Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The speaker uses second person point of view. What does that tell us about the relationship between the speaker and listener?

The main speaker's consistent use of the second person point of view, where she addresses her audience as "you," indicates that there is a power differential at work. The person who is speaking has more power than the person who is listening. The repetition of the second person pronoun "you," combined with the content of the piece—essentially a lengthy list of instructions and orders peppered by two italicized statements made by the girl to whom the main speaker is talking—makes it seem as though this is a mother speaking to her daughter, or, at the least, an older woman with some authority speaking to a young woman with no authority. The older woman instructs the younger on a number of useful things; some have to do with cooking or cleaning, but others have to do with how to navigate social situations with a person one doesn't like or recognize a bullying man.

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