HELP! What to write in Comparative Essay for A2 English Literature!

Can anyone help me? I'm comparing the books The Day of the Triffids and War of the Worlds, my question is 'To what extent do you agree that both of these novels dramatise the price of scientific knowledge?'. I have the majority of stuff down I was just wondering what I need to include i.e. form, structure, language, themes??? I'm not very good at writing so I wouldn't really know how to develop these points whilst making them relevant. D: if anyone has any english lit advice or examples that'd be great!

Although I've never read these texts, I'll try to give you some advice. I got 27/30 in my first draft of the A2 coursework this year, so hopefully what I say will be somewhat useful.

Your question:

I've emboldened the key words of your question. Let's start with 'extent'. This is a very important word because it is inviting you into a debate, an argument and a discussion. You need to constantly consider how far these two novels dramatise the price of scientific knowledge. There is no use in saying they do or they do not - you should be arguing whether they completely do it, partially or fail to do it.

To help you argue, you want to consider alternative ideas and then evaluate them - weigh them up against each other and see which is more credible (and, ultimately, makes more sense). This is where you have to be creative and just think about what someone else might say - and also why. Is there any language, structure, form or contextual factors that give reason to the interpretations of others? You should discuss and address these.

Then, you should say why this interpretation is not very strong and why another interpretation - or other interpretations - are more reliable. Perhaps one interpretation is very strong to the modern reader, but if we consider the context in which the novel has been published we realise that there is not really much substance to that idea.

Dramatise is an important word, because you need to look how they are doing this. You can't merely list ideas and reasons - you should be exploring different elements of language, structure and form and seeing how these symbolise/represent/portray etc. scientific knowledge.

Then, of course, 'price' is important. You should show your examiner what 'the price of scientific knowledge' means to you. What does it mean to have a price? If you define this in your introduction, you can always reference this throughout your essay and this will help you to evaluate in your essay.

General Tips:

- Make sure you analyse rather than explain.
- Use technical language so that you can fulfil the criteria for AO1.
- Always maintain an argumentative tone. Don't describe or list ideas; discuss them.
- Move away from the obvious and the surface of the texts and explore the hidden meanings.
- Explore the agenda of the writer - why the writer has used particular archetypes, structural flourishes, turning points and so on. Remember, in English Literature, everything the writer does has a purpose. As a critic, your job is to debate what this purpose is.
- Don't use context aimlessly. As I have been told, always use context to support your points, rather than to make your points.
- Evaluate! Consider different interpretations, thoroughly explore how and why they can be formed, and once you have explored them, then say which is more credible.
- Compare the two texts, but don't get bodged down by comparison. Feel free to explore some points as individual entities without convoluting them into comparisons.

27/30 in your first draft?! Wow congrats! This has been a huuuuge help, since I didn't really know what to compare them about, and since my teacher suggested me this question I had a difficult time interpreting it so thank you SO much!

I opened the comparative with some general principles about both books.


Both ‘Brave New World’, by Aldous Huxley and ‘1984’,by George Orwell, depict dystopian societies in which the needs of the stateand profit of business through endless consumerism come before the needs andfreedom of the people. Portraying societies rancid with inequality, materialismand stigma, both novels deal with strict stratification systems. In his novel“1984”, Orwell depicts a satirical representation of a totalitarian leadershipwhich, as Orwell’s character of O’Brian puts it, “seeks power entirely for itsown sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solelyin power”. Orwell’s novel recounts the story of Winston, living in one of thethree seemingly identical totalitarian states that dominate the world in aconstant state of adversity with one another. Similarly, Huxley’s “Brave New World” is set in a worlddominated entirely by one world authority; the World State. Set in the year2540, Huxley’s novel deals with a highly advanced which promotes the virtues ofmaterialism and superficiality, superfluous consumerism and officially enforcedpromiscuity that does away with sexual frustration, in rigid caste system inwhich all are conditioned to not only carry out a particular job, but to beever content with their status. And then we aremuch better than the Gammas and Deltas”. Many have observed a fundamental linkbetween the way in which Huxley’s narrative deals with the dehumanisation andsubjugation of the inhabitants of the World State, and how it compares toOrwell’s depiction of the all-pervading seemingly omniscient power of The Partyin “1984”. The narrative perspective is of particular significance in analysingthe ways in which The Party’s power is represented throughout the text. Enablingthe ideological beliefs of each writer to spill over into their narratives,both novels feature a third person extra diegetic narrative perspective. Whilstthe authors of both novels shared socialist leanings, “Brave New World” is a responseto the naïvely optimistic socialist’s dream of utopia advocated by writers likeH.G Wells and George Bernard Shaw, hence why Huxley referred to the World Statesociety as a “negative utopia”. By means of manipulating their narrativeperspectives to facilitate setting, characterisation, voice and various otheraspects of narrative, Huxley and Orwell each express their own personalattitudes to the reader. I am furthermore going to explore the idea that thereis a definite sense of condemnation of each dystopian society in the narrativeperspectives which is only conveyed covertly and only to be understood upon amore psychoanalytical reading of each text, therefore not explicit.