This 1,750-word essay asks you to create a conversation between two texts, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the David Fincher film Fight Club (1999). Consider how you build your knowledge about anything by comparing – you refine your definitions, you gain clarity about concepts, you discover new points of view, and you open up new lines of inquiry. When writing a comparative analysis, you need to keep in mind your frame of reference, your grounds for comparison, and your thesis.
- Frame of Reference: This is the context within which you place the two things you plan to compare and contrast. The frame of reference may consist of an idea, theme, question, problem, or theory (for example: redefining norms of masculinity or the effects of repression).
- Grounds for Comparison: Let’s say you’re writing a paper on global food distribution, and you’ve chosen to compare apples and oranges. Why these particular fruits? Why not pears and bananas? The rationale behind your choice, the grounds of comparison, lets your reader know why your choice is deliberate and meaningful, not random.
- Thesis: The grounds for comparison anticipate the comparative nature of your thesis. As in any argumentative paper, your thesis statement will convey the gist of your argument, which necessarily follows from your frame of reference. But in a compare-and-contrast, the thesis depends on how the two things you’ve chosen to compare actually relate to one another. Do they extend, corroborate, complicate, contradict, correct, or debate one another? Whether your paper focuses primarily on difference or similarity, you need to make the relationship between A (the book) and B (the film) clear in your thesis. Be sure to relate all links between A and B back to the thesis.
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