Text Analysis
Text Analysis- 1930’s Problem Page
The problem page is an extract taken from a book entitled ‘Real Life Problems and their Solutions’ published in 1930. In 1930 the cultural differences from the present day are clearly obvious, with 1930 being a year consumed by the Great Depression, a stark contrast from the roaring Twenties. It was tradition for people to get married young before having children and the concept of divorce was still highly frowned upon. The idea of having a published book of ‘Real life problems and their solutions’ shows that people persevered through hard times, also the need for a published book rather than a serialised magazine column shows that more people seek advice from problem pages than in the present day. This difference is shown firstly from the title of the problem ‘My wife is uncultured- can I improve her?’ The Grammar used in the headline of the problem through the use of possessive pronouns ‘my’ and ‘I’. This is used as the husband sees his wife as a possession, an extension of himself. I also think the use of pronouns in such a way indicates he is embarrassed by his ‘uncultured’ wife. The lexical choice of ‘improve’ also reiterates the possessiveness and ownership the husband holds over his wife, as if he is claiming responsibility and it is his duty to improve her knowledge. Archaism through word order is also present, with expansion of sentences compared to the compression of our present day language. The extract is very verbose, with many sentences used containing twice as many words than necessary. This is shown both in the problem and the response, showing it was a generic way how people wrote in that time. The response, in my opinion is written by a woman. It remains open to both arguments as a typical problem page formula goes. The response seems definitely less sexist, with the agony aunt highlighting the good features his wife has. Archaism does reappear however with lexical choices such as the word ‘gay’ meaning
The problem page is an extract taken from a book entitled ‘Real Life Problems and their Solutions’ published in 1930. In 1930 the cultural differences from the present day are clearly obvious, with 1930 being a year consumed by the Great Depression, a stark contrast from the roaring Twenties. It was tradition for people to get married young before having children and the concept of divorce was still highly frowned upon. The idea of having a published book of ‘Real life problems and their solutions’ shows that people persevered through hard times, also the need for a published book rather than a serialised magazine column shows that more people seek advice from problem pages than in the present day. This difference is shown firstly from the title of the problem ‘My wife is uncultured- can I improve her?’ The Grammar used in the headline of the problem through the use of possessive pronouns ‘my’ and ‘I’. This is used as the husband sees his wife as a possession, an extension of himself. I also think the use of pronouns in such a way indicates he is embarrassed by his ‘uncultured’ wife. The lexical choice of ‘improve’ also reiterates the possessiveness and ownership the husband holds over his wife, as if he is claiming responsibility and it is his duty to improve her knowledge. Archaism through word order is also present, with expansion of sentences compared to the compression of our present day language. The extract is very verbose, with many sentences used containing twice as many words than necessary. This is shown both in the problem and the response, showing it was a generic way how people wrote in that time. The response, in my opinion is written by a woman. It remains open to both arguments as a typical problem page formula goes. The response seems definitely less sexist, with the agony aunt highlighting the good features his wife has. Archaism does reappear however with lexical choices such as the word ‘gay’ meaning