156 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 157 STRATEGIES

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Magdalen Cobb
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1 Essay Due: Compose an essay in which you compare and contrast at least two subjects of your choice. You are composing & fanciful comparison in which you will you compare two things that are seemingly unlike. The purpose of your essay is to use your comparison to expose, clarify, or explain a larger complex idea. The subject matter and the significant idea you proffer will be completely of your own device. Be creative and adventurous in your comparison. Think outside the box and try to expose a deeper meaning to perhaps ordinary subject matters. Criteria 2-3 pages, 12pt font, typed, double spaced, Times New Roman Minimum of 2 subjects for comparison 'Fanciful' comparison Tone- witty, cynical, funny, pensive, contemplative, profound -i.e. author's choice Comparison/Contrast must develop/suggest some idea larger than the literal subjects Employment of schemes and tropes en OJ ms

2 similarities and differences in a systematic, useful way that brings out significant differences. It's particularly helpful to have such a system when you are going to write a comparison-and-contrast essay, **' PURPOSE You can take two approaches to writing comparison-andcontrast essays; each has a different purpose. You can make a strict comparison, exploring the relationship between things in the same class, or you can do & fanciful comparison, looking at the relationship among things from different classes. When you write a strict comparison, you compare only things that are truly alike actors with actors, musicians with musicians, but not actors with musicians. You're trying to find similar information about both your subjects. For instance, what are the characteristics of actors, whether they are movie or stage actors? How are jazz musicians and classical musicians alike, even if their music is quite different? In a strict comparison, you probably also want to show how two things in the same class are different in important ways. Often when you focus your comparison on differences, you do so in order to make a judgment and, finally, a choice. That's one of the main reasons people make comparisons, whether they're shopping or writing. When you write a fanciful comparison, you try to set up an imaginative, illuminating comparison between two things that don't seem at all alike, and you do it for a definite reason: to help explain and clarify a complex idea. For instance, the human heart is often compared to a pump a fanciful and useful comparison that enables one to envision the heart at work. You can use similar fanciful comparisons to help your readers see new dimensions to events. For instance, you can compare the astronauts landing on the moon to Columbus discovering the New World, or you can compare the increased drug use among young people to an epidemic spreading through part of our culture. You may find it difficult to construct an entire essay around a fanciful comparison such attempts tax the most creative energy and can quickly break down. Probably you can use this method of comparison most effectively as a device for enlivening your writing and highlighting dramatic similarities. When you're drawing fanciful comparisons, you're not very likely to be comparing to make judgments or recommend choices. Instead, your purpose in writing a fanciful comparison is to catch your readers' attention and show new connections between unlike things. AUDIENCE As you plan a comparison-and-contrast essay, think ahead about what your readers already know and what they're going to expect. First, ask yourself what they know about the Jtems or ideas you're going to compare. Do they know a good deal about both for instance, two popular television programs? Do they know very little about either item for instance, Buddhism and Shintoism? Or do they know quite a bit about one but little about the other for instance, football and rugby? If you're confident that your readers&know a lot about both items (the television programs), you can spend a little time pointing out similarities and concentrate on your reasons for making the comparison. When readers know little about either (Eastern religions), you'll have to define each, using concepts they are familiar with, before you can point out important contrasts. If readers know only one item in a pair (football and rugby), then use the known to explain the unknown. Emphasize what is familiar to them about football, and explain how rugby is like it but also how it is different. As you think about what your readers need, remember that jhev want your essav to be_fairlv balanced, not 90 percent about Buddhism and 10 percent about Shintoism, or two paragraphs about football and nine or ten about rugby. When your focus seems so unevenly divided, you appear to be using one element in the comparison only as a springboard to talk about the other. Such an imbalance can disappoint your readers, who expect to learn about both.

$156 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 157 to 8 \ STRATEGIES You can use two basic strategies for organizing a comparisonand-contrast essay. The first is the divided, Q$.$

3 156 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 157 to 8 \ STRATEGIES You can use two basic strategies for organizing a comparisonand-contrast essay. The first is the divided, Q$.,snbject-by-subject, pattern. The second is the alternating, or point-by-point, pattern. When you use thdjdivided pattern^you present all your information on one topic before you bring in information on the other topic. Mark Twain uses this method in "Two Views of the River." First he gives an apprentice's poetic view, emphasizing the beauty of the river; then he gives the pilot's practical view, emphasizing the technical problems the river poses. When you use the^fegy^gfo^a'pattefn^you work your way through the comparison point by point, giving information first on one aspect of the topic, then on the other. If Mark Twain had used an alternating pattern, he would have given the apprentice's poetic view of a particular feature of the river, then the pilot's pragmatic view of that same feature. He would have followed that pattern throughout, commenting on each feature the wind, the surface of the river, the sunset, the color of the water by alternating between the apprentice's and the pilot's points of view. Although both methods are useful, you'll find that each has benefits and drawbacks. The divided pattern lets you present each part of your essay as a satisfying whole. It works especially well in short essays, such as Twain's, where you're presenting only two facets of a topic and your reader can easily keep track of the points you want to make. Its drawback is that sometimes you slip into writing what seems like two separate essays. When you're writing a long comparison essay about a complex topic, you may have trouble organizing your material dearly enough to keep your readers on track. The alternating pattern works well when you want to show the two subjects you're comparing side by side, emphasizing the points you're comparing. You'll find it particularly good for longer essays, such as Laura Bohannan's "Shakespeare in the Bush," when you want to show many complex points of comparison and need to help your readers see how those points match up. The drawback of the alternating pattern is that you may reduce your analysis to an exercise. If you use it for making only a few points of comparison in a short essay on a simple topic, your essay sounds choppy and disconnected, like a simple list. Often you can make the best of both worlds by combining strategies. For example, you can start out using a divided pattern to give an overall, unified view of the topics you're going to compare. Then you can shift to an alternating pattern to.show how many points of comparison you've found between your subjects. Deborah Tannen uses a version of this strategy in "Rapport-Talk and Report-Talk." She begins by establishing the difference between private and public speaking; then she uses an alternating pattern within each category to demonstrate the contrasts between the speaking styles of men and women. When you want to write a good comparison-and-contrast analysis, keep three guidelines in mind: (1) balance parts, (2) include reminders, and (3) supply reasons. Look, for example, at how Bruce Catton balances his analysis of Grant and Lee. Barry Lopez uses similar strategies in his comparison of the raven and the crow. * COMPARISON AND CONTRAST Points to Remember v, 1. Decide whether you want the pattern of your comparison to focus on complete units (divided} or specific features (alternating}, 2. Consider the possibility of combining the two patterns. 3. Determine which subject should be placed in the first position and why. 4. Arrange the points of your comparison in a logical, balanced, and dramatic sequence. 5. Make sure you introduce and clarify the reasons for making your comparison. (

4 158 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST Smoking Prevalence in American Cinema All movies R-rated movies Protagonists Antagonists This bar graph, based on data from the American College of Chest Physicians, illustrates that villains smoke more than heroes in the movies. How do these data challenge the idea that smoking is glamorous? Compare the way smoking was -presented in older, black-andwhite movies with the way it is presented in contemporary films. MARK TWAIN Mark Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens, ) was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in the river town of Hannibal, Missouri, where he watched the comings and goings of the steamboats he would eventually pilot. Twain spent his young adult life working as a printer, a pilot on the Mississippi, and a frontier journalist. After the Civil War, he began a career as a humorist and storyteller, writing such classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and A His place in American writing was best characterized by editor William Dean Howells, who called Twain the "Lincoln of our literature." In "Two" Views of the River," taken from Life on the Mississippi, Twain compares the way he saw the river as an innocent apprentice to the way he saw it as an experienced pilot., -<- Two Views of the River NOW WHEN I had mastered the language of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain Wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating black and 159

160 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings that were as many-tinted a«pan

5 160 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings that were as many-tinted a«pan opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed When I mastered the language of this water,,.. I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something too. splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring. I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon 'the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: "This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over TWAIN Two View of the River 161 yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?" No, the romance and beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from rny heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms spwn thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade? :a> For Study and Discussion QUESTIONS ABOUT PURPOSE 1. What does Twain think he has gained and lost by learning the river? 2. What does Twain accomplish by dividing the two views of the river rather than alternating them beneath several headings? QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE 1. Which attitude poetic or pragmatic does Twain anticipate his readers have toward the river? Explain your answer. 2. How does he expect his readers to answer the questions he raises in paragraph 3? QUESTIONS ABOUT STRATEGIES 1. What sequence does Twain use to arrange the points of his comparison? 2. Where does Twain use transitional phrases and sentences to match up the parts of his comparison?

New York Advanced Placement Expansion (APEx) Advanced Placement Literature and Composition

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