Comparing and contrasting Essay

One of the best methods to help us clarify our thoughts about a character, an event, a poem, a story—nearly anything—is to compare and contrast. (To compare can mean to find similarities and differences. Coupled with contrast, however, to compare means to point out similarities, while to contrast means to point out differences.) Many of us, feeling weighted down by cares, have happened to see someone coping with a much greater burden or handicap—and suddenly our problems become insignificant in comparison. Seeing how our situation relates to another’s, we have gained perspective. The only way to have that perspective is by viewing things in relation to one another—by comparing and contrasting. Considering two characters, for example, can help us think more effectively about each. (Authors frequently invite such comparison by including a character foil in a story—a character who serves to emphasize the attributes of another character because t he two are so different.) Let’s consider, specifically, Rainsford, the protagonist of Richard Connell’s story â€Å"The Most Dangerous Game,† and the unnamed protagonist in Jack London’s â€Å"To Build A Fire.† How are the two men comparable? Each confronts a life-threatening situation. Rainsford is chased by the fanatical Zaroff, and London’s protagonist combats the extreme cold of theYukon. Each fights down panic and acts swiftly and decisively. Rainsford sets traps for his pursuers and finally tricks Zaroff; the man in theYukon quickly builds a fire after his feet are soaked. Each denies the suggestion of an acquaintance: Rainsford tells Whitney that hunted creatures have no feelings, and London’s protagonist ignores the old-timer’s advice. And each man learns, as a result of his ordeal, that he has been wrong. On the other hand, the men are different in several ways. London’s protagonist does not have sufficient foresight to realize, in the first place, that he shouldn’t be out alone in such cold, and second, that he shouldn’t build his fire under a tree. He fails to overcome the crisis that he brings on himself, and as a result, he dies. Rainsford, however, falls  into his ordeal quite by chance, by tumbling from the ship. He refuses to sacrifice his principles to extricate himself from the crisis: he tells Zaroff that hunting men is murder pure and simple. Once he realizes the game he must play, he plays it with great cunning, and he triumphs. As illustrated in the two preceding paragraphs, there are two ways to write a paragraph of comparison or contrast. As in the first of the paragraphs, we can shuttle back and forth: A is similar to or different from B in one respect; A is to B in a second respect; A is to B in a third respect; and so on. On the other hand, as in the second of the paragraphs, we can write in a block about one of the items under consideration (A) and then about the other (B). Neither way is better, though the shuttle method is a bit more demanding since it requires that we have matching statements about the pair under consideration. Even if we use the block method, we should try to list corresponding details in the same order in both parts of the paragraph; we also need to be sure to provide a link between our discussion of A and B. In any case, a well-organized comparison, whether focusing on literature or something else, is a powerful way to illuminate both the items that we are considering. –An Addendum to Jim Stover’s Discussion about Comparisons (Bob Fulton) Sometimes it is helpful to indicate to your reader what you feel is more significant, the similarities you have discovered between the two things you are comparing or their differences. Consider now two other fictional characters, Goodman Brown from Hawthorne’s story â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and the narrator from Poe’s story â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart.† After you have listed as many similarities and differences as you can in preparing to write a comparison paragraph between these two characters, you may decide that the differences you have found are far less significant or interesting than the similarities. Because you are developing a comparison, you are obliged to acknowledge that there are, indeed, differences between Goodman Brown and Poe’s narrator. (If you were to focus exclusively on the similarities these characters share, your reader might suppose that you had entirely overlooked their differences and that, as a consequence, your essay or paragraph must  be flawed and therefore without merit.) But you also want to make clear to the reader your sense that the similarities outweigh the differences. What’s the solution? Here is a suggestion. Start your paragraph with a topic sentence: Although there are striking differences between Goodman Brown, the central character of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story â€Å"Young Goodman Brown,† and the narrator of Edgar Allen Poe’s story â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart,† the similarities between these two figures suggest a central point about protagonists in nineteenth-century American fiction: they tend to isolate themselves from others through their obsessive behaviors. Then go on to introduce differences: At first inspection, Goodman Brown and Poe’s narrator appear to be quite unlike each other. The narrative â€Å"I† of â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† is a crazed murderer with no apparent friends or acquaintances other than the old man he kills and butchers. Goodman Brown, by contrast, is a member of the community, married, with children, and, at his worst, a silent grouch. Murder never crosses his mind. The narrative â€Å"I† of Poe’s story seems eager to share the fact of his murderous crime with the police who come to his apartment, whereas Goodman Brown has no desire to tell anyone in his village what he thought he saw and did on the night he ventured into the woods. Now get to the central issue, how these two characters share very important similarities: Nevertheless, these two characters are twin brothers at heart. Each is desperately concerned with sin and evil. Poe’s narrative â€Å"I† cannot resist the pull which draws him to the old man’s bedroom. He cannot resist the urge to illuminate â€Å"the vulture eye.† Likewise, Goodman Brown will not put off his journey into the woods, even though his wife of three months begs him to remain at home. He must press on to face wickedness itself. The behavior of each is absolutely determined by this concern to uncover the  mystery of evil and deal with it. And this obsession isolates Poe’s narrative â€Å"I† and Hawthorne’s Goodman Brown from their fellow creatures. In their obsessive behavior these characters are linked with other figures in nineteenth-century American fiction—Captain Ahab, for instance, in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Bartelby in Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener,† Natty Bumppo in James F enimore Cooper’s â€Å"Leatherstocking† novels, and Arthur Dimmesdale in Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. If you were to write an essay comparing these two stories, the topic sentence I have written for the paragraph above would serve as your thesis statement for the comparison essay. Put your thesis statement at the top of your introductory paragraph—that’s right, the thesis statement is your first sentence—then go on to write a topic sentence for each of the paragraphs in the body of your essay. These topic sentences become the second, third, fourth, etc., sentences of your introductory paragraph In the last sentence of the introduction, sow a seed for the final paragraph of your essay, a â€Å"so-what?† paragraph. This paragraph IS NOT A CONCLUSION. Instead, it answers the question â€Å"So what?† Imagine someone asking you to explain why you wrote the comparison you did. Your response is to put your analysis in a context. Using the above example, I might say: â€Å"In their obsessive behavior these characters are linked with other figures in ninete enth-century American fiction—Captain Ahab, for instance, in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Bartelby in Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener,† Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper’s â€Å"Leatherstocking† novels, and Arthur Dimmesdale in Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter.† To avoid repetition, when you write the body paragraphs, paraphrase the topic sentences which you have already placed in your introduction to avoid repeating them verbatim in the body of your essay. Each of these paraphrased topic sentences should govern what goes into their paragraphs in the body of the paper. Likewise, when you come to the â€Å"so-what?† paragraph, paraphrase the seed sentence you wrote at the end of your introductory paragraph. This paraphrase of the seed sentence is the focus of your essay’s final paragraph, the paragraph which answers the question â€Å"So what?† You should not be surprised if this final paragraph is longer and more  detailed than any of the body paragraphs. After all, it is meant to open up for your reader a wider perspective than the body of your essay can provide.

Essay on Policy Process Theories

Essay on Policy Process Theories Essay on Policy Process Theories Essay on Policy Process TheoriesThe Stages-Heuristic theory is one of the highly influential frameworks for the study of the policy process, which was developed in the 1970s-1980s (Dudley, Parsons, Radaelli Sabatier, 2000). According to this theory, the policy making process is divided into several stages. The stages of policy development include agenda-setting, policy formation, policy legitimation, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. One stage moves to the next stage. For example, agenda-setting stage involves the list of issues that require special attention of officials. Then, agenda-setting stage requires narrowing the list of issues or subjects in order to move to the next stage, from government agenda to the decision making agenda. This framework played an important role in transforming political theory research and provided an opportunity to analyze each stage of policy making process. Different factors can influence the policy making process within each stage. How ever, the Stages-Heuristic theory has been criticized severely because this theory does not provide causal drivers that â€Å"govern the process within each stage† (Gornitzka, Kogan Amaral, 2006, p.18). This theory can be compared to the other dominant theoretical frameworks, such as Institutional Rational Choice model developed by Kiser and Ostrom in 1982. The strengths of this framework as compared to the Stages-Heuristic framework include the focus on institutional rules, which may change the behavior of individuals and the close relationships between institutions. Institutional Rational Choice model has become rational choice theory, which makes the policy process the so-called ‘bargaining game’ between individuals or parties. This framework assesses public policy as a set of the proper institutional arrangements, which consist of certain rules and norms that shape the interactions and strategies of actors. The weakness of this framework is that it can be ap plied to some specific context, providing the effects of various beliefs systems on institutions and policy process.

bookreport waller the bridge of madison county essays

bookreport waller the bridge of madison county essays I will tell you the name and the author of the book and who the main characters are in this paragraph. Robert James Waller wrote the book, The Bridge of Madison County. There are two main characters in the book. One of the main characters names is Robert Kincaid and the other is Francesca Johnson. In this paragraph I will tell you about Robert Kincaid and a little about his personality. Robert was a photographer for National Geographic and sometimes just for himself. He photographed in the outdoors. He thought that courage and strength was a big part of human life (nature.) He didnt think that computers and robots are something big. He said, there were things we could do, were designed to do, that nobody or no machine could do. We run fast are strong and quick, aggressive and tough. We were given courage. We can throw spears long distances and fight in hand-to-hand combat. Eventually, computers and robots will run things. Humans will manage those machines, but that doesnt require courage or strength, or any characteristics like those. In fact, men are outliving their usefulness... (100, 101 Waller) I really think that what he said is right. I think that by that he means that soon people will just forget what they are here in the world for and what work is. Everyone will becom e lazy. If everyone becomes lazy than ones everything is dead or you have to do something by hand no one will want to do it. Robert calls himself one of the last cowboys. Cowboys are usually old fashion type and not too civilized. Thats what Robert is. In this paragraph I will tell you about Fracesca Johnson a little about her personality. She was a farmwife. She lived on the farm and didnt work. One day, in the summer, she came out on her porch and was drinking iced tea. She was very exhausted from all her work. All of a sudden a truck drives by. And a man, who was Robert Kincaid, asked her for directions to one of the...

Using liberal education to be active in community Essay

Using liberal education to be active in community - Essay Example the history of America, the question remains whether they should be obligated to learn a foreign language , master calculus and study grammar among other aspects at the expense creative writing. This is the reason that, in the arguments concerning education, less time is usually spent dwelling on the key values compared to other formal standards. Education gives people a wide range of abilities including providing them with skills on how to talk and communicate. Educated people have advantage as they, â€Å"They can give a speech, ask thoughtful questions, and make people laugh. They can hold a conversation with a high school dropout or a Nobel laureate, a child or a nursing- home resident, a factory worker or a corporate president† (Cronon 1998). Furthermore, educated people can participate in conversations not because they prefer talking about themselves but because they have a genuine interest in other people. According to Cronon (1998), â€Å"A friend of mine says one of the most important things his father ever told him was that whenever he had a conversation, his job was â€Å"to figure out what’s so neat about what the other person does.† I cannot imagine a more succinct description of this critically important quality†. A liberal develops the mind as well as the imagination while encouraging people to seek the truth, meaning and beauty. It further inspires an appreciation of previous traditions along with the present challenges while fostering a sense of joy in learning with other people. Additionally, it supports actions of taking intellectual risks needed when exploring the unknown, testing new ideas and entering into constructive debates while at the same time building foundations for arriving at principled decisions. Through liberal education, the capacity for critical and open inquiries can be honed to increase an interest in asking questions, challenging assumptions and looking for answers in order to arrive at conclusions that are backed by logic

Observational Studty Survey Research Statistics Project

Observational Studty Survey Research - Statistics Project Example However, more research or more information should be provided in this area of study in an effort to come up with preventive and control measures in addition to improvement and development programs on smoking cessation and anxiety disorders. Despite the fact that smoking has been identified as one of the leading health hazards, more that 21% of the population of United States still continue with the habit of smoking. High smoking prevalence rates have been observed among people with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety. Despite this realization, researches on the correlation between smoking and anxiety continue to receive less attention among researchers in comparison to other psychiatric conditions commonly witnessed with tobacco intake. This paper with the use of already existing literature, critically examines the correlation between anxiety and tobacco and nicotine dependence/use. To achieve this, the paper is based on a survey conducted by students from Pierce College and CSUN. Following the limitations on the extent of the researches carried out on the same issue, the paper had to include other reviews in addition to the survey and borrowed information from already conducted studies (Billings and Moss, 1998). The data on the correlation between smoking and anxiety has proved to be inconsistent depending on the smoking stage of the subject being investigated. Some of the evidences from different researches are in support of the notion that anxiety increases the smoking initiation risks. This includes a research conducted by Patton on adolescents which indicates that anxiety symptoms predicted and initiated smoking experiments among peers which in the long run increased the chances of such teenagers growing up to be daily smokers (Billings and Moss, 1998). There are several factors that have been observed to influence the relationship

Social Psy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Social Psy - Essay Example The author will discuss a personal experience, the use by peers of alcohol and later drugs, that resulted in the author breaking free of conformist pressures and emerging stronger and more independent in the author’s social world. Too often, it would seem, individuals progress through life without careful reflection. People would appear to take individual changes for granted while simultaneously remaining oblivious to the events that contribute to or otherwise cause those changes. People sometimes claim feelings of powerlessness and impotence when living their lives, they feel unable to truly control their destiny, and life in many ways begins to feel somewhat random and meaningless. This personal position paper will argue, however, that life is not so random or unpredictable. More specifically, this paper will suggest that individual self-reflection, as it pertains to an individual’s interaction with different groups in the social world, can not only explain to some extant how different behaviors and performances become manifest but also how individuals may begin to control their behavior and destiny to a greater degree. As an initial matter, it is important to note that social psychology is concerned with how individuals fit into or otherwise interact with a social world. The social world concept, however is not monolithic; quite the contrary there are several social spheres, of different social worlds in which an individual does and may interact. The questions posed often relate to how an individual engages in self-perception, how individuals are influenced, as an individual relates and interacts with others in different social circumstances and settings. Generally speaking, therefore, a particular social world may be considered conceptually as the relationship and interaction of individual minds, particular

The Speckled Band Essay Example for Free

The Speckled Band Essay Both Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band share some of the characteristics of murder mysteries. Explain the similarities and differences between the two stories and say which story you think is more compelling to read. T he Speckled Band was written in 1892 during Queen Victorias reign over Britain. At the time the aristocratic society was paranoid about crime and rumours and myths about murderers such as Jack the Ripper did not help. The squalid chaos of a city (London) that hadnt changed much since Tudor times, with its dark narrow alleyways and badly lit streets created a haven for murderers, rapists, prostitutes and petty thieves. The arrival of a super sleuth character was obviously going to appeal to the literary clique. Sherlock Holmes was the solution to all their problems although in reality the Police Force was failing badly. In contrast Lamb to the Slaughter was written in a completely different era post-war, Elizabethan Britain, a period where attitudes and the Police Force had developed considerably from Conan Doyles Victorian London. The nations feeling had changed and had become more tolerant of women and including them more in a previously male world. However, the perfect housewife was still many womens idea of life. This is reflected in Mary Maloney, the stay at home idealistic wife and her devotion to her husband who, does not return this and wants to leave her for another woman. In The Speckled Band the mood is of heightened tension and curiosity as Dr Watsons daily routine is interrupted by the arrival of Miss Stoner, the stepdaughter of Dr Grimesby Roylott of Stoke Moran. She tells them of the demise of her sister Julia, the low whistle, the gypsies and the wild animals that the Doctor keeps. Holmes then receives a visit from Dr Roylott who threatens Holmes and Watson not to meddle in my affairs. Holmes and Watson then immediately travel to Stoke Moran, heedless of the Doctors warning, and go to see Miss Stoner in the family home. When they arrive, Holmes tells Miss Stoner about Dr Roylotts visit: good heavens he is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him and they go and explore the manor. They learn that Miss Stoner is now sleeping When they are in Miss Helen Stoners room, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson find no reason for her to be moved out of her room. Whilst in Miss Julia Stoners room, there Holmes finds clues as to the cause of her death but does not tell Watson or Miss Stoner what he thinks. Holmes then tells Miss Stoner to spend the night in the local Inn while he and Dr Watson try to catch Dr Roylott. When Dr Roylott sets the Swamp Adder through the ventilator and down the bell rope Holmes beats it back and it bites Dr Roylott killing him. Lamb to the Slaughter is very different as the atmosphere is relaxed and contented with the six-month pregnant Mary Maloney waiting patiently for her husband to come home. She is sewing and has a whiskey and soda ready for Patrick Maloneys homecoming and all of this amounts to the feeling of peace. In Lamb to the Slaughter Mary Maloney, Patrick Maloneys wife, is waiting for him to come home from work. He tells her that he wants to leave her for another woman, she then goes to make dinner and pulls out a leg of lamb. Mary Maloney then hits her husband with the lamb and kills him. She then goes down to the grocers to give herself an alibi. She then comes home and rings the Police who conduct the investigation but end up eating the evidence: the leg of lamb. However some of the ways that Roald Dahl uses to describe Mary Maloney act as a warning as to what might happen: curiously tranquil this suggests that there is something odd about her as being tranquil is not normally tranquil. Also, there was a slow smiling air about her this has mysterious connotations and implies that there is something more to Mary Maloney than the reader first thinks. Dr Roylott is a very violent and psychotic character who has heated fits of rage: Dont you dare to meddle with my affairs I am a dangerous man to fall foul of . He is a physically huge man who uses intimidation to force people to do things. When Dr Roylott hears of Miss Helen Stoners proposed marriage, she suddenly dies, this indicates that because his late wife (and the girls mother) left them money to be given to them when they got married. Dr Roylott is on a very small income and if the girls got married then he would be broke. Also he is a huge broad man who is very strong and capable of bending Holmes iron poker. Conan Doyle makes it very obvious from the start that Dr Roylott is capable of murder and our suspicions are correct, he is the only character in the story who would murder. Dr Roylott is not successful because although he manages to kill Julia Stoner but before he can dispose of Helen Stoner Sherlock Holmes solves the case and accidentally kills Dr Roylott. Dr Roylott is not very believable in this day and age because the Victorians view of a murderer was a shifty looking character either very small and rat like or large and vicious. However nowadays we know that murderers can be anyone. Because of the Victorians etiquette rules and views, a female killer in Conan Doyles books would have caused a stir. However in Lamb to the Slaughter women were allowed a much freer role and so the idea of them becoming murderers was accepted by the readers. In both of the stories the villains (Dr Roylott and Mary Maloney) control the people around them, Dr Roylott controls people by threatening them with physical violence whereas Mary Maloney uses subtle emotional actions to convince the Police that shes innocent.