The Web

Summary of The Web: A prostitute argues with her pimp about her serious illness and her baby in their New York apartment. A neighbor storms in and comes to the woman’s rescue. He turns out to be a criminal in hiding. He is shot in the hallway, and the prostitute ends up with the blame.

 

"It’s easy to say: “Why don’t I beat it?” I can’t. I never have enough coin to make a good break and git out of town. He takes it all away from me. And if I went to some other part of this burg he’d find me and kill me. Even if he didn’t kill me he’d have me pinched and where’ud the kid be then? [grimly] Oh, he’s got me where he wants me all right. He squares it with the cops so they don’t hold me up for walkin’ the streets. Yuh ought to be wise enough to know all of his kind stand in. But if he tipped them off to do it they’d pinch me before I’d gone a block. Then it’ud be the Island fur mine. [scornfully] D’yuh suppose they’d keep me any place if they knew what I was? And d’yuh suppose he wouldn’t tell them or have someone else tell them? Yuh don’t know the game I’m up against."

- The Web, Eugene O'Niell

 

This dramatic monologue, written by Eugene O’Neill, is spoken from the point of view of Rose Thomas, a prostitute, and because of this it has been written in the first person. To emphasize the speaker's sociolect, O’Neill uses colloquial language, high-frequency lexis (‘good’, ‘takes’, ‘place’) and slang words and phrases such as 'beat it', 'burg' and 'have me pinched'. These techniques convey her low social standing within the community she lives. The use of non-standard spellings like 'git' rather than get, ‘yuh’ rather than you, and 'where'ud' rather than where'd also help in crafting a regional dialect which suggests she is living in a more deprived area. These language techniques are very important for a spoken piece such as this, as they direct the speaker as to how it should be performed and they can inform the audience of the persona's place in society, where the scene is set (or indeed where the speaker is supposed to be from), and how comfortable the character is.

   Rose seems hopeless in this text, and we see this with O'Neill's use of the rhetorical question 'where'ud the kid be then?' She believes that even if she attempted leaving her dreadful life, there would be dire consequences for either her or her baby.

   None of the sentences within the monologue are complex, and this is used both to get across her frustration – she is at breaking point – and to imply a lack of intellectuality. O’Neill wants us to empathize with the persona, and not judge Rose because of her profession – a profession that she may well have been forced into.

   The writer never uses the pimps name, instead he uses the pronoun ‘he’ several times throughout the text. This lack of identity is intimidating and also shows the hatred she harbours towards him. She loathes and fears him so much she cannot even say his name aloud. O'Neill uses another personal pronoun 'you' to make the auience feel guilty for the way they may have previously thought of prostitutes. The synethic personalisation created makes them feel as though perhaps they could have helped her free herself, and they chose to ignore her. The persona says herself 'It’s easy to say: “Why don’t I beat it?”', but if she is not helped by 'you' the audience, she 'can't'. 

  O’Neill uses the noun ‘game’ in order to create a metaphor about Rose’s situation, showing her belief that her life can end in only one of two ways: she will win, or she will lose. And with the tone created by the final sentence ‘Yuh don’t know the game I’m up against,’ it seems clear that currently losing seems inevitable.  We can also see this in the stage directions ‘[grimly]’ and ‘[scornfully]’ – these adjectives are extremely negative, and that is no surprise considering her lot in life.

Blog Style Model Commentary

“Hi everyone,

I recently came across this question in the MichellePhan.com forum: how can I cover my freckles? According to SheKnows, a freckle is a heavy deposit of melanin in one particular spot on the skin – the cells that produce melanin are triggered by sunlight.  However, freckles are also genetic; people with light skin have less melanin, which causes them to freckle instead of tan.  As my subbies have explained here, some people have freckles year-round, while for some, freckles only emerge during sun exposure.  Some people say one DIY way to fade freckles is with lemon juice – lemons have skin-brightening properties that may be able to fade the look of freckles over time.

I personally think freckles are a unique and beautiful trait that you should be proud of! But if you insist on having a bit more coverage, try these steps…

1. Begin with a cream concealer. If you have dark freckles, dab a bit of concealer over them; use concealer 2-3 shades lighter than you skin tone for best coverage. Dab gently with your fingertips and don’t worry about blending all the way – the foundation will even it out.
2. Choose the right foundation. For an even, natural finish, I recommend using a damp sponge to apply a powder formula, then finish off with a brush of loose powder.  The key here is to remember that you are not trying to cover every single last freckle – doing so will make your make-up look caked on and unnatural.  

3. Apply make-up that highlights other features. If you’d like to draw attention away from your freckles, try exemplifying your best features—if you want your eyes to shine, try a dramatic eye shadow look; if you want a pop of color, try a bold lip.

Make sure you are always wearing SPF, whether or not you have freckles! And no matter what you do, remember that you will always look your best when you’re comfortable in your own skin. Instead of covering up your freckles, why not celebrate them? :)

Would you cover up your freckles? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

<3 Mish”

- Michelle Phan's Beauty Blog, http://michellephan.com/blog/post/ask-michelle-how-can-i-cover-freckles

Michelle Phan uses direct address in her blog to create synthetic personalisation between herself and her 'subbies', so that the audience feel comfortable reading her beauty advice and taking it into consideration. If they trust her, they will come back and keep trying out her different tips. To help build this relationship between herself and her readers, Phan also uses semi-informal language and contractions such as 'don't' and 'you're'. As well as this, she coins the word 'subbies', short for subscribers. This coining has a similar effect as celebrities naming their fan-base – it creates a feeling of identification and belonging between readers, so that they feel they are a special part of something big, like a team. This sense of inclusion is also felt when she asks readers to 'Share [their] thoughts in the comments below'.

At the beginning of this blog post, Michelle Phan addresses 'everyone'. As with the direct address and coined word, this helps to build a relationship between not only her a her readers, but also between readers. It helps to provide a sense of community within the website.

Because this is an online blog, Phan is able to use web links to endorse other pages on her site. This creates more traffic for her blog, and allows readers to navigate easily around the blog, finding the information they want quickly.

Phan's blog is centred around giving make-up and beauty advise to young girls, and for ease of reading she consistently numbers or bullet points her step by step guides. The clearly numbered steps on this particular page makes it easy for readers to dive in and out or refer back to a particular step while applying or choosing make-up.

The blog is signed off by '<3 Mish', adding yet another layer of intimacy with both the use of a nickname and non-standard punctuation in the form of an emoticon heart '<3'. This is replicated with the use of a smiling emoticon after the rhetorical question 'Why not celebrate them?' while the question is there to create discussion between her subscribers and perhaps even make them feel guilty for wanting to rid themselves of their freckles, the smiling face makes it seem warm, friendly and caring. There is a sense that Phan is asking because she cares and really does think freckles are 'beautiful'.

Within the post, Michelle uses facts to gain her readers' trust and respect. Her use of scientific vocabulary like 'melanin', 'genetic' and 'heavy deposit', make her sound knowledgeable about freckle and their cause, and so make readers more likely to read on and looked at her tips for covering them. This low-frequency vocabulary is maintained throughout the post, with words like 'exemplifying', though Phan mixes it with high-frequency, so as not to intimidate readers or alienate potential subscribers to her YouTube channel.

The use of exclamation marks within the blog go a long way in making Phan seem excited and enthusiastic about her work with make-up and make-up lovers, and make the post seem fun as well as mildly educational.

Often, Phan also uses dashes instead of colons, as with 'try exemplifying your best features – if you...' This choice of punctuation makes the post seem more casual and snappy. The use of a colon may have made the blog seem too formal for the target audience of young teenage girls interested in broadening their knowledge of make-up.

Her use of ellipses after 'try these steps...' shows her reluctance to tell her readers how to cover up freckles, which she describes with the positive adjectives 'unique and beautiful'. She also uses a variety of sentence types in order to keep the blog post flowing and sounding as though it were a spoken piece, so that readers feel they are conversing with her.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

“Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.” - Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World

This poem by Adam Zagajewski is about finding beauty in a world that isn't always beautiful. It has been written in the first person plural and with reference to previous shared events ('Return in thought to the concert where music flared'), so that 'we' are as much a part of the text as the voice is. This creates the synthetic personalisation that is needed when looking at a text so full of emotion.

   Throughout the poem the tone changes from hopeful, to demanding, to authoritative and we see this in the slight changes in the repetition of 'praise the mutilated world.' First we are asked to 'Try,' and then later we are told we 'must,' and then in an almost relenting way we are told we 'should' praise the mutilated world.
   Though at first the poem might seem grave or solemn, the negatives are brought back to neutrality, even optimism, by the contrasting positives. Where Zagajewski uses the verb 'vanishes' he counteracts it with the verb 'returns'. The same is true of the title – something as unpleasant as a 'mutilated world' is said to be something worthy of 'praise.' The whole piece is a mix of opposite lexical sets, one upbeat (stylish, joyfully, praise), one more downbeat (nettles, exiles, executioners).
   The writer also uses asyndentic listing – 'strawberries, drops of wine, the dew,' - so that there is no sense of these good things coming to an end. There is an implication that the list could in fact go on and that these beautiful things could out-weigh the macabre.

   Zagajewski personifies the earth by talking about its 'scars' and this is a clever way of making you see that the world is not unlike you or I. As humans are a mix of good and bad, so is the earth. It's scars are proof of its imperfection or 'mutilation' but also of its vulnerability.

   When we are told to 'remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered,' there is a conscious feeling of peace and intimacy, the likes of which had been previously taken by Zagajewski's talk of 'salty oblivion,' 'refugees heading nowhere,' and 'the executioners singing joyfully.' The connotations that come with the colour white are positive and calm and reduce the stress created by the previous powerful imagery.

  The fact that 'leaves eddied over the earth's scars,' gives the impression that while bad things happen, life moves on. The same impression is given with the loss of a thrush's 'grey feathers'; the bird is growing and changing, shifting from its youth into its the future.

  This poem helps us to look at the world in a more hopeful way, rather than seeing a few nasty situations and writing off an entire planet. Though the 'gentle light' may disappear from time to time, it will always return.

Armstrong and Miller Video

In the first video, Armstrong and Miller use a register that juxtaposes the scene in which their sketch is set, in order to create a situation that the audience will find amusing. While the scene takes place on D-Day, during world war two, the characters played by Armstrong and Miller use modern colloquial language to communicate, a form usually associated with the sociolect used by urban teenagers. Within this colloquial lexis are slang words like ‘blud’, ‘aks’ and ‘ain’t’. This contrast is what generates the humour upon which the sketch is based.

   The use of non-standard grammar throughout their discourse, such as, ‘I love the seaside, isn’t it,’ and ‘If they do has donkey rides,’ is to reinforce the audiences awareness that the register they are using is not formal, the one you would perhaps expect to hear because of the connotations that come with seeing black and white films. They also use fillers from the colloquial register – things like, ‘like,’ and ‘right’– and a high frequency vocabulary of commonly used words. Back channel agreement is also used throughout the piece (‘yeah’ and ‘mmm’) to show that they are listening to each other and responding positively. The repetition of ‘isn’t it?’ is their way of receiving this positive feedback.

   At one point the simile, ‘Gonna put on so much vinegar that my lips turn all blue and I look like my nan did when her neck stopped working,’ is used. This is quite an extreme simile and has been written this way for the sake of humour. The fact that these characters can talk like this with each other shows a certain amount of comfort and familiarity, traits often common with informal pieces or interactions.

  

Alternative Register

Alas!...I Have Acted Wrongly Once More

Indeed, certainly, yes, quite, indubitably,

Indeed, certainly, yes, quite, indubitably, truly

 

I concede that I may have acted wrongly once more,

I successfully synthesised your believe that the relationship you and I are currently maintaining exceeds benevolence,
Oh darling,

It may appear to be mere romantic attraction,

However that does not mean that my actions are in any way sincere,

Because losing control of all my emotional faculties,

Well, that is remarkably routine of me,
Oh darling, darling

[CHORUS:]
Alas!...I have acted wrongly once more,
I trifled with your hearty affection, and became a victim of this labyrinthine enterprise,
Oh darling, darling,
Alas!...You believe that I have fallen madly in love with your charms,
That I am dispatched from the heavens,
But you see, I am not so very irreproachable

You see my difficulty is as follows:
I am engrossed in my own fantasy land,
Anxious to believe that righteous warriors were not simple figments of my own imagination,
I shed solemn tears, surveying the diurnal course of the day,
Can you not see that I am a fool in so many ways?
Losing control of all my emotional faculties,

Well, that is remarkably routine of me,
Darling, oh

[Repeat CHORUS]

Indeed, certainly, yes, quite, indubitably,

Indeed, certainly, yes, quite, indubitably, truly

Alas!... I trifled with your hearty affection once more,
Became a victim of this labyrinthine enterprise, oh darling
Alas!...You believe I am dispatched from the heavens,
But you see, I am not so very irreproachable

Recipe for a Josie

Recipe for a Josie

NOT SUITABLE FOR VEGETARIANS

Ingredients:

- A generous dollop of bookwormishness

- Three table spoons of growth hormone

- A healthy appetite for Ikea meatballs (as well as forty frozen Ikea meatballs)

- 2 large eggs

- 1 enormous jar of Nutella

- A dash of social awkwardness

- Ground black pepper

- Black eye liner

- 100 goosebumps

- 2 splashes of gormlessness

- Nerdy qualities

- A squirt of happiness

- Friends and family

- Slight Twitter addiction

- Love of music

- Denim

- Large glasses

 

Preparation Method:

1. Before starting, ensure the oven is at a low heat. Anything higher than 20 degrees Celsius will cause your Josie to become spoiled and lumpy. Leave to preheat. If you are cooking Josie on the hob, DO NOT bring to the boil.
2. In a very large mixing bowl (anything taller than 5ft 11” will do)- mix together the Nutella and all of the Ikea meatballs.
3. Once the meatballs have been evenly distributed throughout the chocolate spread, add the eggs. If you want the Josie you are baking to be especially annoyed, add another egg to make her even more eggy.
4. Once the mixture starts to look smooth, add all of the growth hormone and social awkwardness. If you're hoping to make a younger version of Josie, now is the time to add a sprinkle of painfully-shy-salt.
5. If the mixture tastes a little bland at this point, add a teaspoon of pepper. It should taste a little fiery and have a slight kick to it.
6. Fold the bookwormishness and slight Twitter addiction into the mixture carefully.
7. Love of music should be added at this stage. Toss in as many bands/artists as you like. Your Josie isn't fussy, so long as there's no heavy metal.
8. For authenticity, add the goosebumps. Josies should be terrified of everything from ghost stories to horror films, no matter whether they are for children or not. If your Josie is not freaked out by Roald Dahl's The Witches, you have added too few goosebumps.
9. At this point your Josie may be looking fairly alert, so drop in the splashes of gormlessness. This is particularly important for when Josie is watching TV, as she must look soulless and have her mouth hanging open as though catching flies.
10. Beat together the mixture, adding nerdy qualities one teaspoon at a time until they are all used up.
11. Make sure your Josie is smiling by adding a squirt of happiness at this point.
12. Add friends and family and mix well. These are important as they are what will keep your Josie in one piece: without either of these things, she may start to crumble during cooking.
13. The consistency should now be doughy, so on a greaseproof surface, use a rolling pin to roll out the Josie. Make sure the mixture is still quite thick, since no Josie likes to be spread too thinly.
14. To guarantee your Josie will bake properly, before putting her in the oven remove all excess chunks of sportiness. The mixture should be free of any desire to partake in sporting activities of any kind – especially football.
15. Place on a large, greased baking tray and leave to bake for the number of years you desire. For added precision, be sure to take her out on the first of February, as this is the time of year your Josie will be the happiest – her birthday.
16. Remove from oven and leave to stand. If Josie is not given a cooling off period after a heated discussion, things can only go badly for one person. (You).
17. To decorate, ice on a sense of humour and outline the eyes of your Josie with black eye liner. No Josie is ever seen out in public without a flick of black at the outer corners of her eyes.
18. If you would like to dress the Josie, place an item of denim on her person (e.g. jacket, jeans, shorts) and a pair of large glasses on her nose. It is very important that they are pushed up to the top of her nose, and not perched on the end of it.

Recipes you may like to try
in the future...

Writer's Delight Josie
French Fancy Josie
Taste of the World Josie

The Ice Queen

"People hide their truest natures. I understood that; applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves? Keep a cloak, that was fine, the thing to do; present a disguise, the outside you, the one you want people to believe." - Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen

The Ice Queen is one of my favourite books, so I wanted to use something from that. I really like this particular extract because of the imagery and the use of rhetorical repetition to build up the sense of chaos that living without a ‘cloak’ would bring. I agree with the sentiment too – that we all act differently according to social etiquette and the rules enforced upon us that silently dictate how we must act if we wish to live in a civilized way. I think it would be really interesting to see peoples ‘truest natures’ at first (at least there'd be loads of stuff going on), but I don’t think it would be sustainable, and this passage makes you question how open you really are about yourself. It makes you wonder what really would happen if people acted on their every whim - kissed strangers, hurt enemies, 'revealed themselves'.
   It's kind of a sad extract, because the speaker admits you can never live without a 'disguise', but I like that it makes you feel something. The verbs within it aren't just sad though, they're passionate - 'kissed', 'smacked', 'wept'. I like that the actions being written about are extreme, because the ideas in the extract are also extreme. No one is as they seem.