Student Writing Samples

Questions to consider... • Is the paragraph focused on one topic (a similarity or difference)? • Does the writer use supporting details to elaborate on the topic? • Does the writer directly draw comparisons between both stories?

1. There are many similarities between the two Greek stories, “Daedalus” and “The Great Musician.” One of the most relevant similarities between these two stories is the idea of trust and obedience. In “Daedalus,” the title character warns his son not to fly too close to the sun, for his man-made wings would melt. In “The Great Musician,” Orpheus travels to the Underworld to find his dead lover. The gods tell Orpheus that his love will come back if he returns to the surface of the earth, that she will follow him but he can never look back at her. In both of these stories, characters fail in what they are trying to accomplish. Icarus, Daedalus’ son, does in fact fly into the sun and then falls down to the sea, just as he had been warned. Similarly, Orpheus looks back, needing to see his wife who he has not heard walking behind him. It is revealed that she is a ghost behind him, but because he did not listen to the gods, he will not get to be with her until the afterlife. Both characters get sidetracked and don’t trust what other had told them. Both characters also disobeyed what they had been told not to do, and that leads to their peril.

2. In the stories “Pyramus and Thisbe” and “Baucis and Philemon,” both are love stories that end with death. But the differences between both stories is that in “Pyramus and Thisbe” is that they are young lovers and in “Baucis and Philemon” they are old. Another difference is that in “Pyramus and Thisbe” there are family members who don’t like each other. In the story of “Baucis and Philemon” they wanted to live until they both died and in “Pyramus and Thisbe” they died at a young age because they weren’t together that often. So that is the similarities and differences of both stories. Teacher Sample: Comparing and Contrasting for LOVE

! Greek myths explore many topics in life. These stories show the human experiences of life, love, loss, and even death. The two stories, “The Lover of Beauty” and “The Great Musician,” both portray different aspects of love, one showing anguish and one showing glory. In comparing the two, the reader notices a similar theme of the power of love to control and isolate. While both of these ancient Greek tales are love stories, the types of love portrayed differ greatly. The first story, “The Lover of Beauty,” depicts a love based on pure admiration, adoration, and faithfulness. Pygmalion, the artist, created a sculpture of a woman that is described as “his ideal in every way” (111). Just as he admired his beautiful sculpture, he also adored Aphrodite and always gave “every honor that was due to her” and even lived his whole life “in worship of the goddess” (112). As a reward for the purity of his love and the faithfulness he showed toward Aphrodite, she turns his sculpture into a human so that they can be together forever. Here, love is literally a life-giving force. The story of “The Great Musician,” on the other hand, shows that faithfulness does not always pay off and that love can lead to anguish. In “The Great Musician,” Orpheus’s lover, Eurydice, was bitten by a snake on her wedding day and died as a result. Unable to live without her, he went into the underworld to plead with Hades to let her return. Orpheus’s love, depicted through his great sorrow and melancholy music, was powerful enough to convince Hades, who was “was touched by the love and longing of the music” (107). His return to the world of the living was marked by “toil” and “despair,” as he did not know if her ghost was following. Ultimately, he did lose Eurydice -- proof that love, no matter how fierce, cannot overcome death. Noting the differences between these two stories is a reminder that while “love” is one word, it can represent wildly different experiences. Despite the marked difference in the outcomes of these two stories, the power of love to control a person is evident in both. Each story depicts a man driven by one singular desire -- to see the face of the woman he loves -- and each shows the men shunning all others until that can happen. For Pygmalion, his obsessive search for beauty caused him to “work over his statues morning to night...always in search of a loveliness beyond his powers of expression” (111). Despite the lovely maidens who would come to admire him, he found them “trivial,” “noisy,” and “ugly.” Instead of loving the girls around him, he fell in love with his own sculpture -- the figure who embodied his ideal of beauty; however, even then he did not find satisfaction. Now, he was lost in his love for her, for hours, then days. Eventually, “[h]e became pale and exhausted; his dreams wore him out” (112). Similarly, Orpheus’s love for Eurydice had such control over him that it even lead to his death. After losing Eurydice, he was lost, as well. Not wanting to live without her, he sat listlessly on the banks of the Styx for a full week, unable to sing or play. Eventually, he stumbled back up to the world, but he was unable to escape his love for Eurydice and it isolated him: “Men and women he could bare no longer, and when they came to hear him, he drove them away.” (110). It was this isolation and “contempt” that drove the women of Thrace to mob and kill him. Ultimately, both stories end on a happy note: Pygmalion’s sculpture comes to life and Orpheus finds Eurydice in the underworld. Despite the hopeful endings, love’s dark, controlling nature plays a large role in both of these tales.