Begin with a question, not a theme

Paper 2 asks you to answer one of four general questions through two studied works. Plan an argument that answers your chosen question. Don’t simply collect everything you remember about a theme the works share.

Break the question down: what is its central concern, what does it ask you to do, and which words qualify its scope? A question about how authority is presented calls for attention to literary construction. If it asks about the insecurity of authority, examples of powerful characters won’t be enough.

Take this invented question: How do writers portray the insecurity of authority in two works you have studied? William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (c. 1606) and George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) make a useful pairing. Both connect power with violence and manipulation. Their endings, though, invite different conclusions about whether oppressive authority can be displaced.

Make the main claim comparative

A thesis answers the question; the essay develops that answer. Rather than announcing that the works contain similarities and differences, identify a meaningful relationship between them.

For this pairing, you could argue: Both writers expose coercion as a response to insecure authority, but Shakespeare stages the ruler’s psychological disintegration, whereas Orwell shows how institutions can absorb and conceal the violence that sustains a regime.

Each work now has a distinct role in the argument. There’s room to qualify the claim, too: Macbeth uses political strategies as well as violence, and Napoleon’s rule does face resistance before becoming entrenched.

Give each point a job

Build the body around comparative claims. ‘Violence’ names a topic and points you towards material. ‘Violence replaces consent when rulers cannot secure legitimacy’ starts an argument.

The sequence below begins with the problem of legitimacy, then examines how power is exercised before turning to the implications of the endings. Each point takes the answer further instead of starting it again.

No set number of points or compulsory paragraph pattern applies. This sequence works because the claims build towards a judgment about the endings—not because every essay needs three body sections.

Build comparison into the reasoning

Within a comparative point, work through shared claim → evidence and analysis from one work → comparative connection → evidence and analysis from the other work → judgment about the question. The diagram traces that reasoning. It isn’t a rigid sentence formula.

A comparative connection needs to explain a relationship. ‘Similarly, Orwell uses violence’ tells the reader little. ‘Where Macbeth’s violence increasingly exposes his inability to govern himself, Napoleon’s organized punishment strengthens the machinery through which he governs others’ makes the difference interpretively useful.

Don’t write a complete miniature essay on each work and tack a comparison onto the end. Criterion B2 rewards comparative analysis in its own right; Criterion C values a focused, logically connected and balanced argument. Give both works substantial analytical attention. Balance doesn’t require paragraphs of exactly the same length.

To turn a topic list into a plan, rewrite each heading as a claim about both works. Then order the claims so that each advances or qualifies the answer established by the one before it.

Select works that can answer the whole question

The works with the most obvious shared theme won’t necessarily make the strongest pair. Look for precise evidence and significant authorial choices, then ask whether the relationship between the works is worth investigating through the question’s particular focus.

The guide recommends preparing three possible works to keep your choice of pairings manageable. You cannot reuse works from the individual oral or the HL essay for Paper 2. For eligible works, use the learner portfolio to record thematic or issue-based connections and differences in literary form, alongside links to the course’s areas of exploration and central concepts. Compare successive practice essays, too. They can show which pairings sustain analysis and which lead you back into description.

For the invented authority question, Macbeth and Animal Farm make a useful pair because their differences give you something to investigate. Through speech and stage action, Shakespeare’s drama exposes the gap between public behaviour and private experience. Orwell’s prose fable lets the reader track changes in collective memory and political language, as well as the organization of the farm.

Select evidence for an analytical purpose

You write Paper 2 without access to the works. Detailed references are expected; quotations are not required. You can support close analysis without reproducing the wording if you give a precise account of an action, a structural change or a recurring pattern.

Ask what each piece of material lets you explain:

• Relevance: the detail addresses the exact claim, rather than just the general theme.
• Precision: you can identify what happens or what the writer constructs without relying on vague recollection.
• Analytical value: the detail helps you explain how a choice shapes meaning.
• Comparative value: it creates a significant connection or distinction with the other work.

At Macbeth’s banquet, Macbeth can see Banquo’s ghost, but the guests cannot. That selective visibility lets his private terror disrupt a public ceremony. The audience can connect his collapsing performance as king with the violence concealed beneath it. This gives you more to analyse than a retelling of the entire banquet scene.

In Animal Farm, the confessions and executions bring punishment into public view. Set beside the banquet, they reveal a distinction: one authority exposes its own instability, while the other organizes fear into a means of control. Events don’t have to look alike to support a strong comparison.

Put evidence where it does the most work

Give each detail a primary job in the argument. The placement diagram groups the selected material under Public performance, Coercion and Endings. The banquet and Squealer’s explanations establish the problem of perception. Macbeth’s escalating attacks and Napoleon’s executions develop the use of force, while Macbeth’s defeat and the pigs’ resemblance to humans support the final judgment.

One detail may support several claims. Repeating the same analysis, though, does not develop the essay. If you return to the banquet later, give it a different role—for example, move from examining failed public performance to showing the psychological consequences of violence.

Keep plot information subordinate to interpretation. Give just enough of the event to make the reference intelligible, then explain the authorial choice and why it matters. Use context where it clarifies that significance, not in a detached introductory history paragraph.

Match the scale of evidence to the claim

A closely examined scene can support a claim about a single moment. For a claim about the whole work, you need evidence of development, recurrence or structure. If you argue that Macbeth’s violence escalates, trace how his attacks change. One killing cannot prove an entire trajectory.

Criterion B1 allows analysis of textual features, broader authorial choices, or both. There’s no quota of devices to meet. Nor does comparative depth depend on equal numbers of similarities and differences. Choose the authorial choices and relationships that best explain the works under this question.

To finish the plan, attach a precise reference and an analytical purpose to every comparative claim. Cut material that merely displays knowledge. Give the conclusion a final task: explain what the comparison establishes about the question instead of repeating the evidence.