Comparison/Contrast of Two Poems on a Common Theme
"Facing It" and "Nov. 22, 1988"

The introduction introduces the common theme explored in the thesis.

• Briefly introduce the common theme each work illuminates. Identify a Significance, Importance, Relevance, or Value (SIRV) reason for comparing these two works. What one thing do both works have to say about the subject?
• Thesis: A thesis is a SIRV statement on both works about this common theme. End the introduction with a thesis statement that identifies both works by title and author and identifies the SIRV reason for comparing the two works.
• What not to do:
  • Do not write about how hard it is to understand literature.
  • Do not write about what it means to compare two works of literature.
  • Do not suggest one theme for one work and a different theme for the other work (find a commonality--a shared theme, even if expressed in opposing ways).
  • Do not talk to the reader.
  • Do not talk about choosing the works. The essay is not about the essay. It is about the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) of the works.

Certain tragedies transcend personal feelings of loss, wounding an entire society. Sometimes, this is the death of individuals whose fame and reputation brought them into the hearts of a great number of people. Other times, this can be a vast loss of life, the impact of which is felt by many due to the volume and scope of the loss. Yusuf Komunyakaa's "Facing It," which relates to the Vietnam War, and Ishmael Reed's "Nov 22, 1988," a reflection on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, explore the pain of loss as felt by society and by the individual.

• Always present the works in the body in the same order as they appear in the thesis.
• Begin with a topic sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works. In this type of essay, the topic sentence will model a thesis statement.
• Use present tense in discussing the work.
• Explicate the work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. What unique perspective does this work offer on the common theme? Use short quotations integrated into the argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by reiterating what this work has to say about the theme under consideration

What NOT to do in the body of the essay

• Don't write about how hard it is to understand literature or how writers try to express ideas in literature.
• Don't focus on superficial similarities or differences: both poems rhyme; this poem is a sonnet, but the other one isn't; this work is a poem, and the other is a short story.
• Don't leave the works to generalize about images or ideas the works introduce.

  Wrong: James Wright describes a spider in his poem "The Journey." Many people are afraid of spiders, but people can also learn from them like how spiders are able to walk across their web without getting trapped even though dust or insects get trapped (Wright, lines 14-23).

  Right: The spider in James Wright's "The Journey" becomes a metaphor for the human soul unfettered by life's troubles. Even though the spider web "Reeled heavily and crazily with the dust / Whole mounds and cemeteries of it" (Wright, lines 15-16), the spider is "Free of the dust" (22), not burdened by it, able to[step] / Away in her own good time" (24-25). And so, the speaker suggests, people, too, should "step lightly" (33), "let the wind / Blow its dust" (31-32) all over them, and live their lives despite their "ruins" (34) or their "dead" (35).

Yusuf Komunyakaa's "Facing It" explores the speaker's efforts to wrestle with the losses he suffered in his service to the United States in the Vietnam War. Standing at the Vietnam War Memorial, he still can "see the booby trap's white flash" (Komunyakaa, line 18) when he saw a man die in Vietnam. The pain is still so deep, and the memory of the danger so fresh in his mind that, while looking at names on the wall, he is "half-expecting to find / [his] own" (Komunyakaa 16-17). Komunyakaa focuses on the pain of a single speaker caused by "58,022" (Komunyakaa 14) deaths. The pain the speaker feels in "Facing It" is deeply personal and inescapable. Though he may "turn / this way" (Komunyakaa 8-9) and "turn that way" (Komunyakaa 10), a part of him will always remain "inside / the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial" (Komunyakaa 10-11). "Facing It" further illustrates the broad scope of the pain caused by the Vietnam War with the simple examples of "A white vet" (Komunyakaa 25) who has "lost his right arm / inside the stone" (Komunyakaa 28-29) and the reflection of a woman who seems to be "trying to erase names" (Komunyakaa 30).

• Begin with a transitional sentence that identifies the work by title and author and indicates what this work has to say about the theme common to both works and indicates the relation between what this work says and what the previous work says.
Examples:
• Similarity: "Like work A by Author A, work B by Author B also . . . "
• Similarity with expansion: "Not only can (whatever work A revealed about the theme), but work B by Author B shows (whatever extension of this idea work B offers)"
• Contrast: While work A by Author A suggests, work B by Author B reveals (a different perspective)"
• Explicate the second work, identifying evidence within the work supporting the theme being explored. Again, use brief quotations woven into an argument rather than long quotations followed by paraphrase and explanation.
• Conclude by examining the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) this work explores about the theme under consideration

"Nov 22, 1988" by Ishmael Reed examines the loss the nation felt at the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The speaker remarks that people have "never fully recovered" (Reed, line 47) from the assassination. This single death made an entire generation feel like they have been "hit / In the belly with a medicine ball" (Reed 45-46). The speaker in Ishmael Reed's "Nov 22, 1988," however, was not present for Kennedy's assassination. He is merely watching "the archival footage" (Reed 6) of the event. Still, the speaker was hurt, and "feels like an old back pain" (Reed 36). The speaker in Reed's poem, even though "It's been twenty years" (Reed 26), and he seems to be "acting like a Grinch" (Reed 27) as he thinks about "The riderless horse" (Reed 11), also wrestles with his sense of loss. A nation has been forced to endure Kennedy's "lunkish successors" (Reed 74). Bereft of the man who "could / Negotiate with Kurshchev" (Reed 16-17) and who "slammed Alabam' / Stuffing its throat with / Jim Crow" (Reed 21-23), society now "jerks about like the new chief's syntax" (Reed 70) and "smells like something / That's been dead in the sun / Too long" (Reed 67-69).

While restating the main ideas from the body of the essay will work as a conclusion, a much better approach is to come to some new awareness of the significance, importance, relevance, or value (SIRV) that these works reveal.

When it is possible for a single death to hurt thousands of people, it can sometimes be forgotten that when thousands die, countless individuals feel the white-hot agony of deeply personal loss. It is a cliché that "a single death is a tragedy; a thousand deaths is a statistic," but whether through sheer numbers or through the impact of a single event that resonates with an entire generation, loss is still loss. The terrible arithmetic of death does not pay heed to scale when it is doling out grief.

There are a number of different style manuals that are used in academics to format sources. These are standardized to fit the needs of particular academic fields of study. In English classes (as well as some other classes), teachers use the Modern Language Association (MLA) stylebook. However, individual instructors have the right to require their own rules to follow within MLA style. The course textbooks will include a section on MLA style. Teachers may include additional instructions within the course, via handouts, or as part of the assignment instructions.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. "Facing It." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47867/facing-it. Accessed 29 Aug. 2017.

Reed, Ishmael. New and Collected Poems 1964-2007. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007, pp. 291-294.