IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature – Paper 2: The Comparative Essay Study Guide

This study guide teaches the Paper 2 comparative essay for IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature, at SL and HL. It draws on two of the course’s three areas of exploration, Intertextuality: connecting texts and Time and space, because Paper 2 asks you to connect two literary works and to read each in its context. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021). The task is the same at both levels; only its weighting differs.

Use it with the Paper 2 revision notes and the Paper 2 practice questions. Course links: Literature course hub · printable checklist.

The exam preparation guide and the assessment revision notes cover the whole assessment model. The Intertextuality study guide explains echo, response and subversion. This page focuses on writing the essay itself.

What this unit covers

Area	What you must be able to do	SL/HL
Paper 2 format	Know what the paper asks for, how long it lasts and what it is worth	SL and HL (weighting differs)
Answering the question set	Sort the question, find its key terms and test which pair of works fits	SL and HL
Thesis	Write one arguable claim that answers the question and compares both works	SL and HL
Integrated comparison	Discuss both works inside every body paragraph, comparing methods	SL and HL
Remembered quotation	Recall short quotations and precise references accurately and embed them	SL and HL
Time and space	Use each work’s context to explain a difference between them	SL and HL

What Paper 2 is

The subject brief describes Paper 2 as a comparative essay based on two literary works, written in response to a choice of one out of four questions.

Fact from the subject brief	SL	HL
Time	1.75 hours (1 hour 45 minutes)	1.75 hours (1 hour 45 minutes)
Weighting of final grade	35%	25%
Basis of the essay	two literary works	two literary works

You choose the question and the two works, so have more than two works ready. And two good separate discussions do not do a comparative task. Prepare to write from memory; your teacher will confirm the exam rules and which of your studied works you may use for Paper 2.

The worked examples on this page use two public-domain works: Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (novella, 1886), and Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (novel, magazine version 1890, book edition 1891). Both show a respectable London gentleman living a hidden second life. Swap in your own works; the method is the same.

Answering the question set

Sort the question

A practical way to read the four questions (this is a study habit, not an IB classification) is to ask what each one is mainly about:

• A human concern: guilt, ambition, secrecy, freedom, family.
• A feature of craft: setting, narrative voice, a minor character, an ending, a symbol.
• Readers and contexts: how a work reflects or challenges its time, or how readers respond.

Many questions mix two. Craft questions suit well-prepared works, because analysis of method is the answer.

Unpack it in three steps

Take this original question written for Marlbridge: “How, and to what effect, do two works you have studied use a particular place to reveal what characters try to hide?”

1. Key terms: “a particular place”, “reveal”, “try to hide”. Every paragraph must touch at least one.
2. Double demand: “how” (methods) and “to what effect” (what the methods do to our understanding). An essay that only lists places answers half the question.
3. Fit test: name one precise moment from each work before you commit. Stevenson: the windowless building with one door on a London by-street, which turns out to be the back of Jekyll’s house. Wilde: the old schoolroom at the top of Dorian’s house, where he locks the portrait under a purple satin coverlet. If you can find three comparable moments like this, the pair fits.

Choose the pair, not the favourite

Sketch a quick grid: works down the side, the question’s key terms across the top, one moment in each cell. The pair with the fullest cells wins, even if it is not your favourite pair.

Building the thesis

A Paper 2 thesis does four things: it answers the question in the question’s own terms, names both works, states what they share, and states how they differ in method or effect.

• Weak: “Both novels are about hidden lives in Victorian London.” (topic, no claim, no question terms)
• Better: “Both writers use a locked room to show what their characters hide.” (claim, no difference)
• Strong: “Stevenson and Wilde both use a locked room to hold the self their gentlemen cannot show in public, but Stevenson’s room has a door onto the street, so the hidden self escapes and harms others, while Wilde seals his room at the top of the house, so the hidden self becomes a record that Dorian must finally face alone.”

Test your thesis with four checks. Does it use the question’s key terms? Does it contain a “but”, “while” or “whereas”? Does it say to what effect? Could a reasonable reader disagree with it? If the answer to any check is no, rewrite before you start the introduction.

The introduction and the final paragraph

Introduction (4–5 sentences): say what the key term means for this essay (“place” here means a building or room the writer describes closely); identify each work with its author, form and date; give the thesis; preview the points in order. No biography, no plot summary.

Final paragraph: answer the question directly in one sentence, then return to the most significant difference and say what it shows about the two works together. Do not add new evidence, and do not simply repeat the introduction.

Integrated comparison

Integration means each body paragraph works on one point and uses both works to develop it. The comparison sits inside the paragraph, not in a separate section at the end.

Three levels of integration

1. Alternating: a sentence on Work A, then a sentence on Work B. Better than blocks, but it can read like a list.
2. Hinged: a comparative topic sentence, evidence from each work, then a sentence that states what the difference shows.
3. Analytical: one technique examined across both works at once, such as how each writer uses a door, a mirror or a narrator to control what the reader sees.

Aim for level 2 in every paragraph and level 3 where you can.

Model paragraph (original writing for Marlbridge)

Both writers hide the secret self inside a house, but Stevenson lets the hiding place face the street while Wilde locks it deep inside a private home. Stevenson’s opening chapter lingers on “a certain sinister block of building” with no window and a single door; only later do we learn it is the back of Jekyll’s respectable house, so the monstrous and the respectable share one structure. Wilde, by contrast, has Dorian lock the portrait in the old schoolroom at the top of his house, under a purple satin coverlet. The choice of a childhood room is pointed: the record of Dorian’s corruption is stored where his innocence once was. The difference changes where the danger falls. Stevenson’s door opens onto a London by-street, and the first story we hear is of Hyde, who “trampled calmly” over a child; the hidden self spills into the city. Wilde’s room turns the damage inward, onto the canvas, which by the end “had been like conscience to him”. Both houses show a divided life, but Stevenson’s threatens others first, while Wilde’s threatens its owner.

The topic sentence already compares, each work gets precise evidence, and the connectives introduce analysis rather than a switch of text.

Remembered quotation

Plan to write from memory (your teacher will confirm the rules), so evidence has to be learned. Short, exact quotations are worth more than long, shaky ones.

Build a quotation bank by concern

Group quotations under the concerns and features you expect questions on, so that one cluster serves several questions.

Cluster	Jekyll and Hyde	The Picture of Dorian Gray	Method to name
The divided self	“man is not truly one, but truly two”	“the most magical of mirrors”	aphorism; symbol
Release of the hidden self	“My devil had been long caged”	“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”	metaphor; epigram
Place and concealment	“a certain sinister block of building”	the old schoolroom, the purple satin coverlet (reference)	setting as symbol
Violence against the innocent	“trampled calmly”	Basil killed in the room with the portrait (reference)	understatement; placement
Endings	“I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end”	“withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage”	first-person confession; reversal

How to learn them

1. Keep each quotation between three and ten words where you can.
2. Learn where it comes from (whose voice, which chapter or stage of the plot) and one technique in it. A quotation without a comment is decoration.
3. Test by retrieval: cover the bank, write the cluster from memory, check every word, repeat after a few days.
4. If you are unsure of the exact words on the day, paraphrase precisely without quotation marks. “Near the end, Dorian decides that the portrait is the last piece of evidence against him” is sound evidence. A misquotation in quotation marks is not.

Embed, don’t drop

• Dropped: Jekyll is divided. “man is not truly one, but truly two”. This shows duality.
• Embedded: Jekyll’s statement turns his experiment into a general law, claiming that “man is not truly one, but truly two”, so his private failure is presented as everyone’s condition.

The embedded version fits the grammar of the sentence, says who speaks, and analyses the effect.

Time and space in the comparison

Context earns its place when it explains a difference between the works. Two examples:

• Stevenson’s story reaches us through a lawyer, Utterson, and through documents: Lanyon’s narrative and Jekyll’s full statement. For a novella of the 1880s about a professional class that valued reputation, the form is itself an investigation, and the truth arrives as written evidence.
• Wilde’s novel was attacked by some reviewers as immoral when it first appeared in a magazine in 1890. The 1891 book added a Preface of short statements ending “All art is quite useless”. Set beside Stevenson’s investigation, this shows two different answers to readers of the same period: Stevenson gives them a case to solve, Wilde refuses to hand them a moral.

A readers-today point also counts: a modern reader may see Jekyll’s two selves less as good and evil than as a public role and a private life. One such sentence, tied to a method, is enough.

Common errors

• Answering a prepared question. A memorised essay on “duality” bent to fit a question about place.
• One key term dropped. Writing about “hide” and forgetting “reveal”, or “how” without “effect”.
• Uneven evidence. Exact quotations from one work, vague summary of the other.
• Comparison only at the joins. “Similarly” at the start of the paragraph, then two separate discussions.
• Misquoting. Changing words, or merging two quotations into one. Paraphrase instead.
• Context as decoration. Dates and biography that explain nothing about method.
• A summary conclusion. Repeating points instead of answering the question.

Where to go next

Condense this into recall with the revision notes, then test yourself with the practice questions. For background, see the Readers, writers and texts guide, the syllabus guide and the subject guide.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019). The questions, theses and model paragraph above are original writing for Marlbridge; quotations are from public-domain editions of Stevenson (1886) and Wilde (1891).