and The Penelopiad emphasise the subtleties of the male-female relationship dynamic?
While the narratives of both Bombshells and The Penelopiad are firmly focused on the female perspective of issues relevant to them, the texts also address the male perspective and role in such issues. Like the women, the men created by the authors have instrumental roles in the way the stories play out, which interestingly are sometimes disproportionate to their actual involvement in the plot.
One of the main differences between the texts, other than the literary format, is the level of dialogue and active participation afforded to the male characters. In The Penelopiad , the male characters arguably largely direct Penelope’s life, from her father essentially selling her into marriage to Odysseus’ life-disrupting departure, return and ‘lies…tricks and… thieving’, not to mention her ‘quite spoiled’ son Telemachus’ will to usurp and disobey his mother. Penelope’s narration gives them large amounts of dialogue and paints them as three-dimensional people in her life, whereas the male characters in Bombshells have barely any dialogue – most of them have none – and yet manage to cause a similar level of turmoil in the female characters. The marriage of Theresa McTerry to her fiancé Ted, for example, sends her into long, capitalised rants heavily punctuated with exclamation marks and profanities; Murray-Smith does not even give Ted a full description. Even without forming the male characters into rich, detailed personas, she still manages to fully showcase the chaos visited upon Theresa by her ill-considered marriage. She draws greater attention to her inner panic and desperation than we see in Penelope, whose voice retains a sense of shocked detachment even when crying or suffering. As such, the differing approaches of the authors both showcase the fact that men can wreak significant havoc with women’s lives, and that we do not actually need to know much about the particulars of the men or their acts to comprehend the women’s suffering.
The approaches of Atwood and Murray-Smith towards the level of engagement of their male characters differ significantly, yet both show the full impact of their actions on the lives of their female counterparts. Even when the men are given only cursory mentions, their presence as an agent of change within the story is sufficient for them to dramatically alter the courses of the characters they consort with.
More full sample A+ essays available in our Ultimate VCE English Study Guide Bundle.
It’s very hard to look past the overt feminist overtones of both try – even though these are some of the most interesting parts of the texts and you definitely should discuss them, there is more to them than messages about women. Maybe expand your view to more general ideas about human beings, how we live our lives and the ways we react to situations of duress.
Also consider that these texts are in two different formats; how does the live performance of Bombshells change the way it is perceived? How do the different media of these texts support or emphasise the authors’ messages? What can a monologue do better than a book in terms of transmitting an idea and vice versa?
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For a detailed guide on Comparative, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative.
To understand the works of Franklin and Ziegler, we are going to take a look at the historical contexts in which the texts were written. By doing this, we’ll establish a proper understanding of some of the language and concepts that you might have experienced in class. The three specific historical contexts that we will address are life in 1950s London , uncovering the enigma of DNA as well as 19th-century rural life in Australia . As you continue to read this study guide, you may wish to refer back to this section if you find some of the terminologies and references confusing!
Photograph 51 is set during the 1950s in London. This was a challenging time for everyone, largely due to Britain’s impaired economy after the war, as well as the financial obligations of the nation to the United States. An iconic local feature of this time was the fact that the government encouraged everyone in the nation to grow food for themselves and their communities. Everywhere you looked, land was being used to farm crops! Indeed, people would grow food everywhere that they could because government rations were strictly enforced and the 1950s was a decade marked by the struggle for parents to find enough food for themselves and their children. This was a difficult situation in which to live and work. However, in this time after the Second World War, Britain experienced changes on a scale never experienced by the country before. The war had cost Britain its status as a nation of monumental power, and in the 1950s the nation was looking to rebuild itself. This was a period of enthusiasm and optimism, in which many technological and scientific developments were made. Computers became more sophisticated, and humanity deeply desired to explore the workings of the world.
Nonetheless, during this time of hope and progress, women were remarkably undervalued , and female professionals were often treated with contempt. We are provided with a snapshot of what this looked like in Photograph 51 . As a Jewish woman in the 1950s, Rosalind Franklin is depicted as a target for prejudice in the world around her. For example, she is not permitted to dine with her male colleagues at lunch, which renders her unable to engage in meaningful conversations with her colleagues and debate about their research and ideas. Additionally, despite the fact that she is just as qualified as Wilkins, he continually ignores her qualifications and achievements. We see this as he refers to her with the patronising nickname ‘Rosy’, which underscores the reality that he sees her as inferior to him. It is evident that the professional world was a challenging place for women and minorities during the 1950s in London. However, Rosalind Franklin was willing to persist with her important scientific work in this formidable social setting.
My Brilliant Career was published in 1901. This was the year when the Commonwealth of Australia was formed, as the colonies of Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales united as one nation. The text is set in areas around Goulburn in Australia in the 1890s, which is around 195 kilometres - or a two-hour drive - in the South-West direction of Sydney. To put it bluntly: Australia was a challenging place to live in in the 1890s. Take a moment to consider the harsh realities of life in this time and place. During this time, most of Australia was a rural environment and this was an era in which Australians were confronted with drought, economic hardships and high unemployment rates. Indeed, the period of prosperity during the 1850s gold rush was, unfortunately, coming to a close, international investment in Australia was devastatingly declining and the price of wool and wheat was dropping at a dangerous pace. The dire economic situation was certainly not helped by the long drought, which created a distressing situation for the agricultural industry. As we see in the text, Sybylla’s father is a dairy farmer, and her family lived through this unbearable summer heat, the harsh drought and the pain caused by dying livestock. Miles Franklin convincingly uses Sybylla and her family to illustrate the extent to which the adversity of the time had an impact on everyone and the fact that nobody could escape it.
During this period, many women had to take up jobs to support their families, due to the turbulent economic times. Having said that, this was a challenging environment for a woman to pursue a career. Marriage was seen as the only appropriate venture for a woman, and women were expected to marry as soon as they were able to. It was basically unthinkable for a woman to work and pursue a career unless she was working while she waited to be able to depend upon a husband for support. Those who chose not to marry were treated poorly by the world around them. In particular, women could be traded and bartered as labour, and we see when Sylblla becomes a governess to repay her family’s debt.
During this challenging time, it was becoming increasingly common for young women in Australia to publish books, with Miles Franklin being one of them. Nevertheless, Miles Franklin - officially born Stella Franklin - ensured that ‘Miss’ was excluded from her name on the cover of her text. Presumably, she did not want her readers to assume that My Brilliant Career was written by a woman, as this may have harmed sales. Despite this, it is undeniable that social perspectives surrounding gender roles were gradually shifting towards permitting women greater rights within society. For instance, women were eventually granted the right to vote in federal elections in Australia when the Franchise Act was passed in 1902. We see such a progressive attitude represented in the text through Sybylla. Despite the social expectations placed upon her, Sybylla has aspirations for her future. As part of her aspirations, she must choose between the traditional route of marriage to Harry Beecham or her plans to pursue a career. Through this, we see that Miles Franklin welcomes the potentiality for increased social freedom for women to pursue meaningful occupations. In defiance of what society expected of her, she wanted to do something with her life and have a meaningful career! Much like many women of the day in rural Australia, pursuing such a path was no easy task and she faced much opposition.
We’re now going to take a quick look at the plots of My Brilliant Career and Photograph 51 . However, I cannot overemphasise the importance of setting aside the time to read these texts in detail and annotate them for yourself. You may wish to use these summaries to refresh your memory about the plot, or to stay on track if you get lost or confused while you read! We’ll provide you with a general overview of what happens, with a particular focus on the key events in each text.
My Brilliant Career is an Australian literary classic by Stella 'Miles' Franklin which is set in rural New South Wales in the late nineteenth century. The story is presented in an autobiographical format and depicts the life and travels of Sybylla Melvyn and her family. The novel is written in a fairly free-flowing format, which Sybylla unapologetically explains is the result of her life being unstructured and lacking a plot. At times you may be frustrated with Sybylla’s pessimism and cynicism . At other times, you may hold back tears as you reflect on the adverse circumstances she faces as she pursues her goals and strives to find purpose in her life.
The novel commences with Sybylla and her family living in Bruggabong. Sybylla is content with her life here, with the freedom to roam around and ride horses as she pleases. However, as the first chapter comes to a close, we are told that Sybylla’s father, Dick Melvyn, intends to sell his stations and move his family to Possum Gully. He hopes that Possum Gully will present him with greater financial opportunities through trading farm animals. Sybylla is frustrated by the move and perceives her family’s new home as boring and monotonous. At the same time, life is hard for her mother, who becomes increasingly critical of Sybylla who seems to be developing into a rebellious child. Dick inflicts a great deal of pain upon his family, as he spends too much time in town, loses money with every sale and becomes an alcoholic. The drought certainly doesn’t simplify matters, with the scorching heat taking a toll on Sybylla, her family and their animals.
Eventually, we learn that Sybylla’s grandmother has decided to take Sybylla to live with her in Caddagat. Sybylla enthusiastically agrees and celebrates the opportunity to experience life in a different location away from the difficulties of Possum Gully. Whilst in Caddagat, she lives with Grandma Bosser, Aunt Helen and Uncle Jay-Jay. During her time there, several men approach Sybylla with an interest in marrying her. The first is Everard Grey, a wealthy lawyer from Sydney with a keen interest in the performing arts. She is denied the opportunity to travel with him and he neglects her upon hearing this news. Frank Hawden, a farmhand to the family, is attracted to Sybylla, but she sharply rejects him due to his unsophisticated demeanour. Finally, she meets Harold Beecham of Five-Bob Downs. They enjoy spending time together and he brings out Sybylla’s playful side. They eventually become engaged. However, Sybylla never intends to marry him and only agrees to the engagement on the condition that it is kept a secret between the two of them. She shares to her audience that she intends to break off the engagement as a means of stirring up and confronting Harold. Eventually, Harold is forced to leave Five-Bob Downs due to his financial misfortune resulting in the loss of his property. However, he and Sybylla agree to maintain their engagement and commit to marrying after a few years. Having said that, Sybylla never really has any intention of marrying Harold, for she views marriage as restrictive and unnecessary controlling of her freedom to pursue her own life.
Shortly after Harold’s departure, Sybylla is confronted with the news that her father’s debt to Peter M’Swat means that she will be required to travel to Barney’s Gap to work as a governess for the M’Swat children. It would be an understatement to say that Sybylla is dissatisfied with this new state of affairs! She absolutely hates working for the M’Swat family! She finds that the house is filthy, the children are disobedient and she has very minimal personal space. All she wants is to go back and live with Grandma Bossier and Aunt Helen. However, her mother denies her this privilege, for she must repay her father’s debt. The experience at Barney’s Gap becomes so bad for her that she develops an illness due to the emotional strain that she experiences. Accordingly, Mr. M’Swat sends her back home to Possum Gully to be with her family.
Sybylla hardly receives a warm welcome from her parents. Her mother continually treats her as ungrateful, and her father’s drinking has had a significant impact on his demeanour. Her younger sister, Gertie, is sent off to live in Caddagat, and Sybylla feels as if Grandma Bossier, Aunt Helen and Uncle Jay-Jay have forgotten about her. To make matters worse, she feels as if Harold Beecham, who has been unable to return to Five-Bob Downs, is falling in love with Gertie. Eventually, Harold travels to Possum Gully. Sybylla is expecting her to ask Dick for permission to marry Gertie. But to her surprise, he actually intends to ask Sybyllla if she will marry him, even though she made it clear through her letters that she had no intention of doing so. For fear of hurting him and due to her view of marriage as restrictive, she rejects Harold again and sends him on his way.
And that’s basically the story! Sybylla concludes with some reflections on her position and purpose in life. She sees her purpose as completing the monotonous tasks that nobody wants to complete and she is thankful for the opportunity to earn her living through hard labour. Overall, we know that her ambition was to become an author, and this book is her final product as she writes about her various experiences.
Photograph 51 is a play by Anna Ziegler which tells the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA. The title takes its name from the photograph taken by Raymond Gosling and Rosalind Franklin at King’s College in 1952. The play has been constructed by Ziegler with a bit of artistic license, and she herself admits that she has modified timelines, altered facts and events, and recreated characters. If we take a step back and look at the big picture, we have a great representation of events that makes some bold statements about injustice within the scientific community and society at large.
It is important to mention that this play is full of characters who break the fourth wall - a performance convention in which we usually imagine that there is a wall that separates characters from the audience when we watch a television show, movie or play. Ziegler has deliberately constructed this play in a manner where the characters that feature in the play provide commentary on the events to the audience. And this is how we start, with Rosalind directly speaking to the audience alongside Wilkins, Watson, Crick, Caspar and Gosling. Rosalind shares that the play will be about ‘powerful’ scientists accomplishing incredible feats. Shortly after this, our story begins (with frequent interruptions from the male scientists who want to bicker with each other and give their own commentary on the events).
Rosalind arrives at King’s College in London to work in the field of genetics. However, much to her surprise and dissatisfaction, she is told that she will be working on uncovering the structure of DNA. She also learns that she will be working with a doctoral student, Gosling, under the direction of Wilkins. Wilkins and Rosalind clearly don’t get along, and they are often fighting about something! Meanwhile, Gosling is clearly lower in the chain of hierarchy and awkwardly tries to have a say in matters.
Now, pay attention to this part, because it will be important for the end. Shortly after her arrival at King’s College, Rosalind goes to see a production of Shakespeare’s comedy, The Winter’s Tale . Ziegler doesn’t get into the details, but basically, this play features King Leontes and Hermione, his wife. Leontes murders Hermione upon suspecting her of unfaithfulness. In The Winter’s Tale , Leontes is able to pray Hermione back to life! Why is this significant to Photograph 51 ? Just remember for now that Rosalind can’t seem to remember who played Hermione in the London production, whilst she can recall who played Leontes. We may say that this represents the misogyny that Rosalind has internalised after facing a life of sexism from the world around her.
As Rosalind and Gosling work closely on taking photographs of DNA, Gosling urges her to go home and rest on several occasions. She refuses, as she wants to persist in her work! He also pleads with her to be careful around the beam, but she is reluctant to listen. It is clear that she disregards her health and well-being because she is fixated on the task at hand.
We are introduced to two other scientists, Watson and Crick, who are also competing in the race to discover the structure of DNA. Another character, Caspar, is introduced around this time. He’s a PhD student who is captivated by Rosalind’s work and writes to her for assistance with his research. He eventually finishes his PhD and obtains a fellowship at King’s College where he develops a close relationship with Rosalind.
Over the course of the play, Wilkins works progressively closer with Watson and Crick, and eventually shares Rosalind’s Photograph 51 with them. This image, having been captured and developed by Rosalind and Gosling, was crucial to their discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. Watson and Crick are also able to access Rosalind’s unpublished paper which details all of her findings.
Rosalind and Caspar are having dinner together and Rosalind admits to the audience that she has feelings for Caspar. However, she does not share this information with him. During this time, Rosalind has some pain in her stomach and it is revealed that she has cancer, with two tumours in her ovaries. It is likely that this came about due to her close work with X-rays. She becomes very sick and eventually dies at the age of thirty-seven.
We are informed that Watson, Crick and Wilkins all receive the Nobel prize for their work on uncovering the structure of DNA. Meanwhile, Rosalind receives no credit, even though her research was what helped them with their breakthrough.
In the final moments of the play, Rosalind and Wilkins talk about The Winter’s Tale . Wilkins shares that he saw her entering the theatre on the day when she saw the play, but he decided not to enter with her. He regrets this and it is clear that he has lived a life full of regret. Wilkins wishes he could bring Rosalind back to life, just as Leontes does with Hermione in Shakespeare’s play. However, he regrets that this is not possible and must carry on his life with guilt and regret for the decisions he has made and the way that he has treated Rosalind.
Through discussing themes, motifs and key ideas, we’ll gain a clearer understanding of some super important ideas to bring out in your essays. Remember that, when it comes to themes, there’s a whole host of ways you can express your ideas - but this is what I’d suggest as the most impressive method to blow away the VCAA examiners. We’ll be adhering to the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy. While this study guide doesn’t go into too much detail about using LSG’s CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy , I’d highly recommend you familiarise yourself with it by reading LSG's How To Write A Killer Comparative .
Within Photograph 51 and My Brilliant Career , we are presented with characters with profound ambitions to overcome adverse circumstances. Indeed, both texts featured major and minor characters, who yearn to overcome their circumstances and make the most of their unfortunate situations. At the conclusion of My Brilliant Career , Sybylla questions the nature of 'vain ambition'. She reflects on the inevitability of death, and that all will die, regardless of one’s status as a 'king or slave'. Ultimately, Sybylla wants to be 'true' to herself, and in striving to do so, she finds contentment. Likewise, Rosalind is satisfied with 'painstakingly' trying to accomplish success by discovering the truth in her work. She is highly diligent, for she wants to discover the truth, and she will not permit herself to make a mistake. In doing so, she '[pays] attention to every detail'. However, as part of this, Watson and Crick are able to take advantage of her, and ultimately achieve success at her expense.
Rather insightfully, Caspar reflects that 'the things we want but can’t have are probably the things that define us'. This reflects the reality for characters across both texts. In particular, Rosalind has a deep 'yearning' for various things throughout Photograph 51 . This is not strictly for success in her research, for she admits that she yearns for friendships, peace, to be able to sleep well at night and for a deeper relationship with Caspar. Rosalind works diligently with her research, admitting that she doesn’t believe in 'laziness'. She regularly stays up all night, which likely contributes to her significant health complications. At the same time, this has an impact on her ability to form meaningful relationships with the people around her. Ultimately, she is not able to attain any of her aspirations, for her life is cut short by her unfortunate death. Likewise, Crick acknowledges that his ambitions in the scientific community have negatively impacted his relationship with his wife. Whilst he may have started out with the desire to 'support [his] family, to do science, to make some small difference in the world', it is clear that he became overwhelmed with his desire for success, and this has cost him dearly.
One of the most significant characters with aspirations in My Brilliant Career is Dick Melvyn. He clearly possesses great ambition at the beginning of the text, which motivates him to move his family from Bruggabrong to Possum Gully. However, this ambition for financial prosperity turns him into a man who is 'a slave of drink', as well as someone who is overall 'careless' and 'bedraggled in his personal appearance'. Indeed, his ambition has taken a challenging toll on him and the life of his family. Unlike Dick Melvyn, who has been harshly impacted by his ambition for success, the M’Swat family seem to be genuinely supportive of their children, and others outside of their family. This is evident in their care for the Melvyn family in their time of financial need. It is evident that a desire for success and 'the possession of money' does not necessarily lead to ruin.
The leading characters in My Brilliant Career and Photograph 51 differ in the extent to which they display selflessness as they approach life. Whilst Sybylla’s perception of her circumstances may not be entirely accurate, we can see that she approaches her despairing circumstances with ultimate altruism that leads her to neglect her own desires and focus on how she can be useful in serving the needs of others. At the conclusion of the text, Sybylla sees that she is most suited to 'wait about common public-houses to look after [her] father when he is inebriated'. She seems to be content to submit to her circumstances in order to look after the needs of her family. In contrast, Rosalind seems to be limited in her capacity to discern the needs of others, and the fact that others also require resources to complete their work. This is highlighted when Wilkins complains that 'she’s keeping [him] from [his] work'. Indeed, she seems to hoard 'all the best equipment'. Whilst Wilkins may be exaggerating the extent of the situation, this still highlights Rosalind's uncharitable approach to her work.
At the heart of these differences are the contrasting worldviews of the leading characters, and the way in which they each find meaning in life. Rosalind ultimately views society as opposed to her, and her response to this is to stand her ground tenaciously. She finds meaning in persevering and avoiding mistakes at all costs. In this approach to her world, she is able to justify her occasional cruel treatment of the men around her. On the other hand, Sybylla finds purpose in being able to fulfil a functioning role in the society around her. By the time the novel reaches its conclusion, she has essentially given up fighting for any of her own interests and seems to be content in serving the needs of those around her. This is evident when she rejects Harold for the final time. She notes that Harold is like a ' child pleading for a dangerous toy', and that '[her] refusal was for his good'. In doing so, she demonstrates selflessness, for she genuinely believes that she is acting in Harold’s best interest. The key contrast between Rosalind rejecting the assistance of Wilkins and Sybylla refusing to marry Harold is that Rosalind isolates herself and rejects others because she sees other people as unreliable, and sees that she will 'work best' if she works 'alone', whereas Sybylla rejects Harold for she believes she is acting for his good.
As with all our essay topic breakdowns, we'll follow LSG's THINK and EXECUTE strategy , as taught in our How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide. The LSG's THINK and EXECUTE strategy follows three steps in the THINK phase:
A nalyse B rainstorm C reate a Plan
Learn more about this technique in this video:
This ‘discuss’ topic prompts us to evaluate the topic in light of My Brilliant Career and Photograph 51 and reach a conclusion. This is also a theme-based topic, relating to perception and self-awareness. Accordingly, it would be wise to ‘discuss’ how key themes CONVERGE and DIVERGE across our texts. With our given theme, we will need to consider what we mean by ‘perception’, how it occurs in both texts, and the conclusions we can draw from this that will feature in our analysis.
In order to address this topic, we need to consider the notion of perception and how this connects with self-awareness. Crucially, the topic prompts us to consider where characters think they have perceived their situation accurately, when in reality they have actually accepted a form of illusion or false perception. We want to broadly consider where this occurs, which will enable us to group characters together later on. We also want to address the reality that something usually occurs to cause a person to realise that they have been perceiving their reality incorrectly.
We will approach this topic with a chronological structure . This means that we are going to broadly consider 1) the behaviour of characters with a false perception of reality, 2) the nature of crises that cause someone to confront their perception of their world, and 3) how characters respond to such crises.
As we think of examples to include in each of our paragraphs, we need to also be considering CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT points of comparison. We can base these around the themes from the Themes, Motifs and Key Ideas section of LSG's Photograph 51 & My Brilliant Career study guide.
Paragraph 1: Living with a false perception of reality
Paragraph 2: Crises that confront a false perception of reality
Paragraph 3: Responding to crises and evaluating a false perception of reality
Want to see the the fully written and annotated version of the essay we've just planned here? Check our A Killer Comparative Guide: Photograph 51 & My Brilliant Career. Not only can you find the full version of this essay, there are also 4 other (5 in total) full, A+ essays fully annotated, as well as more themes, analysed quotes, exploration of different interpretations and lenses and more!!
Reckoning & The Namesake are studied as part of VCE English's Comparative. For one of our most popular posts on Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative .
Magda Szubanski’s memoir, Reckoning, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s bildungsroman, The Namesake, follow misguided protagonists as they attempt to reconcile and ‘reckon’ with complicated family histories. Magda is burdened by her father’s legacy, whilst Ashoke’s distressing train accident lays the foundation for Gogol’s uncertainty, exposing the inescapable and often inscrutable marks that trauma leaves on the identities of later generations. With a large focus on inherited trauma , identity and memory , we’ll be breaking down some crucial quotes from each of these texts to better understand these key themes.
For a deeper look into some of the themes in Reckoning and The Namesake , check out this earlier post . And, if you need a refresher on how to properly embed quotes in your writing, take a look at How To Embed Quotes in Your Essay Like a Boss .
Whether it be the hardships of war or the adversity of misfortune, both texts observe family timelines steeped in history and trauma. Magda and Gogol are inadvertently burdened by their parents’ experiences, which remain obscure and confusing to the two protagonists and only complicate their identities.
We were tugboats in the river of history, my father and I, pulling in opposite directions. He needed to forget. I need to remember. For him, only the present moment would set him free. For me, the key lies buried in the past. The only way forward is back. (p. 13)
This quote is intrinsic to the authorial intent behind Szubanski writing her cathartic memoir. The experiences of Magda’s father in war-torn Poland are, as Magda expresses, ‘passed on genetically’. Yet, with Zbigniew’s instinct to ‘[clamp] down tight on all feeling’, his trauma remains unrevealed and unexamined during much of Magda’s life. This impenetrable history impresses onto Magda as intergenerational trauma, which leaves her an ‘unregulated mess’, constantly ‘ricocheting between feeling nothing and feeling everything’.
As Magda accurately describes, both she and her father are metaphorical ‘tugboats in the river of history’, drawn in completely opposite directions to resolve their traumas. For her, digging into the ‘buried’ past is vital to understanding her father and herself. As she puts it, ‘the only way forward is back’. This is entirely the opposite for Zbigniew, who is unwilling and unable to articulate his trauma in anything other than ‘incoherent…jottings’ and ‘fragments’. Burdened by his past, Zbigniew prefers living in the present moment where he can suppress and avoid the past. However, this difference in how the two approach trauma leads to a strained father-daughter relationship founded upon a lifetime of misunderstandings and secrecy that only deepen their inability to understand one another.
‘ Even at that young age,’ Mum told me, ‘I knew, I knew I had done something wrong.’ When she told me this her face caved in, stricken with remorse. Actors can never replicate this look. Meg didn’t punish her, but ‘Oh! The look of disappointment on my poor mother’s face.’ Now, today, more than eighty years later, my mother still feels the stinging sense of guilt. History repeats. That story of how, when I was six, I got blood on my best dress before a trip to take Dad to hospital. Mum slapped my leg in hasty anger. I understand now, of course, that it was herself she was slapping. Her life-loving, disobedient six-year-old self. We are bookends, she and I. (p. 346)
Intergenerational trauma surfaces as ‘patterns’ within the Szubanski family, where regret and resentment are passed down as ‘hand-me-down trinkets of family and trauma’. Magda uses the metaphor of ‘bookends’ to describe her and her mother’s remarkably similar experiences dealing with familial trauma. In other words, both Magda and Margaret are mirror images of each other, both having a shared experience of supporting and living with ill fathers. When Magda gets ‘blood on [her] best dress’ before another trip to the hospital, Margaret ‘slap[s her] leg’. Although Magda initially mistakes this reaction as ‘hasty anger’, hindsight allows her to understand that Margaret was preoccupied with a ‘stinging sense of guilt’, and was reprimanding herself - the ‘disobedient six-year-old self’ who had similarly ruined her own ‘special dress’. This realisation suggests that even though trauma ‘repeats [like]…history’, there is a generational difference in the way individuals are able to process and respond to situations of grief, poverty and war.
And suddenly the sound of his pet name, uttered by his father as he has been accustomed to hearing it all his life, means something completely new, bound up with a catastrophe he has unwittingly embodied for years. "Is that what you think of when you think of me?" Gogol asks him. "Do I remind you of that night?" "Not at all," his father says eventually, one hand going to his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now. "You remind me of everything that followed." (p. 124)
Just as Magda inherits Zbigniew’s harrowing war experience, Ashoke’s own ‘persistent fear’ from the train derailment that cripples him lives on through his son’s name. His chance rescue whilst ‘clutching a single page of ‘The Overcoat’’ is meaningful and life-altering. For Ashoke, naming his child after the ‘Russian writer who had saved his life’ emphasises his profound appreciation for surviving the accident. His son Gogol is a comforting reminder of ‘everything that followed’. In this way, Gogol acts as a symbol of both redemption and hope, representing Ashoke’s optimistic appraisal of his accident and his determination to make the most of his miraculous rescue.
But for Gogol, the memory of his father’s accident is entirely foreign and lacks any real meaning for him. His childhood pet name ‘Gogol’ - which he has always resented for making him feel out of place around other kids - suddenly becomes ‘something completely new’ when he discovers the truth about Ashoke’s accident. Gogol feels enormous pressure to live up to his father’s expectations as he represents a ‘catastrophe he has unwittingly embodied for years’. This is the source of much of Gogol’s guilt, confusion and resentment (towards his name, father, family and entire culture) and gradually erodes his sense of self. However, this inscrutability of the past only deepens Ashoke’s and Gogol’s similarity, whilst complicating and straining their father-son dynamic. Ashoke is unable to recognise the burden he has placed on his child, whilst Gogol alternatively cannot appreciate or truly understand being a miracle and source of salvation for Ashoke. Like with Magda and Zbigniew, here, father and child are unable to understand each other, creating a schism in their relationship which they are never able to reconcile. In any case, Lahiri conveys that the actions of enduring and processing trauma are intertwined and often leave permanent traces across future generations.
But Gogol is attached to them. For reasons he cannot explain or necessarily understand, these ancient Puritan spirits, these very first immigrants to America, these bearers of unthinkable, obsolete names, have spoken to him, so much so that in spite of his mother’s disgust he refuses to throw the rubbings away. He rolls them up, takes them upstairs, and puts them in his room, behind his chest of drawers, where he knows his mother will never bother to look, and where they will remain, ignored but protected, gathering dust for years to come. (p. 71)
Lahiri also indicates generational similarities in how individuals relate to trauma. As a second-generation migrant who has always felt displaced from his culture, Gogol’s graveyard field trip allows him to experience a semblance of belonging in Massachusetts for the first time and relate to America’s ‘very first immigrants’. While Ashoke profoundly connects to the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, his son Gogol refuses to get rid of the etchings of archaic names. These ‘ancient Puritan spirits’ with similarly ‘unthinkable, obsolete names’ like his own provide Gogol with a source of relief and offer proof that he is not alone in his differences. He feels protective of them - conveying his own desires to defend himself against childhood bullies, and also providing a way to preserve this first true moment of belonging.
Just as ‘The Overcoat’ resonates with Ashoke, Gogol feels connected to the etchings and conceals this single page from his mother Ashima, who is resentful of the peculiar American school excursion. Similarly, Ashoke struggles to convey the deep significance behind his own liberating ‘single page’ from the Russian book. In this way, both pages remain ‘ignored but protected’ and, for both father and son, symbolise the power of literature and storytelling to salvage their profoundly intimate and life-altering moments that are unfathomable to others.
Both Reckoning and The Namesake suggest that hasty personal reinventions can only temporarily suppress, rather than truly resolve, trauma. The ‘self-made man’ Gogol strives to be, and the ‘mostly-self created…Little Englishman’ identity that Zbigniew carves for himself, are simply ‘bandaids plastered over’ unresolved grief and hardships. Cut off from family and history, these facades only worsen their inner discontent and complicate identities.
For my father Australia was love at first sight. The moment we landed he knew he had done the right thing. The blast-furnace heat invigorated him. Only mad dogs and my father would go out in the midday Australian sun. He wouldn’t just go out in it…he would mow the lawn in it. We had a big, bumpy, untamed backyard and when the mercury hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit he’d be out there dragging the lawnmower across every inch of it. Wearing Bombay bloomers and a terry-towelling hat, singing Polish songs over the din of the mower. (p. 44)
Escaping battle-scarred Poland and the origins of his trauma, Zbigniew is a migrant who ‘could not shed his Polishness fast enough’. He ‘crosse[s] the world to get away’ from his destroyed and tarnished home. Zbigniew begins a ‘second life’ as Peter, and like the Polish amber Magda’s cousin gifts her, Zbigniew is ‘transformed by pressure’ (a metaphor for the natural formation of amber) into the ‘Little Englishman’. This persona is a role he takes with grave determination - an echo of the ‘killer instincts’ he suppressed from his abandoned life as a Polish assassin. Bewildering the rest of his family, Zbigniew relishes the ‘invigorat[ing]…blast-furnace heat’ of Australia, and acts the part of a true Aussie in his ‘Bombay bloomers’ and ‘terry-towelling hat’. This characteristically Australian ensemble essentially functions as another battle armour he equips himself with to protect his blemished soul, tainted by a history so ‘bizarrely awful’ that his only way to survive is by ‘clamping down tight’ through an ironclad persona.
Magda recalls him ‘forever trying to tame th[e] lumpen block’ of ‘untamed’ and ‘unpredictable’ soil in their yard, ‘dragging the lawnmower across every inch’. This crystallises the truth of his life: no matter how committed Zbigniew is to perfecting any project, simply plastering order (trying to tame the lawns by mowing them) over chaos (heat + lumpen, untamed, unpredictable soil) leaves the trauma unresolved.
The rest of it went smoothly and before too long I had my entire sharpie uniform. Only one thing was missing—a Conti. This smart striped cardigan, worn high and tight, was the centrepiece of the ensemble, the definitive wardrobe item of the sharpie. But none was available, not in Croydon anyway. We had to settle for a plain cardie, rolled up at the bottom until it sat under my boobs. I never did get a Conti. I think it was a sign. (p. 126)
Like her father, Magda toys with personas herself. Identity is fluid and inconstant for Magda, often fluctuating between a form Zbigniew would be proud of, one she hopes would trigger any emotional reaction from him, and one desperate to fit within the social climate of Croydon. She cultivates a variety of comic personalities and, like her father, pursues her own ‘tennis madness’ by becoming madly obsessed with the sport and playing competitively. Magda also attempts to embrace the dutiful Catholic ‘good girl’ personality she believes would satisfy her father, but she rebels when he continues to ‘display [no] emotion at all’ and embraces the Sharpie youth gang uprising in her neighbourhood. However, Magda ruefully mocks the contradictory nature of her Sharpie persona, describing her conversion as a hybrid - a ‘convent-school Sharpie’ - rather than the ‘true Sharpie chick’ she aspires to be. But, while all of these personas attempt to unite the ‘disparate, confusing parts’ of her identity, they just suppress the ‘real girl’ behind the mask and leave her more dissociated from herself than ever before.
Magda goes to great lengths to ‘smoothly’ acquire the perfect Sharpie disguise, but even with the ‘entire Sharpie uniform’, her facade is flawed; she lacks the Conti cardigan, which is the ‘definitive wardrobe item of the sharpie’. Her Sharpie identity becomes a parody of the authentic Australian youth gang. The flaws behind her imitation persona are worsened when Magda tries to replace the Conti ‘centrepiece’ with a simple ‘plain cardie, rolled up at the bottom’. Magda only realises this when she barely avoids a ‘beating’ by a ‘predatory Sharpie’ whilst vulnerable, dressed in her convent-school uniform, and unrecognisable as a fellow gang member. Here, she is finally able to concede that she has only been ‘playing at being a bad girl’ and laments, ‘I never did get a Conti. I think it was a sign’ - wryly foreshadowing the inevitable dissatisfaction of teenage facades.
"I'm Nikhil now," Gogol says, suddenly depressed by how many more times he will have to say this, asking people to remember, reminding them to forget, feeling as if an errata slip were perpetually pinned to his chest. (p. 119)
Gogol’s place in the world as an ‘American Born Confused Deshi’ (ABCD) is his own ‘awkward [truth]’. Like his own name which he scornfully labels a ‘scratchy tag’, his status as an ‘ABCD’ is another brand he is ‘forced permanently to wear’. He is both ashamed and resentful toward his second-generation migrant identity and feels ‘neither Indian nor American’ whilst mocked for his nickname that is ‘of all things Russian’. Indeed, Gogol’s entire adolescent experience is eclipsed by his confusion about ‘who he is’ as he struggles to obtain any stable foundation for his identity.
Unlike the costumes and disguises that Magda and Zbigniew embrace, Gogol takes action by solemnly changing his name to Nikhil, the ‘one that should have been’ given to him all those years ago. But even Gogol is acutely aware that this ‘scant’ persona leaves him having to repeatedly reinforce and assure others (and himself) of his identity. Gogol actually rejects the name ‘Nikhil’ on his first day of preschool, foreshadowing the inward dissociation he experiences later in life. He is again ‘afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know.’
Similarly, the flask Gogol’s sister Sonia gives to him for his thirtieth birthday, inscribed with his new initials NG, becomes a symbol of his inability to ‘break from that mismatched name’. Lahiri indeed suggests that identities are unavoidably ‘engraved’ with the layered ‘randomness’ of their lives and cannot be easily dissolved.
And then he returned to New York, to the apartment they’d inhabited together that was now all his. A year later, the shock has worn off, but a sense of failure and shame persists, deep and abiding. There are nights he still falls asleep on the sofa, without deliberation, waking up at three A.M. with the television still on. It is as if a building he’d been responsible for designing has collapsed for all to see. And yet he can’t really blame her. They had both acted on the same impulse, that was their mistake. They had both sought comfort in each other, and in their shared world, perhaps for the sake of novelty, or out of the fear that that world was slowly dying. Still, he wonders how he’s arrived at all this: that he is thirty-two years old, and already married and divorced. His time with her seems like a permanent part of him that no longer has any relevance, or currency. As if that time were a name he’d ceased to use. (pp. 283-284)
For the majority of his life, Gogol alternates between feeling irritation and resentment for his Bengali heritage, and profoundly longing to be truly Indian. Gogol has several failed relationships and romantic encounters: Kim, with whom he introduces himself as Nikhil ‘for the first time in his life’, then Maxine, who attracted him with the ‘gift of accepting her life’. But, like his indulgence of and immersion in the Ratliff’s self-satisfied American life, the interactions with these women feel like a ‘betrayal of his own’ culture, family and identity.
It is ‘familiarity’ that draws him to Moushumi, a childhood Bengali family friend with whom he ’s[eeks] comfort’ in their shared culture. For Gogol, his relationship with Moushumi represents the possibility of salvaging a childhood he spent disliking, but for Moushumi it’s a betrayal of her principles of independence. She has ‘turn[ed] her back’ her Indian and American ties to embrace a third culture in France, a country with ‘no claim’ on her and none of the cultural pressures of her heritage.
Gogol longs - ironically - for stability and ‘fall[s] in love with Gothic architecture’; he equates his failed marriage with Moushumi to a ‘building he’d been responsible for designing’. This is essentially Gogol’s way of dealing with the trauma of his divorce, translated into a form he can understand and process. And yet, even a year after their separation, a ‘sense of failure and shame persists, deep and abiding’ - Lahiri suggests that trauma, grief and heartbreak are embedded into our identities and we don’t require a set length of time to accept them.
Both Moushumi and Gogol come to realise that they were sustained merely by ‘the same impulse’ to erase discomfort, their marriage ‘collaps[ing] for all to see’. Their relationship becomes meaningless and their time together dissolves like a ‘name [Gogol had] ceased to use’. Lahiri conveys that re-entering and recreating a life once discarded (as harshly as Gogol discards his own name) is impossible, even irrational.
It is no surprise that retrospect and remembrance emerge as central themes in both Reckoning and The Namesake . Gogol’s resented ‘namesake’ itself is a conduit for redemptive memory, whilst Magda ascertains the value of history to ‘salvage’ the present.
I wanted to know; I didn’t want to know. Without realising it I plotted a course somewhere between the two. My father, unable to get any further with his own attempts at a reckoning, had simply closed the door on the past. And now I was about to open that door. (p. 290)
Retrospect specifically becomes a vital motif in Reckoning as Szubanski uses her memoir to ‘join up the dots of [her]self’ and gain perspective on her father’s ‘unresolved and unexamined feelings’. Through her adult perspective, she reflects on her early doubts as she is finally able to appreciate and understand her heritage, reading ‘ Dni Powstania ’ and ‘Exodus’ on the Poles’ shame. Although Magda and Zbigniew ‘[pull] in opposite directions’ for most of her life, only by becoming the ‘collector of [Zbigniew’s]…stories’ and taping his ‘confession’ are the two brought to some level of understanding. Magda is finally able to ‘ rozumiesz ’ (to understand) that her father had ‘never helped the Nazis’, and on some level, ‘feel the feelings [her] father could not allow himself’. Perhaps more importantly, Zbigniew is able to share the paradoxical nature of his guilt - ‘what he had done in the name of good’ - feeling neither ‘ashamed’ nor ‘proud’ of his past. His reflection through the outlook of a ‘half old, half young’ version of himself mirrors Magda’s own introspection - in this sense, the ways in which Magda and Zbigniew are resolving (or at least learning to accept) trauma are ‘repeat[ing like]…history’ in their family.
I was never told anything much about Luke. But my mother’s eyes—beneath the humour—were haunted by a deep, fretting sadness. Behind the querulous hypervigilance, the nitpicking, the irritability, there cowered a terrified child. A child full of panicky uncertainty about everything. I wanted to reach back and grab her hand and pull her through time and…what? I wanted to hug my mother when she was a child, to tell her everything was all right. (p. 336)
Szubanski observes how generations of poverty and war have shaped her mother’s ‘flinty’, unyielding determination to ‘just…get on with it’ and move on from adversity. Her ‘deep, fretting sadness’ hidden ‘beneath [her] humour’ is compassion and grief for her father, Luke, who ‘woke every night screaming’ after the war. This resonates strongly with Magda because her own father’s war experience mirrors Luke’s. The two families (Magda’s family, and her mother’s family) are forced to ‘[walk] on eggshells for fear of detonating [them]’.
However, Magda is able to understand that her mother’s capricious tendency to ‘cling like a python then turn and snap like a crocodile’ is a product of her trauma, which allows Magda to understand Margaret’s character on a more intimate and genuine level. Magda, as a neglected and ‘terrified child’ with ‘panicky uncertainty’ herself, empathising with Margaret’s own troubled childhood allows Magda to offer her mother the comfort and support she craved when struggling alone beneath Zbigniew’s ‘exacting…standards’. Through this, Szubanski seems to suggest that although the legacy of trauma is an ongoing and deeply complex process, ‘reach[ing] back’ to process unresolved traumas together becomes a precious and vital way to ‘salvage’ bruised relationships.
There is no question of skipping this meal; on the contrary, for ten evenings the three of them are strangely hungry, eager to taste the blandness on their plates. It is the one thing that structures their days: the sound of the food being warmed in the microwave, three plates lowered from the cupboard, three glasses filled. The rest of it—the calls, the flowers that are everywhere, the visitors, the hours they spend sitting together in the living room unable to say a word, mean nothing. Without articulating it to one another, they draw comfort from the fact that it is the only time in the day that they are alone, isolated, as a family; even if there are visitors lingering in the house, only the three of them partake of this meal. And only for its duration is their grief slightly abated, the enforced absence of certain foods on their plates conjuring his father's presence somehow. (pp. 180-181)
Even in death, Ashoke’s spirit is able to heal his fractured, grief-ridden family - truly and ultimately ‘transcend[ing] grief’, fulfilling the destiny his name’s meaning set out for him. Surrounded by meaningless condolences and forced sympathy - the ‘calls’, the ‘flowers’ and the ‘visitors’ - the Ganguli family is left ‘unable to say a word’ or process their loss in a safe and judgement-free space. The ‘mourner’s diet’ that sustains them, even in all its ‘blandness’, is able to ‘slightly [abate]’ their grief; it ‘conjur[es Ashoke’s] presence’ and unites the ‘isolated’ Gangulis ‘as a family’. Ironically, these cultural traditions that young Gogol so adamantly refused become the ‘only thing that seems to make sense’. Preserving and honouring Ashoke’s memory, this forsaken custom becomes an unanticipated lifeline for a family torn apart by cultural expectations, irreconcilable differences and shared tragedy.
"Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go." (p. 187)
Unlike Magda and Zbigniew who are able to reconnect in life, Gogol’s own poignant flashbacks with his father are cherished only after his death. However, it is only with this hindsight that Gogol is truly able to appreciate these initially resented, perhaps forgotten, moments as meaningful connections to his family. Gogol’s relationship with his father is tragically underpinned by a lifetime of misinterpretations and misunderstood trauma, the two unable to understand each other’s disparate outlooks on life and culture. However, when they visit Cape Cod both Gogol and Ashoke are, if only momentarily, pioneers. They are exposed to the world, just as Ashoke had been when he migrated to America; the two travelling ‘together to a place where there was nowhere left to go’.
Gogol indeed grapples with a desire for stability and meaning throughout his entire life, bewildered by the ‘unintended’ series of ‘defining and distressing’ events. However, family indeed becomes the source of true security for Gogol. ‘Remember[ing]…always’, he preserves the memory of his father, and resistant to time and change, it remains a comforting constant amidst the ‘randomness’ that characterises and complicates his family’s life.
In Stasiland , Anna Funder, the author and first-person narrator , meets and listens to the ordinary people of East Germany : those who resisted the GDR dictatorship, those who were crushed by it, and those who diligently and remorselessly worked for it as Stasi informants or officers. As Anna speaks with those whose lives have been traumatised by the Stasi, she reflects on how the reunified Germany has dealt with (or ignored) its citizens' trauma and whether memory can be reconciled . Anna is an Australian working for a television station in Berlin in 1996. As an outsider Anna is uniquely positioned to ask East Germans about their experiences , as they do not have to battle with prior knowledge and experience to share their stories. She is interested in the former German Democratic Republic and what has happened to the East German people since the country reunified with West Germany. She became curious after learning that there are people putting together documents that were shredded by the Stasi.
Anna travels to Leipzig and visits the former headquarters of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, which is now a museum. The Stasi were the East German secret police and internal surveillance and defense force . Headed by Erich Mielke, they conducted surveillance on the East German population, aided by a vast number of civilian informants. While in Leipzig, Anna meets with a woman called Miriam Weber, who attempted to sneak out of East Germany when she was just a teenager. Miriam, sleep deprived and tortured, lied about receiving help from an organisation to cross the Wall and was sentenced to jail time. Her husband Charlie was also imprisoned by the Stasi and died while in custody. Miriam was told he committed suicide by hanging, but she suspects he was killed after the Stasi refused to show her his body and went to great lengths to hide Charlie during the funeral.
Returning to the apartment she rents in Berlin, Anna puts an advertisement in the paper calling for former Stasi agents and informers to share their stories with her. She meets with several ex-Stasi men, including Herr Winz, Herr Christian, Herr Bohnsack and Hagen Koch. She also visits and speaks to Karl-Eduard von Schitzler, a hateful man who hosted a propaganda-filled television program that criticised West Germany and gave false information about Communist success. In their discussions the former Stasi agents are concerned with justifying their involvement with the Stasi, although many also remain committed to communist ideals and await with anticipation the next revolution and restoration of the communist government.
Anna rents her apartment from an unpredictable and evasive young woman called Julia. Over time, Julia comes to trust Anna and shares her story of the Stasi cruelly interfering with her life. Anna also speaks with her rock musician friend Klaus Renft – East Germany’s Mick Jagger, and a woman named Frau Paul who was separated overnight from her sick infant son when the Berlin Wall went up and was later imprisoned for inflated charges of assisting people to escape East Germany.
After Anna’s mother is diagnosed with cancer, she goes home to Australia for 3 years, returning to Berlin to meet with some of the people she spoke with during her earlier stay, including Hagen Koch and Miriam. She also finally visits the ‘puzzlers’ in Nuremberg, whose story first sparked her interest in investigating the lives of East Germans affected by the Stasi. Anna is disappointed in the puzzlers, realising that their work is futile and there is no real effort put towards uncovering the lost information.
Almost all East Germans were left reeling at the sudden collapse of their government. For many, the collapse of the GDR took with it ideological security and made them nostalgic for the past. For others, being confronted with the level of the Stasi’s intrusion into their lives was deeply traumatic, as people realised they had been grievously betrayed by their fellow citizens, neighbours and even family members. The nostalgia for the regime that Funder witnesses shows how people cling to certainty and position and sometimes struggle with new freedoms. However, having spoken with so many individuals whose lives were ruined by the Stasi, Anna feels that the old regime was oppressive and authoritarian, and that the East Germans are better off with the challenges of their freedom, rather than stuck with the certainties of their oppression.
Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopian alternative reality in England in the 1990s. The narrator, Kathy H, is a thirty-one-year-old 'carer' – a clone who looks after other clones who are donating their organs. Kathy is about to retire after a long career as a carer to become a donor herself, meaning she will soon 'complete' ( a euphemism for dying ). However, this premise is not immediately apparent to the reader . At the start of the novel, Kathy informs us she will be leaving her role as carer in a few months and has started to write down memories of her life, sorting through her time as a 'student' at Hailsham. However, at the start of the novel the reader is not aware that Kathy is a clone, although she appears to be addressing an insider from her world.
In the first third of the novel Kathy reflects on her childhood and teenage years at Hailsham . Hailsham is an institution where clones are looked after by 'guardians' and referred to as 'students', and which at first appears to be a private boarding school with a heavy focus on the arts and creativity. Their best works of painting, pottery, drawing or poetry were selected and taken away by a woman known as 'Madame', for what the students presume, and what is later confirmed to be, a gallery. The students know they are different from their guardians and the people who live outside Hailsham, referred to as 'normals', but the truth of what the clones are and their certain fate is not fully articulated until the characters are adults.
Kathy is close friends with a confident and controlling girl called Ruth and a boy named Tommy, whose work is never selected for the Gallery – an acknowledgement that defines status at the school. Tommy, teased and excluded, struggles to control his temper and often explodes into furies of rage. The students collect items and other students’ artwork for their own memory boxes , bought or traded at the school’s Exchanges and Sales. Kathy buys a cassette tape by a woman named Judy Bridgewater that contains a song called ‘Never Let Me Go’. This song makes Kathy emotional, and one day she is caught dancing to it by Madame, who Kathy is surprised to see is in tears watching her. Kathy presumes Madame is upset because she knows Kathy can never have children.
Ruth and Tommy start dating and Part Two sees the three friends reach early adulthood and move to a place known as the Cottages, to live with other clones from around the country and experience some freedom before beginning their donations or training to become a carer. When Rodney, another Cottage resident, believes he saw Ruth’s 'possible' – an original that one of the clones was modelled off – the three friends along with Rodney and his girlfriend Chrissie, take a trip to Norfolk to find her. Norfolk exists in the imagination of the Hailsham students as a 'lost corner', where things they have lost will be found. While the 'possible' is not Ruth’s original, Kathy and Tommy find a copy of the Judy Bridgewater tape that Kathy had lost. Ruth was secretly desperate to find her possible and hoped to find her working in an office. Ruth dreams of working in an office and her wish that her possible will be an office worker is one of the only suggestions we have that the clones secretly long for more from their lives and view their possibles as versions of them and what they are capable of. Back at the Cottages, Ruth continues to be manipulative and self-promoting, leading to a falling out with Kathy where she decides to leave early to begin training as a carer and falls out of contact with Ruth and Tommy.
Part Three encompasses Kathy’s time as a carer. Years after the time at the Cottages, Kathy organises to be Ruth’s carer and Ruth reconnects Kathy and Tommy, admitting she knew they loved each other and deliberately kept them apart. She hopes they will attempt to get a deferral from Madame. After Ruth 'completes', Kathy and Tommy finally become a couple. They visit Madame to ask for a deferral, who informs them there is no such thing. They learn from Madame that Hailsham was an attempt to reform the treatment of clones in their youth by proving they had souls . In most centers, clones are reared in deplorable, abusive conditions. They also learn that Hailsham had to be shut down. The normals became too uncomfortable with the reality of the clones’ souls but were not prepared to lose their organ supply. Never Let Me Go is a story about injustice and social stratification, where one group is made to suffer for the benefit of another. The 'normals' can deny their mortality while forcing the clones to confront their death sooner than their natural life span , and by shutting down schools like Hailsham, they do not need to think about the ethics of their choices.
Tommy dies and Kathy resigns herself to her fate as a donor. At the end of the novel, Kathy misses Tommy and Ruth, but consoles herself that she will always have her memories with her . Ishiguro explores the extent to which people accept their predetermined fate and how they can find meaning and love within those often-cruel limitations.
A textual feature is a component of the text used by authors to give meaning to their work. It is necessary to engage with the actual construction of the texts and to discuss textual features using metalanguage (terms that describe and analyse language). To write a thorough and thoughtful essay, you need to understand the textual features and how they are connected to overall thematic ideas. Structural features and metalanguage can be used as evidence of authorial intent and deepen our understanding of how writers use literary techniques to develop ideas and create meaning. Let’s take a look at Genre .
Stasiland is an example of creative nonfiction, meaning it tells a story of factual events and real people using literary and poetic techniques. The word ‘creative’ doesn’t give authors permission to exaggerate or dramatise the truth, instead this genre is one of factually accurate prose about real people and events that is told in a vivid and compelling way.
The reason Stasiland is classified as creative nonfiction and not under the genre of memoir is because although the events follow Anna Funder’s experiences in Berlin, they are not predominantly about her. A memoir is the writer’s own personal journey and life, whereas creative nonfiction generally has more public relevance and commentary. In Stasiland , Funder’s experiences in Berlin structure the chronology of the narrative but take a thematic backseat to the stories of the East Germans she meets and the historical events she relays .
Never Let Me Go has elements of multiple genres: dystopian fiction, speculative historical fiction, science fiction and bildungsroman.
‘Dystopia’ means the opposite of ‘utopia’, but you’ll notice that most dystopian novels are set in societies where the ruling classes believe they are in a utopia. This is true of Never Let Me Go , as the clones pay with their lives and freedom for the utopian elimination of disease and extended life spans of the 'normals '. However, while clearly set in a horrific dystopian world, Never Let Me Go notably differs from other novels in the dystopian genre, as the oppressed clones never once consider rebelling against the status quo – the most Kathy and Tommy hope for is an extension before beginning their donations and 'completing'. Ishiguro has stated in multiple interviews that he was most interested in exploring why oppressed persons never consider rebelling against their fate – what leads them to passive acceptance of their position in society?
In his exploration of this question, Ishiguro explores the development and growing up of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, trying to understand why they all submit without protest to their fate . In this sense the novel is a bildungsroman. Bildungsroman is a genre concerned with the psychological and moral development of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, focusing on a person’s formation or coming of age. Never Let Me Go follows Kathy, Ruth and Tommy throughout their childhood and adolescence at Hailsham, their experience of limited freedom at the Cottages as young adults, and finally the reality of their short adult life as organ donors.
Of course, Never Let Me Go also fits into the category of speculative historical fiction and science fiction. The novel is set in an alternate historical reality where genetic science rapidly advanced after World War Two (significantly outstripping the real-world) and clones have been used to extend life in the UK for decades. However, Ishiguro does not give much narrative weight to describing the political reality of his fictional world , and neither does he offer much scientific explanation for the existence of clones. As we’ve already discussed, Ishiguro was vastly more interested in using these scientific and political circumstances to create conditions within which to explore characters and, by extension, human nature, so Never Let Me Go fits uneasily in these genres.
Now that we’ve looked closely at both Stasiland and Never Let Me Go , it’s time to discuss in depth the key themes and ideas. Themes are the big ideas about human experience that a text explores, and form part of the message the author is hoping to communicate. A sound knowledge of key themes is essential for developing a thoughtful essay. All essay topics will ask you to explore thematic ideas in one way or another. If you have a strong understanding of both texts’ themes and how they are communicated, you will be able to generate arguments for any essay topic with confidence.
I’ll be adhering to the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy. This guide doesn’t go into too much detail about using LSG’s CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy, so perhaps familiarise yourself with it by reading How to Write a Killer Comparative .
Both Stasiland and Never Let Me Go illustrate the importance of remembering through the very construction of the text: in the narrative voice and narrative structure. Both narrators are looking into the past to try to make sense of history. For Kathy, this is a personal history whereas for Funder it is an act of witnessing a nation’s past and elevating the voices of the victims.
Stasiland is a compilation of the stories of all kinds of people involved and impacted by the GDR , including those who rebelled against the system, those who supported it and those crushed by it. Thus, ‘both sides’ of history are represented. Funder said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald after the publication of Stasiland that, 'When [Germans] read my book, people in the East are not proud of themselves. They'd rather not be reminded that other people were braver than they were. So there is a huge force to pretend that the Stasi regime was not as bad as it was.' This desire to forget the past so as to ignore confronting the terrible and terrifying truths contained within it is what Funder is working against by writing Stasiland . At one point in the text, she explicitly states what she’s doing:
'I’m making portraits of people, East Germans, of whom there will be none left in a generation. And I’m painting a picture of a city on the old fault-line of east and west. This is working against forgetting, and against time' ( Stasiland , 147).
Julia explains the importance of these portraits, telling Anna 'For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. …You have to look at how normal people manage with such things in their pasts' (144). These 'things in their pasts' are not just trauma and hardship, but the knowledge that people just like them – their spouses, children, friends and neighbours – were capable of such cowardice, betrayal, self-interest and cruelty. It is this knowledge that Funder wants to preserve – that ordinary people are capable of both extraordinary courage and extraordinary cowardice .
Anna comes across a sobbing man 'I don’t want to be German anymore!...We are terrible…They are terrible. The Germans are terrible' ( Stasiland , 253-4). Anna reflects that East Germans were 'long used to thinking the bad Germans were on the other side of the Wall' and now he is forced to ask 'were his people, now broke or drunk, shamed or fled or imprisoned or dead, any good at all?' ( Stasiland , 254).
Although Kathy’s narration is entirely from her perspective , her act of remembering is also in many ways a political statement that forces us to consider the inhumanity people are capable of .
Kathy recollects and structures her memories of her childhood and relationships to understand them as a unified whole, essentially establishing her identity . More importantly, it is evident in phrases such as 'I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham…' ( NLMG , 13) and 'I’m sure you’ve heard it said plenty more' ( NLMG , 4) that Kathy is positing a reader for her writing. Assuming a reader places her autobiography in a social framework with the purpose of communicating her life , which turns it into a historical account that exists beyond the limit of her death. Kathy’s attempt to leave a legacy by writing down her experiences and structuring her identity is an act of protest against a society that believes she is sub-human , without feelings or motivations, and that her life meant nothing.
The way memory can be distorted is particularly clear in relation to the idea of nostalgia for a brutal past. This idea is explored differently in Stasiland and Never Let Me Go , with Funder condemning nostalgia as blinding people to the horrors of the past, and Ishiguro illustrating how drawing comfort from the past can help people through difficult times .
In Stasiland , many disaffected former East Germans tell Anna that things were 'so much better before' ( Stasiland , 251) the country’s reunification. Anna reflects:
'I don’t doubt this genuine nostalgia, but I think it has coloured a cheap and nasty world golden; a world where they was nothing to buy, nowhere to go and anyone who wanted to do anything with their lives other than serve the Party risked persecution, or worse' ( Stasiland , 251-2).
Similarly, while working at the radio station on Ostalgie parties ( Ostalgie is nostalgia for life in Communist East Germany), Miriam observes 'a crazy nostalgia for the GDR – as if it had been a harmless welfare state that looked after people’s needs. Most of the people at these parties are too young to remember the GDR anyway. They are just looking for something to yearn for' ( Stasiland , 275). Funder is critical of nostalgia because it minimises past injustice .
Conversely, in Never Let Me Go , nostalgia and false memories are shown to be consolatory and even useful. Before Kathy begins to recount her childhood, she mentions a donor who was once under her care who 'knew he was close to completing' ( NLMG , 5). He asks Kathy to share memories of her childhood and 'What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. …so the line would blur between what were my memories and his' ( NLMG , 5). Although this man is falsifying his memories, he is not editing and revising history like some people in east Berlin , he is replacing them entirely to suppress the trauma of his own past. He is not yearning for a return to an idealised past the way some people in Stasiland do. For Kathy, nostalgia for her childhood helps her reconnect with her friends, creating a sense of belonging and identity. Her attachment to Hailsham strengthens her worldview, her relational bonds and gives meaning to her life. Nostalgic memory in Never Let Me Go brings comfort, although you could argue that it also fosters passivity and acceptance in the face of oppression .
Why is an interpretation important.
Your interpretation is what English is all about; it’s about getting you to think critically about the essay topic at hand, to formulate a contention (agree, disagree, or sit on the fence) and argue each of your points with the best pieces of evidence you can find - and it’s something you might already be starting to do naturally.
In this section, we aim to help you develop your own interpretation of the text, rather than relying on your teacher, tutor or even a study guide (including this one) author’s interpretation. By developing your own interpretation, you become a better English student by:
Let’s look on the flip side. What happens when you don’t have your own interpretation?
When you don’t take the time to actively think for yourself - i.e. to think through your own interpretations (we’ve talked about the importance of THINK in the THINK and EXECUTE strategy here ) - when it finally comes to writing an essay, you may find it difficult:
a) to get started - formulating a contention in response to the essay topic is challenging because you have no strong opinion about the text ,
b) complete the essay - writing up arguments and using evidence in paragraphs becomes challenging because you have no strong opinion about the text ,
c) to score higher marks - ultimately, you end up regurgitating other people’s ideas (your teacher’s, tutor’s or from study guides) because you have (you guessed it) no strong opinion on the text .
Having your own interpretation means that you’ll eliminate issues a, b and c from above. Overall, you’ll have opinions (and therefore contentions) ready for any prompt when you go into your SACs or exams, which means it’ll be easier not only to write a full essay, but an original and insightful one as well.
To overcome the issues above, you need to be confident with your own interpretation of the text. This doesn’t come naturally to a lot of students, and it makes sense why. After all, so many subjects reward specific answers (2 + 2 = 4), whereas English is tricky because there’s so much more flexibility in what constitutes a ‘correct answer’. It’s scary treading the sea of different possible interpretations because you’ll ask yourself questions like:
Let me say that you are absolutely smart enough to develop your own interpretation, and I’ll show you how to do so in A Killer Comparative Guide: Stasiland & Never Let Me Go with LSG’s unique strategy - the BUBBLE TEA (BBT) strategy . By following our step-by-step framework, you can be confident that your interpretation is valid, that it backs up your argument, and that most importantly, you won’t lose marks for it!
1. ‘To conform is to be safe and to survive.’ Compare how this idea is examined in both texts.
2. 'The earlier years…blur into each other as a kind of golden time' ( Never Let Me Go ) 'I don’t doubt this genuine nostalgia, but I think it has coloured a cheap and nasty world golden.' ( Stasiland ) Compare what the two texts say about the dangers of willful ignorance.
3. 'For Miriam, the past stopped when Charlie died.' ( Stasiland ) '…I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call…and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing…I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.' ( Never Let Me Go ) What role do love and relationships play in helping people withstand persecution?
4. ‘It is impossible to be free when you are unaware of your confines.’ Compare how the two texts explore freedom and confinement.
4. ‘The past is always harder to access than we think’. Compare the ways in which Stasiland and Never Let Me Go depict the difficulties in uncovering the past.
As with all our essay topic breakdowns, we'll follow LSG's THINK and EXECUTE strategy , as taught in our How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide. The LSG's THINK and EXECUTE strategy follows three steps in the THINK phase - A nalyse, B rainstorm, and C reate a Plan. Learn more about this technique in this video:
'To remember or forget? Which is healthier? To demolish it or fence it off? To dig it up, or leave it to lie in the ground?' ( Stasiland ). 'What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood' ( Never Let Me Go ). How does memory inform identity in Stasiland and Never Let Me Go ?
This quote-based prompt is constructed a bit like a theme-based prompt as it directs us to talk about memory’s role in forming identity. However, the quotes act as an additional hint in terms of what else we’re supposed to discuss. We need to identify where these quotes come from in the texts and why they might be significant. The Stasiland quote (from p. 52) comes from the question of what the nation should do with Hitler’s bunker. In the end the only decision was indecision, the mayor buried the bunker and hoped that people in 50 years might know what to do with it. Thus, this quote points to the difficulty countries have in creating a national identity when there is horror and trauma in their history. The Never Let Me Go quote (from p. 5) points towards an ill donor’s recreation of his identity using someone else’s memories. Therefore, this quote points to how memories, even false ones, can reconstruct individual identity.
Because of the direction of the two quotes, I am going to explore memory’s role in forming individual and group identity.
Individual identity:
Group identity:
P1: Both texts show that the degree to which one’s memories have been investigated and illuminated impacts how well they understand their identity.
P2: Sometimes people hold on tightly to particular memories as a way to affirm their identity as losing those memories is akin to erasing or denying the legitimacy of their experiences.
P3: Choosing what gets remembered or forgotten in a nation’s ‘official history’ drastically impacts how their national identity is perceived and how well that identity aligns with reality.
If you'd like to see the sample A+ essay we wrote up for this essay topic, then you might want to check out our A Killer Comparative Guide: Stasiland & Never Let Me Go study guide !
I am Malala and Made in Dagenham is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing). For a detailed guide on Comparative , check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative .
Updated on 11/12/2020
Set during the Trojan War, one of the most famous events in Greek mythology, David Malouf’s historical fiction Ransom seeks to explore the overwhelming destruction caused by war , and the immense power of reconciliation . Drawing on The Iliad , the epic poem by Homer, Malouf focuses on the events of one day and night, in which King Priam of Troy travels to the enemy Greek encampment to plead with the warrior Achilles to release the body of Priam’s son, Hector. Maddened by grief at the murder of his friend Patroclus, Achilles desecrates the body of Hector as revenge. Despite Achilles’ refusal to give up Hector’s body, Priam is convinced there must be a way of reclaiming the body – of pitting new ways against the old, and forcing the hand of fate. Malouf’s fable reflects the epic themes of the Trojan War, as fatherhood , love , grief , and pride are expertly recast for our times.
To learn more, head over to our Ransom Study Guide (which covers themes, characters, and more).
Set in the weeks leading up to and after the infamous death of Princess Diana in 1997, The Queen captures the private moments of the monarchy's grief and loss , and Queen Elizabeth II's inner conflict as she attempts to keep her private and public affairs separate.
The film opens with Tony Blair's "landslide victory" in the election as the "youngest Prime Minister in almost two hundred years", preempting viewers of the "radical modernisation" that's to come as he takes the reign. Juxtaposed with Blair's introduction is the stoic Queen Elizabeth II, residing in Buckingham Palace serenaded by bagpipes, in a ritual unchanged since Queen Victoria, immediately establishing the entrenched traditional values she represents. Princess Diana’s sudden death at the hands of relentless paparazzi results in turmoil in both the lives of those in the monarchy and adoring British citizens who mourn for the loss of the “people's princess". As days ensue with no public response from the Royal Family, the British people grow in disdain towards the authority , demanding a more empathetic response. Caught between the people and the monarchy is Blair, who sees the Royal Family’s public image suffer as a result of inaction.
Despite heavy resistance from the Queen, he eventually encourages her to surrender old royal protocols and adopt a more modern approach to meet public expectation: to fly the flag at half-mast, hold a public funeral, and publicly grieve for the loss of Princess Diana – all in all, to show the people that the monarchy cares. The Queen’s decision to accept Blair’s advice ultimately reconnects her with the British people and restores the Royal Family’s reputation amongst the public.
Together, Ransom and The Queen showcase the challenges involved in leadership roles : the inner conflict that leaves these individuals torn between their private and public demands . More on this in the next section.
Parenthood and leadership.
In both texts, deaths act as a catalyst for both Priam and the Queen’s personal change – Priam’s son Hector, and the Queen’s, ex-daughter-in-law, Princess Diana.
In Ransom , we learn of the familial sacrifice Priam has needed to make as a leader . His separation from loved ones is expected as he has been ‘asked to stand…at a kingly distance from the human, which in [his] kingly role…[he] can have no part in'. Up until Hector’s death, Priam has been removed from paternal experiences, a sad truth when he admits that his relationships with his children are merely ‘formal and symbolic,’ and a part of the ‘splendour and the ordeal of kingship'. Unlike his wife Hecuba, whose grief is assailed by intimate moments with her children as she recalls, ‘Troilus was very late in walking…I was in labour for eighteen hours with Hector', Priam is unable to recall these private memories . Despite what would ordinarily be experiences shared by both father and mother, Priam cannot echo his wife’s grief to the same extent as these experiences have not been ‘in his sphere’ and he is even ‘unnerved’ by them. Malouf demonstrates how Priam’s royal obligations have suffocated his role as a father, and consequentially, he has been unable to connect with his family in the way he would desire to.
While Priam’s overt expressiveness in his limitations as a father may sway empathy from Ransom readers, Queen Elizabeth’s stoicism at first makes her appear cold-hearted and unfeeling. Her reaction to Prince Charles’ desire to fly a private jet to see Diana in hospital (‘Isn’t that precisely the sort of extravagance they always attack us for?…this isn’t a matter of state.’) is one from a leader's mindset - she's more concerned of the media’s reaction, rather than offering familial care and concern. However, as the film unfolds, viewers come to understand that her stoicism doesn’t necessarily come about because of her own personal choice , but rather, because her leadership role demands it of her.
TIP: Save the words ‘stoicism’ and ‘stoic’ to use in your essay. These words describe someone who experiences suffering but doesn’t openly express it.
We see the Queen’s quiet intentions to protect her grandchildren – ‘I think the less attention one draws to [Diana’s death], the better…for the boys’ – yet her silence is the inadvertent cause of public scorn. As such, Frears doesn’t make a villain out of the Queen, someone who on the outside may seem unfeeling and apathetic, but encourages viewers to see her from a unique perspective – a woman who struggles to manage her identity in both the private and public light.
It is only when Priam and the Queen detach themselves from their traditional roles that we see a change for the better in both of their personal journeys. Priam’s removal of his ‘jewelled amulet [and] golden armbands’ is symbolic of his shedding of the royal weight, and paving way for his step into a paternal role. Likewise, the Queen’s physical distancing from Buckingham Palace, an iconic symbol for tradition , into the public sphere where she mingles with the British people enables her to finally play the role of a grandmother. Both texts show how parenthood can lead to a more enriched human experience. Malouf finally portrays Priam as a happy man when he has the vision to be remembered in his legacy for his role as a father first, then as a king. Likewise in The Queen, her highness’ public mourning connects her with her people , and brings her joy and delight at last.
Both texts explore the challenging tug and pull between upholding traditions and making way for the new.
As humans, we cherish traditions because they are customs or beliefs that have been passed on from generation to generation. They have sentimental value, and by continuing on these traditions, our actions show that we respect the path our elders have laid for us. Tradition is not necessarily depicted in a negative light in either texts, but rather, shown to have its place. The Queen’s resistance against sailing the flag at half mast is out of deference for her elders. Even Somax’s casual storytelling about his daughter-in-law’s griddlecakes is customary, as each time his son would ‘set up the stones’ and her ‘quick and light…flipping’ of the cakes. However, Frears and Malouf both assert that adaptability in upholding tradition is also needed in order for us to grow and develop as humans.
The new is not depicted as an experience one should fear, but rather, an experience one should approach with curiosity . As Malouf writes, ‘[Priam] saw that what was new could also be pleasurable'. The following positive expressions from the king ‘chuckling’ and ‘smiling’ echo the sentiment that while humans naturally resist change, embracing it is often beneficial to our lives. To be meta, Ransom is the retelling of the Trojan events, but Malouf adds to this tradition with a fresh perspective on the story.
Frears and Malouf both demonstrate that change is often propelled into possibility through the support and urging of others . Priam’s vision for his journey is instilled by the goddess Iris, who comes to him in a dream. His consequential journey is supported by Somax, whose ordinary everyday experiences teach Priam more about fatherhood than he had learnt as a father himself. Meanwhile, Achilles drags Hector’s body day after day, with no intention of change until Priam suddenly appears in his camp. Both texts highlight the influence those surrounding us can have on our personal change.
At LSG, we use the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy to help us easily find points of similarity and difference. This is particularly important when it comes to essay writing, because you want to know that you're coming up with unique comparative points (compared to the rest of the Victorian cohort!). I don't discuss this strategy in detail here, but if you're interested, it's worth checking out my How To Write A Killer Comparative ebook to see how you can really set yourself apart and ace Comparative writing. I use this strategy throughout my discussion of themes above and techniques in the next section. To help you get started, here are some questions to get you thinking about the similarities and differences between the two texts:
Opening portrayals of queen elizabeth and priam.
When Charles consoles Prince William and Harry after informing them of their mother’s death, Queen Elizabeth peers inwards from outside the room, distant and removed from her family. The enclosed frame of the door only serves to heighten her isolation from her family as she is pained by the ‘unrestrained intimacy and affection’ between the boys and their father, something she is unable to partake in. Her face half-covered by the shadows stresses how her familial experience only occurs from afar as she prioritises her role as her highness. Internal change, at least at this point in the film, has yet to begin.
Meanwhile in Ransom , Priam’s journey of personal change is established immediately as he realises that he needs to move beyond this ‘brief six feet of earth he moves and breathes in'. The finite space he has become accustomed to now almost represents (and this may be an intense interpretation) a jail cell in which he as a father, as a human being, has been incarcerated in. He is ready to pursue a new identity beyond just that as a king. Both Ransom and The Queen showcase the sacrifices made by both leaders, and the rigid, almost-dehumanising expectations that are set upon them when they take reign. Both texts encourage their audience to empathise with the leaders , for the challenges they face in their unique positions.
I created an in-depth video on the first 20 or so minutes of The Queen you'd might find helpful. Have a watch and see whether you missed out on any film techniques:
To begin with, we have this quote that is displayed at the very start of the film, and it says,
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"
and it's spoken by Henry IV Part II. So, the Part II gives me an indication that this is a quote from some way in Shakespeare's texts. If I then go on Google and actually have a look and type up this quote, then I know for sure that it is indeed from Henry IV Part II, a text and play that was written by William Shakespeare. So, I'm telling you these things because this is actually how I would go on to learn information about the film. I don't just automatically know for sure that it is from this particular text that Shakespeare wrote up. So, I want to ensure that I'm right by going and having a look at Google.
Quotes at the start of any film, at the start of any book, usually have importance to them and they usually should give you an insight as to what's to come. And, for me, I find when I look at this particular quote, it definitely links to the themes of leadership, of motherhood, parenthood, and of perhaps the sacrifices that the queen has needed to make in order to lead her nation. So, with this particular quote, I would write it down somewhere and keep it in mind as you're watching the remainder of the film, because you'll see those themes come to life and have a better understanding of what this quote is talking about.
So, immediately, this film opens up with a news presenter talking about Tony Blair going to the election polls. It's displayed as footage on a TV screen. This gives us insight into a couple of different things. Firstly, it gives us context. The second thing is that it's displayed on a TV and it's broadcasted by a news channel. And, as you probably know, the media, the paparazzi, and just the entire culture of representing news during this time is something that will be heavily explored throughout this film. Especially because it may or may not have led to the death of Princess Diana.
So, again, contextually, it gives us an idea that around this time, the news media was quite overwhelming and omnipresent, which means that it was sort of just everywhere. It was always around. It's sort of no different from today, but there's a reason why they establish it as an opening shot. And that's just sort of give us as viewers an understanding that the news has a big play in what's going to happen in the remainder of this film.
So, I really liked the quote,
"We're in danger of losing too much that is good about this country, as it is,"
that's spoken by the painter, who's drawing a portrait of the queen. This, again, sort of establishes that idea of change immediately at the beginning of the film, or should I say, resistance to change. So, it's already sort of outlining the path that this film is about to take.
Again, I really like this quote,
"The sheer joy of being partial."
So, from the onset with the queen, I think it's important to understand that we don't villainise her, or at least the director doesn't villainise her. He portrays her as a human being, as somebody who is in this position of the queen, which has a lot of weight upon it. And you can tell that she's all glammed up and she's fulfilling her role as the queen, but she's admitting that she envies us as everyday citizens being able to vote, to be able to have an opinion, and just go to the booths. To me, this establishes her as somebody who I empathise with, or sympathise with even.
I think this part with the music in the background and how the queen breaks the fourth wall. So, the fourth wall is basically when any character inside a film actually looks directly at the camera, at you, as the audience. And, to me, this gives me a sense of joy. It makes me feel like it's quite funny, the way that she's looking at us, especially with the...and again, this sort of reiterates my idea that we're not supposed to look at the queen as some evil or some cold-hearted person who is unfeeling for Diana's death later on, but that she's just like one of us and she can participate in a joke and we come to see this in a little bit.
So, in the next scene, we have a wide shot of Buckingham Palace, and in the background, you can hear bagpipes playing. This is something called diegetic sound. Diegetic sound is when you have sounds that come directly from the world in the film. So, the bagpipes sort of establish this sense of tradition. Everything in the scene represents tradition. Buckingham, Palace, the flag, the bagpipes, and that as an early shot of this film sort of shows us the entrenched tradition that exists. That nothing has changed as of yet, and things as sort of going on as they've always had.
Again, Frears is trying to show us the human side of the queen. And so that's why we've got the shot of her waking up in bed. She's all cuddled up and snuggled up in warm and comfy bedding. And it shows that she's vulnerable, in a way. And this is important for us as viewers, as we come to understand her inner thoughts and feelings later on.
So, immediately when the queen wakes up, she has a pile of newspapers in front of her. That adds, again, to that sense of omnipresent media. It's all around us, at least in that period of time.
This time, we have archival footage. So, archival footage is footage that has been taken from that period of time and placed into this film. It adds to the film's sense of authenticity, the fact that it's based off historical offense.
I really like this shot as the queen and Robin walking down the hallway to meet Tony Blair. This is a great snapshot and a great mise-en-scene. And mise-en-scenes, basically, to me anyway, it's when you pause the screen and it's everything that's inside that shot from props, in the foreground, in the background, what the person is wearing, or what the characters are wearing. So, with this particular art, we can not only see the two characters, but we can also see everything that's in the background.
And again, this really adds that sense of tradition because you've got all these paintings from probably famous people back in the day, or ancestors of the monarchy, and then you've got Robin saying he's promising a constitutional shake up, the first one in 300 years, and the queen saying, "Oh, you mean he's going to try and modernise us?" This is a great juxtaposition between the new coming in versus the old.
When Robin makes the joke about Tony Blair's wife having a curtsy that's described as shallow, it's humorous, it's funny, and the queen laughs as a result. The humor that's speckled throughout this film, I think really helps to lighten up the situation, but also to again, show us that the queen is human and that she can enjoy a joke.
I think this is a great snapshot as well. So, we've got the camera looking down at Tony Blair and his wife. When a camera does look down at an object or character, it gives us, as the audience, a sense that that person or character is inferior or they're not in a position of control. And it ties in with the fact that this is Tony Blair's first day in Buckingham Palace as a prime minister and he's only just onboarding the role.
So, in terms of him versus the queen or the monarchy, which is symbolised by everything around him, the setting that he is encompassed in, it shows that he really isn't the one who's playing the field here. He's not the one who is in charge. I love that we've got one of the queen's men giving them rules on what they need to do.
So, we're slowly walking up the stairs towards the queen who is in position of power. So, the staircase is quite symbolic.
Another important thing to know is that Mrs. Blair is actually accompanying the prime minister this first time round that he goes to Buckingham Palace. It shows that he is nervous, he said it himself, but he's not entirely comfortable with his role yet. So he needs the support of his wife. This is in comparison with later in the film at the very end, actually, where Tony Blair goes to Buckingham Palace himself and conducts a meeting with the queen, very similar to the one that he's doing now.
This shot where we've got Mrs. Blair sitting opposite the guard at quite a distance adds to the sense of awkwardness, and it's paralleled with the sense of openness between the queen and the prime minister as well. So, it shows that we've got the old and the new sort of coming together and sort of not really gelling.
Something to keep an eye on is parallels in the film. It's always a really good idea to compare the start and end of this particular film, because we've got such similar scenarios in meaning at the start of the film and in meaning at the end of the film. What you'll notice in this particular scene is that they don't appear in the same shot. They sit opposite one another and one shot on Tony Blair, one shot on the queen, and it sort of goes back and forth. And that's to heighten that sense of distance between them. That sense of unfamiliarity. This is in comparison with the end of the film when we see the two of them walking down the hallway together, out into the garden as equal.
Here's another great shot. So, to add on the idea of the queen having more power versus prime minister, it's quite clear here as he sits down and asks for her hand.
I love the way that Mrs. Blair walks. She's sort of like half...I don't know how you would explain her stride, but it's obviously not one that is aligned with how the queen walks, which is quite poised and quite together. Rather, Mrs. Blair's walk is sort of frumpy, it's sort of bouncy, and her arms are sort of flailing around a little bit, and so adds to that sense of new, of change, of difference. And so that adds to the story of Tony Blair and his family and what he represents as something new and different and probably unwelcome for the queen.
So, that's it, that's my analysis of the first 10 minutes or so of this film. If you're interested in a more detailed film technique analysis, I've just written a killer comparative based on Ransom & The Queen. In this, I show you film techniques that I pick out throughout watching the film, how to analyze them, and also then go on to show you how they are used in A-plus essays. I'm so confident that this study guide will be able to help you improve your understanding of both texts and get you towards that A+ for your SAC and exams.
If you're curious about what's inside the study guide and want to see if it's right for you, head on over and read a free sample to see it for yourself. I hope it gives you something to launch off. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the description box below. I have plenty of resources for you guys down there as well if you needed help for your SAC and exams and I'll catch you guys next time. Bye.
Based on historical events, The Queen is interspersed with real archive television footage leading to, and following Princess Diana’s death. Frears incorporates these clips to help provide viewers insight on the politics, media culture, and public reaction in 1997.
Princess Diana’s introduction through archival clips at the beginning of the film highlight her as a vulnerable individual at the mercy of oppressive and intrusive tabloid newspapers. The sweeping pan of paparazzi on the night of Diana’s death serves to emphasise the obsessive media, who at the time, were paid in excess of one million pounds for taking photos of her. Moments of her kissing on a boat are revealed to the world without any respect for her privacy. This archival footage helps viewers understand the distressing omnipresence of the media, and the turn of the public against the paparazzi and media following Diana’s death.
Likewise, Malouf uses parts of The Iliad as foundations for his novel. The original tale, written during the 8th century BC, explores in detail Achilles’ refusal to fight for his leader Agamemnon, Patroclus’ role in the war, and also the disputes between the gods as they argue over the fate of mortals. By offering a retrospective of this historical story, Malouf invites readers to better understand the Trojan War and Greek mythology, and the impact the gods had on Trojans and Greeks.
For more discussion on literary and cinematic techniques, have a look at my A Killer Comparative Guide: Ransom & The Queen . In this in-depth study guide, Angelina Xu (ATAR 99.6, 46 English study score) and I also break down 5 essay topics, providing you explanations on how to brainstorm and plan each of these essays, then convert these plans into A+ essays complete with annotations! I've dropped some sample essay topics below for you to try at home yourselves:
"I told him he shouldn't change a thing." ( The Queen ) Compare how Ransom and The Queen explore resistance to change.
Compare the ways the two texts explore the efficacy of different leadership types.
Compare the ways the two texts explore the importance of storytelling.
'Wordless but not silent.’ ( Ransom ) Ransom and The Queen explore how silence can be louder than words.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” ( The Queen ) “...the lighter role of being a man.” ( Ransom). Compare how the two texts show the burden experienced by those in leadership positions.
Ransom Study Guide
[Video] Ransom Themes (Revenge, Grief, Forgiveness) and Essay Topic Tips!
The following resources are no longer on the study design; however, you might still pick up a few valuable tips nonetheless:
[Video] Invictus and Ransom | Reading and Comparing
[Video] Ransom Literary Devices & Invictus Film Technique Comparison
Most people only think about EXECUTING their essay - the writing. Whether that be essay structure, memorising quotes or how to avoid repeating yourself in the dreaded conclusion. However, my strategy places emphasis on the THINK.
THINK is the brainstorm, exploration, and development of ideas. Get this right, and you'll come up with ideas and a response that pushes you ahead of your peers. The EXECUTION comes next, only strengthening your lead to the finish line.
So what does THINK actually involve? 🤔
You need to consider aspects of an essay topic that most students gloss over, including:
Knowing the essay topic type will change your essay structure. While you might wish for a one-size-fits-all essay structure, this is a limited viewpoint that stops you from reaching your potential. Different essay types include:
By understand what's required in each one of these essay topic types, you'll have a template you can follow to ensure that you answer the prompt (no more complaints from your teacher complaining that you're going off topic!).
Never heard of this term previously? That's because majority of teachers don't teach you to change your Text Response according to the question tag. A ' do you agree?' essay topic expects a different response from a 'discuss' essay topic.
This is important so you don't go off topic (we've all at least experienced this once in our high school writing careers 😥). Sometimes, one missed keyword is all it takes to derail your entire essay. No matter how well you've written your essay, an essay that doesn't answer the prompt won't fare well.
For example, have a think about which keywords can be found in this essay topic "Jeff's attempt to pursue justice are entirely without honour. To what extent is this true?".
For me, the keywords include:
- 'Attempt'
- 'Pursue justice'
- 'Entirely'
- 'Honour'
- 'To what extent is this true?'
Even though I've labelled almost every word in the essay topic, individually, each of these keywords will shape my response. Majority of students will pick up the necessity to discuss the keyword 'entirely' in their essays. They will potentially argue that Jeff's attempt isn't entirely without honour, and mention instances where honour was shown. However, a less obvious keyword that needs further exploration is 'justice'. Most students will take this word for granted, and won't really explore what the word 'justice' means in this sentence. A more advanced student will understand that 'justice' in this essay topic is viewed from Jeff's perspective, meaning that what Jeff deems to be 'justice', might not be the same 'justice' for a viewer. These are the nuances in an essay topic that I'd like you to be very confident in.
Knowing how to THINK will ensure that you EXECUTE your essay writing most effectively, optimising your potential to nail that A+. If I went from average to consistent A+s in Year 11 and Year 12, I have no doubt you can do it too. That's why I created the How To Write a Killer Text Response ebook.
I know that you are probably like I was, searching for a clear, simple way to get better at English without just relying on my teacher (despite the fact that I had a great teacher!). I've compiled my 10 years of tutoring English, refining this strategy year after year. With this knowledge, many of my students achieved a study score they thought was impossible (one student Ruby, wanted a study score of 30 to get into her university course, and ultimately achieved a 40 study score! WOW! 😮).
If you're interested, How To Write a Killer Text Response ebook shows you the inner workings of my brain 💭- what I think when I see an essay topic, how I tackle it, and how I turn these thoughts into a high-scoring essay. The ebook includes:
- 50-pages teaching you how to respond to ANY essay topic
- Examples from 15+ popular VCE English texts
- Know exactly what to THINK about so you can formulate the best possible essay response
- Plus a bonus 20-pages of high vs low scoring essays , fully annotated (what works and what doesn't) so you know exactly what you need to do and what not to do
Click here to access the FULL version now!
For a step-by-step explanation of everything you need to know to ace your SAC or exam, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook.
For many students, Language Analysis is their downfall. Here is the main reason why: Lots of students don’t think about how language is used to persuade , instead they rely on lists of language techniques to tell them the answer. These sheets are usually distributed by teachers when you first start language analysis – see below.
Whether or not you’ve seen that particular document before, you’ve probably got something similar. You’ve also probably thought, ‘this sheet is absolutely amazing – it has everything I need and it tells me how language persuades!’ – I know I did. Unfortunately, this mindset is wrong. Don’t fall into the trap like so many other students have over the years. For a detailed guide on Language Analysis including how to prepare for your SAC and exam, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .
The following comes from VCAA 2009 English Assessment Report:
…some students presented a simple summary [when analysing]…with little development. These responses did not score well as they did not fulfil the task as required.
The ‘simple summary’ refers to students who rely on those technique sheets to paraphrase the explanations regarding how language persuades. There is ‘little development’ because copying the explanations provided on these sheets doesn’t demonstrate enough insight into the article you’re analysing. Let’s have a look at the VCAA English Practice Exam published in 2009, ‘Chickens Range Free’ so that we can demonstrate this point. We will look at two students, both analysing the same technique. Compare the two and determine who you believe provides the better analysis.
Student 1: Emotive language such as “abominably cruel” and “dire plight” is intended to stimulate strong emotional reactions that manipulate readers’ responses.
Student 2: The use of emotive language such as “abominably cruel” and “dire plight” intends to appeal to people’s instinctive compassion for the chickens by describing their dreadful treatment, hence causing readers to agree with Smith that urgent action is required to save these animals.
It should be clear that Student 2’s example is best. Let’s see why.
Student 1 has determined the correct language technique and found suitable evidence from the article. This is a good start. However, Student 1 goes on to merely reiterate the explanations provided by language technique sheets and as a result, their analysis is too broad and non-specific to the article.
Student 2 conversely, understands that this last step – the analysing part – is the most important and vital component that will distinguish themselves from others. Instead of merely quoting that the article ‘manipulates the reader response’ like student 1, they provide an in-depth analysis of how and why reader feelings are manipulated because of this technique. Student 2 was able to use the information to illustrate the author’s contention that we should feel sorry for these caged chickens – and we do because of our ‘instinctive compassion.’ They explain that the sympathy expressed from readers encourages them to agree that some action needs to be taken to help the chickens. As you can see, Student 2 has gone beyond identifying that ‘strong emotional reactions’ will be displayed by readers, to establishing what emotions are involved, and the consequences of those emotions.
This is why it’s best to avoid paraphrasing language technique sheets. By all means, don’t totally disregard them altogether. They’re definitely great for learning new language techniques – just be mindful of the explanations given. The part regarding how the author persuades is the downfall of many students because even though teachers tell you to analyse more, they often don’t show you the difference between what you’re doing wrong and what you should be doing right.
For a detailed guide on Language Analysis including how to prepare for your SAC and exam, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .
Hey guys. Can you believe it is November already? Holy cow. Time flies so quickly. All my Year 12s have finished now, so if you're still here with me ... you must be in Year 11 or below, or you could be a Year 12 that's already finished, but you still enjoy my videos. I'm on to you. If you didn't know already, I do have a personal YouTube channel. So head on over there if you guys have finished the year for English because I'd still really love to stay in contact with you. I've previously done this segment before and when I started it, everyone fell in love with it. So I created the segment a while ago now, and I have done one article... Actually it was two articles so far. If you haven't looked at those ones, I'd recommend you go ahead and check it out. But this one, I'm going to do a 2001 analyzing argument article. The reason why I choose really old articles is because I feel like the more recent ones you probably end up doing at school, or you will probably do it in your own time. If not, you've probably already done it. That's why I want to leave those ones to you guys, maybe eventually I'll get up to it. But I want to be able to show you guys a little bit more, so that's why I choose really old ones, but it's still relevant to the course. Don't think that just because it's done in 2001, which is forever ago, what, were you born there? Oh, my gosh. I just realized that some of you could have, yeah. Anyways, the aim of today is just to go through the article, try to identify what the language techniques are and understand how they are persuasive or at least how the author intends them to persuade the audience. Actually, down the track we will talk more about structure, more at looking at arguments, that type of thing. But the goal here is more just about identification and understanding language techniques. So let's just get started. With this particular one, you'll see that it is on a website, so you could analyze that in itself. But since I don't have it in front of me, I'm not going to, and I'm just going to look at the actual article itself. "Keep healthy the informed way. Get in early. Get your Medi-Info card today." Automatically this might appeal to readers because it's saying "Keep healthy the informed way," as though if they don't take onboard whatever this person is recommending them, then they won't be informed and so they're missing out on something. There's also this sense of urgency, "Get in early." "All of the world health professionals and their patients are waking up to the possibilities of the Medi-Info, MI Card." So "All over the world" is indicative of a global profile so this indicates that if it's good enough for the rest of the world, then surely it must be good enough for Australians like you and me. So that may invite readers to jump on-board with whatever this Medi-Info Card is about. "Health professionals and their patients." "Health professionals and their patients" goes to show that if these people are recommending it and they are embracing the card, such as doctors or dentists or physiotherapists, then it's a really fantastic endorsement about that card and the product and what it's worth. Therefore, we should also support the product, too, either that could fall under the fact that they have credentials and so we trust them. "Waking up to the possibility." So "possibilities" definitely has positive connotations. It's this idea of endless potential and so there is a lot to be gained from the card. "Driven by breakthrough technology, the microchip-powered and credit-sized Medi-Info Card contains the info that carers and patients need to have now, on the spot, on time, on the screen." So "breakthrough technology" itself, "microchip-powered," they both indicate that this idea is cutting-edge. For us, this may persuade readers because there's this idea that the latest tech often means the most effective or it's most likely to enhance your living. The fact that it's credit-sized means that it is also portable. It's lightweight. What do you think this could mean for readers? It's user-friendly. How does this persuade them? It could persuade a person to adopt this card and take it on-board because it seems like it's convenient, it's easy to use. And it's not going to be a burden on them because all they need to do is really just throw it into their wallet. Now "on the spot, on time, on screen" really seems to push the idea of what do you think? Sorry, if it's out of focus. It's because I'm not looking at the camera. It could appeal to our desire to have things instantaneously. We're in the generation where things pop up in our face all the time, like notifications, shipping happens overnight. We just want things straightaway. So it could be that, but also this idea that this card is available any time and the information is accessible for you 24/7 so it's convenient. So I'll put that in below as well. "This is the ultimate cool techno accessory." Okay. "Cool techno" itself is a bit of slang, or you could say that it's colloquial language to try to appeal to readers who may be interested in the latest tech, or people who want to keep up with the trend or the latest fashion accessories, for example. But there's this added benefit, it will actually save your life. Then this person moves on to say, "Imagine you have an accident and are taken to hospital. Without the MI card in your wallet, can you be sure that vital information won't be missed? Think what the card might reveal." "Imagine itself" is a hypothetical situation. It's trying to get readers to see that the MI is a valuable tool. It has benefits that readers just cannot ignore and just between you and me, it could also appeal to our sense of FOMO. FOMO is not something that you would write into your essay itself, but there's this fear that if you don't have it, well, then what could potentially happen? It could be really bad. So then there's all these dot points about what the card reveals, so it's those features, that for you, it comes back to the idea that all of these are the benefits that you can have. You can have also reassurance as a result because you know that all your information is there. People can access it when they need to, or when you're in times of need so then that in itself could relate to this idea of safety or comfort. "All this and more can be downloaded fast from your MI Card. No forms to fill in. No stressful interviews about your medical history. No gaps because you're too stressed to remember your health details or insurance information." Okay. This idea that it can be downloaded fast is, again, convenient. It's not going to take up too much of your time. It's going to be really quick as well. "No forms, no stressful interviews," so these two together will eliminate any of your negative experiences that you've previously had working with health professionals or the health sector. There's this idea of this simple, straightforward approach and this idea that there are no gaps, either. You might be fearful that because you're not providing all the information that you have because you just don't know it, then maybe you won't get the right type of treatment or people won't be able to look after you properly. But in this case, there's this sense of security that you'll be looked after. "And there's more. It can even show you that in the event of your death, you want to live on as an organ donor." Organ donor itself has positive connotations. Everybody knows that if you're an organ donor, wow, you're very selfless and you're very giving, so this is like an added bonus that can make you feel better as a person. "You could give someone else the chance of a new life." If you're able to do this, it puts you in power, so you could say that you feel empowered as a result. "What about security?" All of this section here maybe you could say specifically appeal to an audience who might be more concerned about security and about the information being put online or into this tool. Then the rest of it, it's pretty straightforward as well. It'll work pretty much anywhere, so this idea that you're always going to be covered. "You can trust our technology. Get the Medi-Card Info today. Keep healthy the informed way," and then the rest of it, "Send in your stories of medical emergencies." Because I just want to keep this short, I think I'll leave it there. You could say that with this part, there's this very enthusiastic tone that's carried through the entire thing. Okay, cool. So I am just going to leave it there. I hope that was helpful to some extent, just to get you started and to get you thinking about some of the language techniques that might be there. How did you guys go? I would actually really love to hear what kind of language techniques you found in the comment section below. But if you've got any questions for me, then please leave them as well because I know I haven't gone into this in immense detail, but yeah, hopefully you're able to walk away and learn something from it. So if you like this type of thing, don't forget, I have an online course that's called How To Achieve A Plus In A Language Analysis? There's lots and lots of information there and videos that are around five hours long for you. Around 300 students have taken the course and it's rated something like 4.5 and above, so hopefully that's a good indication that it is actually really helpful. So next week when I see you guys, we're going to go into part two, the article where it's about the family doctor. So I'd encourage you guys to go and analyze that yourself, and then let's reconvene next Friday and work through it. Hopefully this will prepare you guys in Year 11 for your end-of-year exam. Bye guys!
Hey guys, so welcome back to part two. If you were here last week, then you know that I have already analyzed part one article for you and now we're moving into part two. You can just download the PDF for this language analysis article just down below in the description box, but let's just get started. Okay, so, "I am a doctor with over 35 years experience." So automatically this doctor is establishing his credentials. So with credentials, it usually means that as an audience, we are impressed and we are respectful of this person and trust their opinion, especially if it's 35 years. "I know what it is to be called to a local school in an emergency and find a child suffering from asthma, unable to tell me what medication has previously been prescribed. I know what it is to see older patients, day after day who experienced wariness and confusion in trying to remember all the medication they are taking." So when he says, "I know what it is," these are first hand experiences. It shows, again, and compounds on the idea that this guy is indeed experienced in the field and we should trust anyone, I guess, we should kind of trust the doctor, right, because he's exposed to this type of stuff every single day. It also shows that he is empathetic, which is a great quality to see in a doctor, because he seems to suffer as well when his patients are suffering. So with that in mind, as an audience, we are more inclined to like him and to value his opinion because he has directly been impacted as a result. When he talks about a child with asthma, it's a very interesting scenario to choose, he could have talked about anyone, he decides to talk about a child. So potentially what this could do is appeal to a particular audience, for example, it could be parents, it could be other people suffering asthma, for example. But let's say if we're parents, generally we're... I say, we like I'm a parent, I'm not a parent. But we're protective towards young people, and you want to remove them from needless suffering as a result. Again, "Those who experienced weariness and confusion," potentially that could appeal to the elderly. So, if you're somebody who's older and you're starting to experience the fact that you're getting a little bit confused or you're forgetting things, then this might really appeal to you and speak to you because it could be the answer that you're looking for. "I recently heard about the pain and distress of a patient who suffered an epileptic fit while far from home. Unfortunately, everyone around him, unaware that he had mild fits, assumed he was drunk and ignored him." So this part here, like recalling a story, it shows the unfairness of the situation. That this person who was having epileptic fit, would have a much more positive outcome should he have had an MI card. And we feel sorry for him because nobody should have to experience their illness and be alienated or judged on by the community or by the public. So as a result, we may be encouraged to go out there and get our own and MI card or recommend our friends or family who we know are, who may be suffering from illnesses to get an MI card. "We can all sympathize with this lad", so that itself is quite easy. What is it, guys? Inclusive language. So if you don't know already, inclusive language engages the audience because it encourages them to feel included and responsible in whatever the author is talking about, so we feel like there's something that we can do in this case. "This lad," that's quite colloquial, why do you think he does that? So maybe it shows that this doctor isn't just a doctor who's distant and unfeeling, but he sees us, patients, as people and as friends, people that he cares about. And so, again, we're more inclined to listen to this doctor because we see him in a positive light. "He can no longer feel confident when he goes out." So this is, again, like so unfair, nobody should go out and feel like they can't be confident. If this is something that's taken away from the person, but a Medi-Info Card could help relieve them of that, then maybe they should do it, maybe we should stop advocating for MI cards. "We can all sympathize," do you guys know what that is? Generalization. Generalization is when it's indicated that everyone agrees, like we can all sympathize because if you don't seem like you sympathize, well then you're kind of that a-hole in the corner that's like being rude and not caring while everyone else is. So of course you're kind of more inclined to want to agree and sympathize and therefore support MI card. "As a doctor," so yet again, that kind of goes back to like the credentials. "I know that in emergency, he would have been given vital help he required immediately." So this sense of instantaneous, there's no waiting involved, everything happens straight away. So we can trust Medi-Info, it's going to do its job at making sure that people are well looked after. "All Australians," same thing, generalization. "Young or old, sick or well, bush or city, close," so this starts to appeal that to lots of different people. "Lives that are free from anxiety," so appeals to their sense of freedom or this idea that this person couldn't feel confident anymore. We don't want them to go out there and feel anxious either, right? You can see from all the different lines and where they're going, that I try to make connections to other parts of the article as I go through the piece, because I think it's really important to be able to look at things on more holistic scale than rather just one thing on a micro level. This means that you're able to better understand the contention, as well as the arguments that the author uses to build up that contention. So let's finish this one off, "The Medi Card doesn't waste people's time," for people who are very conscious of their time and want to be productive, it could appeal to them. "Safe and secure," excellent, so we know that. We spoke about this last time with the MI, giving you security and comfort. And also you can also say that there's alliteration here, it's just as a side note though, I would much rather you guys talk about security and safety and how that appeals to people. And "My work as a doctor would improve," I mean, if you really wanted to, you could even like put that together with as a doctor, and then it goes back to credentials. "If I had more time to talk to my patients, they would be improved." Duh, duh, duh. Cool. "To me, your Medi-Info Card means peace of mind for everyone." Okay, so what do you guys think of that? I'm not going to analyze it, I'm going to ask you guys to analyze it and put it down in the comment section below for me. So with this one, I analyzed a lot, but I'm sure there's still heaps more that I haven't quite looked at. And so I want you guys to put down in the comments below, what are the different types of analyses that you've pulled from this article, let's share around and help each other out. The more we can collaborate and work together, the more we can lift each other up. So if you needed more help with analyzing arguments, you guys can definitely check out my study guide where I have an entire section, which covers everything from how to analyze, language technique list, structure, high response essays, low response essays, so you can see the difference and everything is annotated for you in those essays so that you understand why they actually did well or not so well. So that's it from me, I will see you guys next Friday, and chat to you then. Bye!
If you'd like a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know to ace your SAC or exam, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook.
Most people aren’t particularly confident in giving orals or public speaking in general. I began year 7 as a shy girl scoring a lousy 50% in her first English oral. It wasn’t until later on that I realised; even though I can write an amazing piece, it was my delivery and nerves that failed me. In year 9, I entered my first public speaking competition, and have been participating in such competitions ever since. I may not have won those, but it got me comfortable standing in front of people without shaking like someone with hypothermia. Now, I am achieving A+ on my oral assessments and am even on the SRC as Student Action Captain due to a great captaincy speech. Don't forget to also check out Our Ultimate Guide to Oral Presentations for everything you need to know for Oral Presentations.
In fact, I've talked about a few of these in a 'Must Dos and Don'ts' video. If you haven't seen it yet, watch before you read on:
Memorise your speech.
Always remember that practice makes perfect. Practise as much as possible; in front of anyone and everyone including yourself (use a mirror). Keep practising until you can recite it.
As for cue cards, use dot points . Don’t just copy and paste whole sentences onto cue cards or else you’ll rely on them too much. Not to mention that it’ll be hard finding out where you are in the middle of your speech. Use “ trigger words ” so that if you forget your next point, you have something there.
But most importantly, if you mess up, keep going . Even if you screw up a word or suddenly forget your next point, just take a breath, correct yourself, and keep going. Do not giggle . If your friends make you laugh, don’t look at them.
Do not be monotone . Give it some energy; be pumped but not “I-just-downed-5-cans-of-V” pumped. Give it as much energy as it is appropriate for your speech. As you transition through various intense emotions such as anger, happiness and shock, your performance should reflect it. This is achieved in both your tone and your body language (moving around).
Speak as if you believe in your contention – with passion . Even if it’s just full of crap, if you sound confident, then your audience think, ‘wow, they sure know what they’re talking about’. Remember, confidence is key .
Don’t rush through your speech and speak at a million kilometres an hour – or even worse; skipping half of your speech because you just want to get the hell out of there. And also, speak so that the teacher can actually hear you. More likely than not, they’ll be sitting somewhere near the back of the room. After countless “too quiet” comments on my orals, I have finally mastered the art/power of projecting my voice. And it actually does make a huge difference.
Don’t just stand like a statue in one spot. Think about real life – do you know anyone that stands completely and utterly still when talking to you? Make sure you look around the room; you’re addressing everyone, not just one person. Don’t stare at your teacher; it freaks them out . You don’t even have to look at a specific place. I usually just start off looking at the back wall… then as I go through the speech, I naturally turn from one back corner of the room to the other. Also, try not to look down. Don’t try to look at your cue cards while they’re right up next to your body. Move it out when you need to have a GLANCE at them then go back to the audience.
I’ve seen some people pace. This seems alright (though I’ve never done it myself); but always make sure that you face the audience . If you’re doing a monologue (for text response), you can sit down… just don’t sit for your entire piece.
And some natural hand gestures don’t hurt either!
I’ve also heard of some people running around or on the spot about 15mins before a speech. This serves to help with your heart rate by using up all that ‘energy’. Personally, I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing (so that my heart isn’t jumping out of my chest). Take some long, deep breaths and tell yourself that you can do it!
My teacher also showed me this speech: “The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes” . Even though she made a couple mistakes in her speech, she kept going and captivated the attention of the UN. Take a look and be inspired!!
What's next? Make sure you've got a great oral presentation topic . We've done all the hard work for you and compiled 20 of the best topics for 2017 . Access it now!
Metalanguage is language that describes language. The simplest way to explain this is to focus on part 3 of the English exam – Language Analysis. In Language Analysis, we look at the author’s writing and label particular phrases with persuasive techniques such as: symbolism, imagery or personification. Through our description of the way an author writes (via the words ‘symbolism’, ‘imagery’ or ‘personification’), we have effectively used language that describes language. For a detailed discussion, see What is metalanguage?
Language form
Narrative mode
Narrative tense
Other literary techniques
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5. Create a structure: Divide your essay into introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each section should serve a specific purpose and contribute to the overall coherence of your essay. By creating a clear outline, you can ensure that your comparison essay flows smoothly and effectively communicates your ideas to the reader. Engaging the ...
4.1: Introduction to Comparison and Contrast Essay. The key to a good compare-and-contrast essay is to choose two or more subjects that connect in a meaningful way. Comparison and contrast is simply telling how two things are alike or different. The compare-and-contrast essay starts with a thesis that clearly states the two subjects that are to ...
Compare and Contrast Essay Outline Template A. Introduction a. Introduction to the broad topic b. Specific topic c. Thesis statement B. Body Paragraphs a. Body paragraph #1—First aspect that's similar or different i. Subject #1 1. Detail #1 2. Detail #2 ii. Subject #2 1. Detail #1 2. Detail #2 b.
Here they are explained below: 1. Essay Planning. First, I recommend using my compare and contrast worksheet, which acts like a Venn Diagram, walking you through the steps of comparing the similarities and differences of the concepts or items you're comparing. I recommend selecting 3-5 features that can be compared, as shown in the worksheet:
The introduction should give the reason for the comparison or contrast, for example to determine which is the more or less desirable of the two. The thesis statement should clearly ... Sample Comparison/Contrast Essay: Large Leap The leap from high school to college is a large one. Many students enter post-secondary
4.1 Comparison Essay Outline Example. 5 Tips to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay. 5.1 Comparison Essay Format. 6 Bringing It All Together. As we navigate our lives, we can't help but notice the elements in our environment, whether it's the latest car, a fashion trend, or even some experiences. Think about your favorite Mexican restaurant ...
Compare and Contrast Essay Template. Introduction: General statement about topic . State title, author and general ideas of what is being compared . Thesis: Restate the topic and make your claims -generally states how similar and different the articles/ stories are -states the specific similarities and differences . Idea #1: Topic sentence
Making effective comparisons. As the name suggests, comparing and contrasting is about identifying both similarities and differences. You might focus on contrasting quite different subjects or comparing subjects with a lot in common—but there must be some grounds for comparison in the first place. For example, you might contrast French ...
How to Write a Comparative Essay. 1. Pick a basis for your comparison. You need a specific basis for your comparison. Without one, there will be too much information to research. Your assignment guidelines may already include a scope of focus for you to write about. If not, your basis should be an idea, category, or theme that applies to each ...
Don't use simultaneous structure all the way through the essay, however. It becomes monotonous. Use it sparingly. For most of the essay, use parallel order structure.. In parallel order structure you compare the two things separately but take up the same points in the same order. For example, you may spend half a paragraph on "thing A" and the other half of the paragraph on the corresponding ...
Matt Ellis. Updated on June 2, 2022 Students. A compare-and-contrast essay is a style of essay that points out the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. It's ideal for showing what separates and unites related things or concepts, particularly if the subjects are often confused for each other or unjustly lumped together.
Comparative Essay - Structure, Examples, and Topics
Brainstorm your ideas and gather evidence: Before crafting your thesis, spend time brainstorming and gathering evidence for your points of comparison. This will help you formulate a strong, well-supported argument. 2. Make a claim: Your thesis statement should make a claim or take a position on the topic of your essay.
Writing a great comparative essay means highlighting the similarities and differences between two things in a systematic manner. Start by choosing the parameters (items) to compare, write an outline, and fill in the details for each section. Make sure to have an introduction and conclusion. The comparative essay is one form of document that you ...
Compare and Contrast Essay: Topics, Outline, Examples
4. Provide evidence: Support your comparisons with evidence from the subjects you are analyzing. This could include quotes, statistics, or examples. 5. Use transitions: Transition words and phrases help to guide the reader through your essay and make it easier to follow your arguments. 6. Revise and edit: After you have written your essay, be ...
Let's imagine that your task is to compare Domino's and In & Out pizzas. This is the kind of comparative essay outline you might have. Comparison essay format: Introduction. Basic facts about both pizzas. Thesis. Body 1. Visual look: Domino's and In & Out comparison. Body 2. Both products' taste comparison. Body 3.
A comparative essay, also known as comparison essay or compare and contrast essay, is the type of essay that specifically analyzes two subject matters. There are a lot of academic fields where writing a comparative essay can be beneficial to students and their educational undertaking. Download Comparative Essay Bundle.
Compare and Contrast Paragraph—Dogs and Cats. Sample lines: "Researchers have found that dogs have about twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than what cats have. Specifically, dogs had around 530 million neurons, whereas the domestic cat only had 250 million neurons.
Comparative Essay Writing Tips. Create an Outline: Develop a well-organised outline to keep your essay focused and ensure a logical flow of arguments. This framework serves as a roadmap, guiding you from one point to the next. Always connect your arguments back to your thesis statement for coherence. Reference Throughout the Process: Avoid last ...
How to Write a Comparative Essay. 1. Establish a basis of comparison. A basis of comparison represents the main idea, category, or theme you will investigate. You will have to do some preliminary reading, likely using your course materials, to get an idea of what kind of criteria you will use to assess whatever you are comparing.
Comparison Essay: Introduction and Examples. Academic essays that compare and contrast two or more topics are called "compare and contrast essays.". Comparing two things involves looking for similarities, while contrasting two things involves doing the opposite. Although there may be some distinctions between the two subjects being compared ...
Secondly, jump over to Sarah's (English study score 47) Compare the Pair: A Guide to Structuring a Reading and Comparing Essay post where she delves into two different types of Comparative essay structures. Comparative Essay Example Introduction. In an introduction, you're expected to have the following: Context (or background)