Short Essay #3: Comparing/Contrasting Huze and O’Brien

ENG 102 –Laura Cline

For this assignment you will choose one of the short stories I asked you
to read from O’Brien and one of the monologues from Huze and then
compare and/or contrast them. I would really like you to focus your
analysis on a single story and a single monologue rather than
comparing the whole texts. This will help you concentrate on specific
passages and language, which enriches literary analysis.

To focus your analysis even further, you try to focus on a particular

aspect of the text like theme, or character, or imagery. Revisit the
presentation about literary analysis and the OWL website to see how
you might do this. Remember, you need to bring in quotes from the
text and focus on the story. This is not the place to talk about the
differences or similarities between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War,
for instance. We just finished historical/contextual analysis, but this is
a textual analysis, comparing and contrasting only what is on the page.
You shouldn’t be using any sources for this assignment.

Start of by evaluating each of the stories that you chose to write about
and then draft a thesis about their relationship. For instance, you could
choose “the horrors of war” as the theme and then discuss how Huze
and O’Brien approach that theme differently. You may also choose to
focus in on how the characters deal differently with similar events.
Once you have recognized the relationship between the stories you are
writing about, you need to move from analysis to argument by talking
about how these differences or similarities impact the meaning of the
work as a whole.

Remember, you need a clear, assertive and specific thesis statement,

claims to support it, and specific evidence (quotes and paraphrases)
from the texts to support those claims. All your quotes and
paraphrases from the stories must be cited in MLA style both in the
text and on a works cited page. Since you will be quoting from more
than one source this time, you need to include both the author’s last
name and the page number in the parenthetical citations.
These citations look like this: (O’Brien 121) or (Huze 76).

Logistics: Your essay should be at least 2-3 pages in length. It needs

to at least go onto the third page. Use MLA format, page numbers,
TNR font, 12 pt., etc.

Due Dates: If you want me to look at a full or partial draft of this

essay, please email it to me sometime over Spring Break (by Sunday
March 20th at the latest). The essay itself will be due during week ten
by 10 p.m. on Sunday March 27th.