College Compare and Contrast Self-Help

I received a 100% A on this assignment, and this is really a self help for those who are writing a Compare and Contrast essay for college. These essays tend to be more difficult than others, but if you're an essay nut like myself then no essay can be a challenge. I will add that I wrote this essay in 9 hours on my last day for submission, so yeah it's an amazing grade for a last minute submission. I wrote in point-to-point format which is written usually like this...

Point-by-Point Organization in Five Paragraphs

I. Introduction: Get your reader's attention and state your purpose which is to discuss three differences between vacationing in the mountains or vacationing at the beach which are the climate, the types of activities, and the location.

II. The first difference between vacationing at the beach or in the mountains is the climate.

III. The second difference between vacationing at the beach or in the mountains is the type of activities.

IV. The third difference between vacationing at the beach or in the mountains is the location.

V. Conclusion: Summarize your ideas and leave the reader with a good impression.


The paper was in MLA format, and basically I was required to read a short piece of fiction from the text, then compare and contrast the story to a short story found online via one of the websites offered by my instructor. Below is the essay, and I will later edit this static item occasionally adding details as to what made my essay this successful. I'm proud of my grade and it was much to my surprise that my professor wants to display my essay as a rubric on the school website. Now the copy and paste feature refuses to keep my formatting as is, but I will double space this entire item so my essay appears readable.


My First and Last Name
Professor Masucci
ENC 1102
16 September 2014

Karma VS. Luck VS. Chance

Luck is a factor of who you are, karma is a factor of what you are, and chance is a factor of what you can become. “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, expresses the tale of a traditional village lottery that implies a violent murder each year. The story follows Tessie Hutchinson, the only villager protestant against the lottery as she views it as “unfair” as her family is chosen for the lottery and she is later stoned to death. “People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly. Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!”” (Jackson, The Lottery, 457). The story goes deeper into the presence of luck and chance as Tessie draws the paper with the black mark on it, and how she protests against the lottery. In the short story “Karma” written by Albert Tucher, explains female protagonist Diana who speaks about others behind their backs and soon faces their ailments as a sign of karma. Like Jackson’s protagonist, Tucher’s lives a regular life until one day, an unlucky event occurs. Diana lives her simple life day in and day out, before conversing with a friend about fellow coworkers’ problems and shortly afterward facing them herself while speaking to a client. Tessie lives a regular life until one day she is drawn as the loser for the traditional yearly lottery which enforces the death of the loser. While both of these stories differ in both tone and protagonist fate, they can be viewed as similar when taking on the perspective of the main characters and their changes of view in life, or death in the case of “The Lottery”.

In both stories the protagonists are worriless and do not have a care in the world at the present time until an unlucky event occurs. In the case of “The Lottery” Tessie Hutchinson has lived to be accepting of the lottery. Tessie has accepted the lotteries traditional ritual all of her life until finally she becomes the loser of the lottery and is stoned to death as the tradition follows. Tessie, who is a kind soul as the story portrays, is punished for no reasoning whatsoever. The protagonist in “Karma”, Diana, faces a similar fate as she speaks with her coworker Mary during a lunch break and they discuss a man nicknamed “Sneezy Ralph” and his issue with constantly sneezing. Diana finds the man’s story humorous, but as Diana is at a motel seducing one of her clients, an ironic sneezing fit comes upon her. Luck is a great benefactor in both of these stories as both of the protagonists seem to face “bad luck” over “good luck”. There is almost no possibility of changing the outcome of the story unless neither of the protagonists exist. The protagonists’ fates differ not only in how they live or die, but what really caused their fate to begin with. “The Lottery” protagonist Tessie is chosen by fate and she never thought that she would be the loser of the traditional lottery, while “Karma” protagonist Diana retrieves consequence through irony as her actions of gossiping about others that are unaware of her gossip portrays. “The Lottery” really explains unpredictable persecution and it references how some individuals are punished for little to no reason. “Karma” takes more of a stance on why individuals should not surreptitiously speak of others, and taking the idea of “do good things, good things will happen. Do bad things, bad things will happen.” Both characters struggle with their fates, but one carries on while the other is brought to the dust. Tessie finds that the tradition is unfair and irrational after her long belief while Maria finds that gossiping of others is unkind and that the superstition of karma is upon her.

Granting the women share different fates as Tessie suffers solely from luck while Diana’s fate was determined by karma, neither of their fates could have been avoided as it was all determined by chance. In “The Lottery” the protagonist Tessie is an average woman who only abides by the laws and rules. She is kind as the story shows evident, but her absence to the tradition was viewed us inappropriate as all citizens of the village appear on time besides Tessie. There was little she could do to avoid being stoned to death other than run, but that option proved improbable as she was surrounded by the several other villagers. In “Karma” Diana is sitting down with a client at a local motel after a lunch with her fellow coworker Mary, and as she is with the client they become intimate with one another. Her destiny is somewhat irrelevant to karma, however, as Mary begins to violently sneeze as they converse across from each other at a restaurant. Tessie exclaims “It isn’t fair!” before she is stoned to death, and fairness is not the only factor to her fate as mentioned before. “The idea of the scapegoat is a commonplace of the criticism expended on "The Lottery." “It is fitted within the sociological context of the archetypal fall guy or else raises questions concerning Original Sin and mankind's need to expiate sin either through personal suffering or vicariously. Clearly, the premises of "The Lottery" put Rousseau's benign sentimentality to rout; they are closely allied, in effect, with those of Curzio Malaparte's La Pelle (The Skin) because, when the chips are down, everybody wants just one thing--to save his own skin.” (Cervo, Jackson’s The Lottery) Diana is alive to see that her view has changed and to avoid bad karma by doing what is right.

Finally, there is a major irony that takes place in both “Karma” and “The Lottery”. The protagonist Diana in “Karma” begins gossiping about someone with her friend Mary and refers to him as Sneezy Ralph, due to the fact he sneezes frequently on others by mistake. It is possible that when Diana engaged in sexual activity with one of her clients that as her friend Mary began to sneeze in her direction that she became sick, leading to reacting sickly with the client. Tessie in “The Lottery” suffers a different situation that is much grimmer. As Tessie does not return on time for the traditional lottery and happens to be the only one tardy, Tessie is shocked as she removes her slip of paper from her black box, revealing that she is the loser and will be stoned to death. It is unknown that if Tessie were to make it on time to the ceremony, that the outcome of the lottery would differ. Everyone in the village had an equal chance of removing the dreaded slip of paper holding the black mark on it from their black box. The same goes with “Karma”. It is unknown that if Diana were to speak to her friend Mary without suffering being sneezed on that she would not be rejected by her client as result of her own sickness. The stories can differ in a way that irony is not an only factor, as “The Lottery” and its lottery is merely a traditional belief while “Karma” and its protagonist Diana speaks with her friend and later fails relations with a client. “What the story tells us as a work of art, amplified by sociological and anthropological perspectives, proves relevant to our current society’s policies on capital punishment. What appears to shock the reader may be the notion of the inherent unfairness of the act, since it involves the killing of an innocent victim. But beyond this, the arbitrary nature of the selection process of who is to be executed haunts us and leaves us with feelings of uneasiness” (Shields, 411). Irony is a benefactor, but can be prevented due to the reasons of probability that the outcomes can differ if the situations were to change at all.

The stories “Karma” and “The Lottery” are similar in many ways. They share the fact that both protagonists are women who face an undesired fate through luck or chance that learn different concepts of their current beliefs as “The Lottery” portrays protagonist Tessie’s realization before being stoned to death, whereas “Karma” protagonist Diana engages in sexual relations with her clientele and suffers a sneezing fit leading her client to disengage the session. Both women are unable to avoid the consequences as they are simply decided by fate, choice, luck, and even karma. It is debatable whether or not the outcome of these characters would have changed if even one of their actions was different. Irony was a serious benefactor in the stories “Karma” as well as “The Lottery”. And that is why the two stories can be viewed as similar when taking on the perspective of the main characters and their changes of view in life or death.

Works Cited
Cervo, Nathan. "Jackson’s The Lottery”. Rev. of The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. Explicator. Web.
Jacskon, Shirley. “The Lottery”. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 8th ed. Eds. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R Mandell. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014. 456 - 462. Print.
Tucher, Albert. Karma. Spine Tingler Magazine, 1 September 2014. Web.
Shields, J. Patrick. Arbitrary condemnation and sanctioned violence in shirley jackson's "the lottery"”. Rev. of The Lottery by Jackson, Shirley. Contemporary Justice Review 14 December 2004: 411 – 419. Web.