Essay Question Example                                                                               J David Moton

English 1B

Here is a student example of a comparison paper between “Araby” and “The Lost World.” 

The thesis for the paper was as follows.  This isn’t a perfect thesis, but it makes its point:  Through a similarity in the effects love plays on a boy’s mind and a very similar plot structure, these stories enhance each other when read in tandem as a look at the young male psyche in love.

A striking similarity between Joyce’s “Araby” and Chabon’s “The Lost World” can be found when the main characters are so overcome with passion that they forget the purpose of their visits.  In “Araby,” for example, the boy finally arrives at the Araby Bazaar and has a lapse in memory: “Remembering with difficulty why I had come I went over to one of the stalls” (436).  This event may seem unimportant by itself, but it takes on extra meaning when compared to Nathan’s experience in “The Lost World.”  In fact, when Nathan finally arrives at Chaya’s back yard, he has a similar emotional reaction.  The narrator tells us Nathan was “so nervous that he forgot why he was nervous” (439).  These two lapses of memory show what emotion can do the mind of a young man in love; even when both characters are closes to their goals, they forget what their goal even is.  In Joyce’s tale, the boy is so overwhelmed with emotions for Mangan’s sister and anger at his own tardiness, his memory fails him.  For Chabon, a naked Nathan in the backyard of the girl of his dreams is so overcome by emotion, he can hardly remember what he’s doing there.  Read alone, this realistic emotional reaction would perhaps go unnoticed; read in comparison, however, we see the reaction a young man in love would truly have.

Another similarity also exists between these two stories, however, and that can be found in the basic structure of the plot, starting with the exposition.  Both stories open with the narrator giving us a lot of information all at once…

Things to notice:

1) This is written in the present tense, in spite of both story’s use of past tense narration.

2) Every quote gets an introduction and is properly punctuated.

3) Each quote gets a thorough discussion that ties the quote back to the thesis and topic sentence—this is the most important part.  This is CRITICAL THINKNG!

4) There is minimal amount of summary here.  Instead, there is a very quick sketch of the scene followed by important direct quotes and crucial critical analysis.

5) There is a nice sense of transition and a thesis reminder at the end of the first body paragraph.

6) Criticism: Another option for the above example would be to give all of the evidence for Araby for the first few pages and then give all of the examples of The Lost World in another few pages.  Both would work if done properly and purposefully.

7 Criticism: The first paragraph shifts focus a bit in the middle.  It works as it is, but if it went any longer (or had any stronger shift in topic), it would need to be split into a new paragraph.