Comparison and Contrast

1
Comparison and Contrast

• Strategies for Rhetorical Analysis

2
Basic Structure for All Essays

• IntroductionLeads readers into essay, provides
  contexts, and so on. Often ends with the thesis
  statement.
• BodyPresents as many paragraphs as necessary to
  fully support and develop the thesis.
• ConclusionDoes not just repeat the introduction.

3
Sandra CisnerosThe House on Mango
Street(Vintage Books, 1991)

• Everybody in our family has different hair. My
  Papa's hair is like a broom, all up in the air.
  And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes
  or bands. Carlos' hair is thick and straight. He
  doesn't need to comb it. Nenny's hair is
  slippery--slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who
  is the youngest, has hair like fur.

4
Sandra Cisneros (continued)

• But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like
  little rosettes, like little candy circles all
  curly and pretty because she pinned it in
  pin-curls all day, sweet to put your nose into
  when she is holding you, holding you and you feel
  safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake
  it, is the smell when she makes room for you on
  her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and
  you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and
  Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama's
  hair that smells like bread.

5
Mary McCarthy Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

• White hair, glasses, soft skin, wrinkles,
  needleworkall the paraphernalia of motherliness
  were hers yet it was a cold, grudging,
  disputatious old woman who sat all day in her
  sunroom making tapestries from a pattern,
  scanning religious periodicals, and setting her
  iron jaw against any infraction of her ways.

6
Mary McCarthy (continued)

• Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant
  trait in my grandmothers nature. An aggressive
  churchgoer, she was quite without Christian
  feeling the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never
  entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war
  against the Protestant ascendancy. The religious
  magazines on her table furnished her not with
  food for meditation but with fresh pretexts for
  anger articles attacking birth control, divorce,
  mixed marriages, Darwin and secular education
  were her favorite reading. The teachings of the
  Church did not interest her, except as they were
  a rebuke to others Honor thy father and thy
  mother, a commandment she was no longer called
  upon to practice, was the one most frequently on
  her lips..

7
Mary McCarthy (continued)

• The extermination of Protestantism, rather
  than spiritual perfection, was the boon she
  prayed for. Her mind was preoccupied with
  conversion the capture of a soul for God much
  diverted her fancyit made one less Protestant in
  the world. Foreign missions, with their overtones
  of good will and social service, appealed to her
  less strongly it was not a harvest of souls that
  my grandmother had in mind

8
In-Class Group Work

• Using the elements of the Rhetorical Situation
  (or Aristotles schema), compare and contrast the
  paragraphs by McCarthy and Cisneros. Pay close
  attention to the way these professional authors
  use details and language.

9
Venn Diagram for Comparison/Contrast
10
Rhetorical Analysis Sample Chart
McCarthy Cisneros
Persona/Tone/Narrator
Genre, Subject/ Attitude (of Author)
Language/ Style
Target Audience
11
Another Chart for Comparing/Contrasting
Similarities Differences
Cisneros McCarthy
12
Sample Structures for Comparison/Contrast Essays

• Introduction
• Whole work 1
• Whole work 2
• Compare/contrast both 1 and 2
• Conclusion

• Introduction
• Work 1Element A
• Work 2Element A
• Work 1Element B
• Work 2Element B
• Work 1Element C
• Work 2Element C
• Conclusion/summary

13
Comparing/Contrasting Texts

• McCarthyPersona, Tone, Attitude, Subject, Style,
  Target Audience
• Cisneros--Persona, Tone, Attitude, Subject,
  Style, Target Audience
• McCarthy and Cisneros compared/contrasted

• McCarthy and Cisneros-Persona
• McCarthy and Cisneros-Tone and Attitude
• McCarthy and Cisneros-Style
• McCarthy and Cisneros- Target Audience

14
How to Decide

• The structure an author chooses depends upon
  his/her purpose and the materials discussed.
• Some essays and articles require extensive use of
  comparison/contrast (college exams, buying
  guides, classification systems, etc.).
• Many other essays use the technique only for
  particular sections.