Text 1- The Butcher's Shop

Text 1- The Butcher's Shop

1. Contexts of production

   • The writer is expressing her views about eating meat and horrors of her childhood
   • Political comment suggesting to put people off eating meat, while not overtly promoting vergetarianism
   • Set around the 'cuteness' of butcher's shops int he 1950s and 60s

2. Audience is taken from a childs story book, but it seems innapropriate for that age group due to the graphic imagery.

3. Form and Structure

   • One stanza written in free verse
   • Use the second person prnoun of 'your'

4. Word Choice

   • Lanugage from a lexical field of politics- suggests a sense of corruption from an early age
   • Graphical language has been used to shock the audience such as 'soggy paper parcel bleeds'
   • Realistic but shocking descriptions of the butchers shops
   • Enjambment used to give extra details, shows her commenting on society, she has a strong opinoin
   • Meat Lexical Field

5. Imagery and Symbolism

   • Stiff as Sunday Manners reflects the 'old 'fashioned' time period
   • 'The butcher smiles a meaty smile' the fact that he is meaty suggests he is turning into an animal himself
   • 'Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes', turns the humans in the shop into animals, as they are now in the sawdust
   • Juxtaposing image, as they are separated by plastic hedges- no longer in fields surrounded by hedges. Very graphic and powerful