Compare and Contrast
‘Annabel Lee’ and ‘The Highwayman’
What are a few good poems to read? Well, the poems ‘The Highwayman’ and ‘Annabel Lee’ are a few. They are very similar, yet very different. For example, they are both tragic love stories about jealousy and, sadly, death. They also have similar themes, both of them about love.
One way that these two poems are different is the cause of the characters’ death. In ‘The Highwayman’, Bess’s death is caused by one of the character’s actions. Her death could have been caused by Tim the ostler, who told the British about the highwayman, or it could have been the highwayman’s fault, who came to visit Bess in the first place and gave Tim the chance to tell the British. Another possibility is that it is Bess’s fault that she died, because she shot herself. Most likely though, is that all of the events worked together to (sadly) kill the character. However, in the poem ‘Annabel Lee’, Annabel Lee dies of natural causes. How is this natural? In the poem, one of the lines is, “. . . the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. . .” The wind, figuratively or literally, is something natural.
Another difference between the two poems is character development. In ‘Annabel Lee’, nether of the characters were very developed. The poem was quite short, and it wasn’t as sad when Annabel died because her character wasn't well developed. In ‘The Highwayman’ however, it was very sad when the characters died. (For example: lines 75 - 78, “Then her finger moved in the moonlight/her musket shattered the moonlight/shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him - with her death.” Also: Lines 88 - 90, “When they shot him down on the highway/down like a dog on the highway/and he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace as his throat”.) Bess was developed as a character and you could sort of connect with her because the author described her well. Same with the highwayman (since we don’t know his name). The author describes him and his emotions more, giving you a better understanding of the character. With ‘Annabel Lee’, the author is a lot more vague and only gives you a small amount of information, leaving your imagination to figure out what happened.
As different as the two poems are, they do have a few similarities. The major similarity is death. In both 'Annabel Lee' and 'The Highwayman,' the females died; however, only in the latter poem did the male perish as well. In addition, both males had to deal with the women’s death. They both had a hard time dealing with it, especially the highwayman. Although that might be an understatement, it’s true.
‘The Highwayman’ and ‘Annabel Lee’ are similar and different in quite a few different ways. It turns out that there are more differences than similarities, but there is a similar meaning behind each poem. The theme of both poems is this: True love lives forever.
(A/N: When reviewing this, do not be nice with your nitpicks. I want to make a hundred on this.)
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First of all these are two of my all time favorite poems so I am excited to review this!
So anyway, I will be reveiwing this as I read.
"For example, they are both depressing love stories."
Rather than saying 'depressed love stories,' i think it may be sound better to give it a little more poetic wording like 'tragic' or something like that. 'Depressed love stories' sounds rather boring.
" ‘The Highwayman’ and ‘Annabel Lee’ are very similar, yet very different."
You've repeated this twice. It would be much better if you reworded the other. Repetition is usually very tiring to a reader.
Also, instead of going straight into how these poems are similar and different, you should give a brief summary of each so that if a reader has a better understanding of what's going on.
I'm sorry this review is pretty short, but I hope it helps! Good luck!
-LittleFox
Thank you!
Hello there! I like your ideas a lot; you wrote a pretty good essay! First things first, please make your first paragraph longer, or at least put something interesting at the beginning. Why I say that is, unless your teacher told you differently, good essays have a hook to reel the reader in. I personally would advise you to integrate a quote from at least one of the two poems. Doing this catches your reader's attention, and at least shows that you read the poems!
Moving on I like your differences and I am very happy that the paragraphs are nice and long. Your ideas are well structured in those two parts. I would say though to only put the title of the poem once in each paragraph, or at least not in consecutive sentences, as you did in paragraph two:"For example, in 'The Highwayman'" and "In 'The Highwayman.'" In addition, please refrain from putting from all of the parenthesizes, and you can delete the "It could even be my fault for reading it!" That sentence kinda takes away from your overall theme. Finally, I like how you put in a quote from 'Annabel Lee,' and I recommend you put in a quote from 'The Highwayman' as well, maybe in the third paragraph giving an example of one of the characters introduced more clearly.
For your fourth paragraph, add some more sentences! This is still a body paragraph, and there needs to be more details. For example, add in some quotes to better explain how the men in the poems felt after their beloved died. "Although the boy didn't die in 'Annabel Lee,' both women died." This line is a little confusing to me. Instead of putting that, how about putting "In both 'Annabel Lee' and 'The Highwayman,' the females died; however, only in the latter poem did the male perish as well." Secondly, I would delete the line "And both of the men had to deal with it." because you repeat that sentence in the following line: "They both had a hard dealing with it, especially the highwayman." However, replace "they" with "The men." Finally, delete the line "Even though that might be an understatement, it's true." because it takes away from your essay.
Okay, last paragraph. I will repeat my previous advice: add more sentences! Always make sure you have a good, strong finish to your essay; you are not allowed to give up at the end! "Something a little cliché, but hopefully true. True love." Okay, these lines should be changed maybe to "True love is the main theme in both poems." Finally, give an explanation of why true love is the theme of both poems. If you want to, you could add another paragraph summing everything up, but as long as you have a good one or two concluding sentences you should be good, but maybe you should ask your teacher about that. If the prompt was supposed to have six paragraphs, then break your conclusion away from this paragraph, okay?
To sum it all up, I would recommend you look up synonyms for similar/similarities and different/differences to not make your essay redundant. Great start so far! I hope I helped! Thanks for writing this, and have a great day!
Love,
Perks
Thanks!
You're welcome!
I have edited it!
I saw! It looks better already! (Not that it wasn't already good!)
(My mom said otherwise, but) Thanks!