Compare the reasons why you found the exploration of the same theme or issue through understanding what influences or motivates one central character, from 3 texts on your comparative course, when making one or more key decisions. Develop your response with reference to your chosen texts. The insight or insights you gain into the same theme or issue from different texts may be similar or different.

This essay is likely to score H4. It’s excellent in terms of Clarity of purpose, but it has significant issues in terms of coherence and language. I’ve spent a good hour explaining the mistakes here in-text – hopefully you can avoid them in the real exam after seeing them here. Essay credit: Evan Kelly. You may also like: Guide to All Comparative Texts for Leaving Cert.

In my study of the comparative course for my Leaving Cert, I analysed three different texts, the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (TSR) by Frank Darabont, the novel ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ (WCS) by Delia Owens and lastly the play ‘The Crucible’ (TC) by Arthur Miller. In my study (remove – repetitive) I have gained many insights on the theme of justice through understanding what motivates the central characters from the texts. I believe these characters create a window to the worlds in which they are set which allows us to easily gain an informative insight of the theme of justice. I will discuss each main character’s introduction to the theme and how it creates a solid starting point, while also drawing a contrast between TSR to TC & WCS. I will continue by showing how each individual’s resolution of the theme forms a final insight allowing us to grasp a full picture of the theme of justice. (Feels like it’s missing a middle part)

In our introduction to the theme of justice there is a stark contrast of how our main characters are influenced or motivated by their relationship between them and justice and this paints an elaborate image to further understand the theme in question (Unclear and wordy. Something like this is better: “In our exploration of the theme of justice, a stark contrast emerges in how the main characters are influenced or motivated by their connection to the concept of justice, painting a vivid picture that enhances our understanding of the theme.”).

In TSR, we are regarding the theme of justice as Andy is charged to serve ‘two life-sentences, back-to-back, one for each of his victims’ as he is portrayed as ‘icy’ and ‘remorseless’ by the prosecutor. However, when Andy reaches prison we view justice influencing him as he wishes to prove himself innocent (not sure what justice means here, his sentence by the court?). This act of Andy motivated to be proven innocent makes us question the process of justice carried out by the courts and gain an insight on possible injustice of the system. (Try, “The motivation behind Andy’s endeavour to prove his innocence prompts us to scrutinise the judicial process and gain insights into potential systemic injustices.” You get the idea. I think it would be valuable to any essay featuring “The Shawshank Redemption” to mention that the question of whether Andy Dufresne committed the crime for which he was convicted is intentionally left ambiguous). This heavily contrasts the other two texts as we witness the main characters John Proctor and Kya give up on a corrupt system and show that they are heavily (remove – repetitive) motivated by personal justice instead. In TC, this is seen when Parris arrives at the Proctor’s door with a warrant to arrest Elizabeth for the possession of a supposed poppet. In John’s protest he is quickly shot down stating that Judge Danforth has arrested mainly people in relation to these accusations ‘there be 14 in the jail now’. This simple act of injustice influences John to act, to go to court and try and get Abigail convicted. (It’s worth explaining why getting Abigail convicted would be an act of justice, e.g. “In John Proctor’s perspective, exposing Abigail’s lies is not just about seeking personal justice for himself and his wife but is also an effort to stop the spread of falsehoods and the abuse of power within the legal system.”)

Similarly, Kya participates in a similar (remove – repetitive) activity as we witness her fighting off Chase as he forces himself on her, she ‘finds strength from somewhere primal’. These texts are extremely similar (alike) as we witness the central characters are motivated to defend themselves against the obvious injustice they are facing. This forms an obvious insight into the world of the texts regarding justice, as we begin to develop an idea of the injustice served in both worlds, related to false arrest and taking justice into their own hands. (I don’t especially agree with this interpretation, but that’s not important as it is allowed to be subjective. These are nice direct comparisons, well done to the author of the essay.)

Through the development of the plot, we view a turn in the characters’ influence and a similarity is created between TSR & TC while WCS withholds a unique way in which Kya is motivated. In TSR, we view the sexual assault of Andy by the Sisters, however a form of justice is served through vengeance as the guards beat the perpetrator until he can’t walk again. ‘Two things never happened again after that, the Sisters never laid a finger on Andy again and Bogs never walked again.’

(Check over punctuation in quotations. In TSR, we view the sexual assault of Andy by the Sisters, however a form of justice is served through vengeance as the guards beat the perpetrator until he can’t walk again, ‘Two things never happened again after that, the Sisters never laid a finger on Andy again and Bogs never walked again.’ Also, to get the maximum results for your effort, you can generally quote a lot less in a Comparative essay than in poetry/single text. I’ve seen essays with one quote per text. If they are already learnt, keep them by all means, it adds sophistication to your essay.) 

This act of revenge influences Andy into taking the matter of his case into his own hands and to take charge himself rather than relying on anyone else. This is similar to TC where we witness John Proctor confess his crimes to Judge Danforth in an effort to get Abigail arrested, ‘I have known her Sir’. He was motivated to carry out revenge to spearhead his own defence, similar to Andy to allow justice to take place ’God help me. I lusted and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance.’ These two texts and their key character’s motivation and influence creates a vivid insight into the theme of justice as it shows the act of personal development and how Andy & John must take justice into their own hands as the system they are within is failing them. WCS is perpendicular to these moments, as it’s shown that the Sheriff and the justice system didn’t fail and carried out their due process as they discovered ‘A perfect match’ between threads on Chase’s body and from Kya’s hat. (Well made point, but it’s worth pointing out that it both failed in its treatment of Kya through discrimination and the investigation didn’t find the murderer.) This influences Kya to hide from those seeking justice and to avoid it after taking her own vengeance and she is arrested ‘like grey sharks they massed around her’. This contrasts the previous texts as the justice system is actually carrying out the correct processes which influences Kya to flee after her attack, this elaborates the theme of justice as we understand that with a functional system of justice, revenge is unnecessary. (You have to explain this further.)

Finally, in the resolution of the theme, the same similarity (rephrase: a similar pattern emerges or a similarity can be drawn. Same similarity doesn’t make sense.) can be drawn between TSR & TC while WCS remains an avid outlier. This is shown through the main individuals either taking motivation from the injustice they’ve faced and taking justice into their own hands or hiding their true nature. In TSR, Andy escapes from prison after digging a hole in his cell for the duration of his time in prison ‘Andy Dufresne … Who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side’. This proves Andy’s entire motivation and influence was to seek justice through personal means as he was aware of the system failing which is parallel to John Proctor’s conclusion in TC. Proctor was condemned to hang if he didn’t sign his name to a testimony swearing of the things he supposedly did but he refused ‘because it is my name, because I cannot have another in my life’. In his final moments, he chose to hang, taking vengeance and justice into his own hands rather than prison, and allow a further injustice to develop. This presents the true influence for John Proctor, that he would rather die a justified man than live and continue the corrupt cycle of his ecosystem. These two texts show us an insight of the peak of justice through the motivation of key characters, that in a world of injustice, individuals may need to take a stand to confront these actions and make a statement. (Again, this is open to interpretation, but the points are well made.) This statement isn’t made however in WCS as Kya is freed from the court and goes on to live a happy life, but she unfortunately died. It is discovered by Tate that she did in fact murder Chase and that she hid her action (rephrase) of personal injustice and to not confront the corrupt nature of a society run by the rich and allowing Chase to get away with what he did. (Try to not use “and” more than once in a given sentence). To protect her, Tate hid the evidence as he threw the shell into the sand to ‘keep her secrets deep’. This contrasts the other texts as rather than confronting the corruption Kya was motivated to take justice into her own hands but not create a long-lasting charge, these insights allow us to understand that corruption can last long, and injustice can run deep if no drastic measure is taken. (The author of this essay seems to make a lot of assumptions that they don’t state. For example, they seem to assume that Kya was legitimate in murdering Chase, that Andy is indeed innocent and that John Proctor achieves a kind of victory by hanging rather than going to prison. These may all be fair, but they cannot be taken for granted and have to be explained. As in perhaps the author believes that in Kya’s case, revenge may have been her only option because the legal system would never find Chase guilty, etc.)

To conclude, I believe throughout the study of these three texts, I gained valuable insights into the theme of justice through understanding what motivated or influenced key characters as they made key decisions in the introduction, development and resolution of the theme of justice. I think that overall a similarity can be ultimately made between TC & TSR, as Andy & John fight to confront their injustice creating and interesting insight on the justice system while Kya within WCS shows motivation to survive which creates an insight on the failure of a system to provide justice.