Compare & Contrast Fiction Essay

Comparing Aung San Suu Kyi’s excerpt from “In Quest with Democracy” and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

The misunderstood subculture of music that many have come to know as “hip-hop” is given a critical examination by James McBride in his essay Hip-Hop Planet. McBride provides the reader with direct insight into the influence that hip-hop music has played in his life, as well as the lives of the American society. From the capitalist freedom that hip-hop music embodies to the disjointed families that plague this country, McBride explains that hip-hop music has a place for everyone. The implications that he presents in this essay about hip-hop music suggest that this movement symbolizes and encapsulates the struggle of various individual on

Passions drive people, and the townspeople in “The Lottery” and Paul in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” are no different. Each of the members of the unnamed town has a strong passion for tradition. The original black box used for the lottery is described as being, “lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born” (Jackson 251). This sentence gives the reader an understanding that the lottery is an ancient tradition that has become an integral part of the town’s lifestyle. Such a tradition can only be carried on for this length of time if the people are passionate about preserving the tradition. Paul had a passion to be wealthy as a way to prove to his mother that he was lucky. From a young age, he saw that his family always wanted more money to support a better lifestyle, yet

Jews suffered countless amounts of atrocities throughout the history of time. Both stories have themes in which man is evil to man, the will of the main character to survive and overcome evil is present, and the ability of some people to still be compassionate to each other during these times of evil. The book Maus, and the movie “The Pianist,” share many thematic similarities.

Richard Rodriguez and Amy Tan are two bilingual writers. Rodriguez comes from a Latin background where both his parents speak Spanish. Tan is a child of Chinese parents. Though they share some of the same situations; each has a different way of portraying it. This gives the readers two different aspects of being bilingual. Rodriguez told his story in Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood. Tan told hers in Mother Tongue. In spite of the fact that they both wrote about their experiences of being bilingual, they told their stories were for very different reasons.

In “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” by D. H. Lawrence, and “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, the two authors illustrate symbols and themes throughout their stories in which one common idea is present: perhaps winning is not always positive.

Looking at both stories, the Lottery appears to be a means of how the town remain at a low population and that the Lottery was a way of controlling that population. The Rocking-Horse Winner on the other hand uses gambling as an alternative to making money and that money is earned by being lucky and that you had to have an imagination in order to possess this luck. The Lottery focused its story around an ancient black wooden box that held the Lottery choices within it and the Rocking-Horse Winner was focused upon an old style Rocking Horse that was often used by children long ago and something that is not used today that often. Both endings of each story were odd enough whereas in the Lottery, the death of another person came as a ritual that was expected to happen so very often and in the Rocking-Horse Winner, Master Paul, the woman’s son sought the approval of his Mother concerning his having luck. The boy died that night and the Mother had not acknowledged that she knew that her son was lucky even though she was eighty –odd thousand to the good. Very odd turn of events in both stories and both had unusual endings in which there seems to be that type of contrast. Not that they were similar in story form but that they both ended in sadness. Of the two stories, I would choose the Rocking-Horse Winner as the favorite of the two due to the fact that the Lottery goes against the belief that I

Brent Staples of “Just Walk On By”, Judith Ortiz Cofer of “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, and Alice Walker of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” had discovered their personal/cultural knowledge and identity through their experiences. They might have different experiences in different situation or incident it has the same concept. Brent Staples and Judith Cofer had similarly uncovered how they are being alienated especially in their foreign place. They both had experienced to be mistaken as somebody else. Brent Staples was once mistaken for a burglar in a magazine company and a mugger in a jewelry store. Cofer was also mistaken as a waitress by an old woman while she was holding her notebook which an old woman thought a menu

During the 1800’s it was very rare for women to marry for love. Most marriages were arranged for financial gain. When in a marriage during this time period, the husbands were given most of the control over the household, the children and their wives. According to the article “Histories: Women in the 1800’s,” It stated that all of a women’s possession’s belonged to her husband, this included earnings (if she worked) and her property. It wasn’t uncommon for women to be unhappy within their marriages because with a lack of voice in a marriage can lead anyone to a mental breakdown. In Kate Chopin’s “The story of an hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women felt trapped in their marriages. They both strived for freedom and independence.

Young men who are sent to a war learn the reality in a very harsh and brutal way. Both the stories, ‘The Red Convertible’ and ‘The Things They Carried’ portray the life of a young soldier and how he psychologically gets affected from all the things he had seen in the war. Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried,’ is more specific on the experiences of a soldier during a war where as Karen Louise Erdrich focuses more on describing the post war traumatic stress in her short story ‘The Red Convertible’. One thing similar in both the narrations is the Vietnam War and its consequences on the soldiers. From the background of both the authors it’s easy to conclude that Tim O’Brien being a war veteran emphasizes more on the

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence is an unpredictable, fairytale-like short story about a mother of three who constantly worries about her financial problems. She has a son who is fervent about figuring out a solution to her predicament. This story also has an abrupt ending that gives off strong emotion. Another short story, called “The Lottery”, has the same spectacle of ending the story with suspense. Written by Shirley Jackson, this story begins with a sunny day in a village, but miserably ends with the stoning of one of the villagers. “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “The Lottery” are two sensational stories that have tragic ironies; however, they differ in tone

The act of being habitually and carefully neat and clean can make for an interesting topic in a comparison and contrast essay. Dave Barry compares the differences of how women and men clean in his compare and contrast essay, Batting Clean- Up and Striking out. In Suzanne Britt's compare and contrast essay, Neat People vs. Sloppy People she compares the differences of personalities between Sloppy people and neat people. Both essays compare cleanliness in one way or another however they both have differences regarding their use of humor, examples, and points made in their thesis.

The fascination of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn still stays strong to this day. We often find ourselves loving the idea of these two flawless icons. Everyone wanted to be them then, and it is still true today. They were two major icons in the 1950’s. They were two beautiful, inspirational women. Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn really did live the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. Most people only see the similarities, but in fact, they are more different than some may think.

Gambling is a recreational activity that dates back thousands of years. Unfortunately for some, gambling can go from something done out of entertainment to something done out of addiction. “The essential basis for all gambling seems to inhere in the chance factor of success for its participants, irrespective of the type of device or game which is employed” (Bloch 1951). Some gambling games like poker, for example, require a specific skill set while others solely depend on chance. The chance to win hundreds, sometimes even thousands of dollars from gambling is a very attractive factor for many. “Taking a chance” destroys routine and hence is pleasurable, particularly in a culture where the unchanging and predictable routines of employment are sharply separated from “leisure” – the time when the individual really “lives” (Block 1951). The chance to win a big prize by simply rolling a pair of dice or landing on a specific number entices many, and those who are superstitious to luck or karma are especially vulnerable to gambling’s enticements. Today, there are many organizations and movements to help gamblers recover from their addiction. The National Council on Problem Gambling, The Responsible Gambling Council, and The Gamblers Anonymous Recovery Program are just a few of the many organizations that aim bring gambling impulses under control and allow addicts to live happy, fulfilling, productive lives. There are also helplines available to assist gamblers through their