Compare and contrast how the writers of Text A and Text B express their ideas about travelling
around Paris. (40 marks)
TEXT A: What do you wish someone had told you?
TEXT B: Around the world in 80 Dates.
Answer:
Within both ‘What do you wish someone had told you?’ and ‘Around the world in 80 Dates’
both writers depict travelling around Paris as a contrasting experience. The two texts differ
in multiple ways despite portraying paris in a similar way. ‘What do you wish someone had
told you?’ is a multimodal, unplanned online response on a Trip advisor forum. It is targeting
those who want to visit Paris with the purpose to inform them and reflect on their own
experiences. In contrast to this, ‘Around the world in 80 Dates’ is a written memoir that
targets those who are interested in Paris and in particular Jim Morrison who’s grave resides
in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The Memoir’s purpose is to reflect on her own
experiences as well as describe the character of Paris.
In ‘Around the World in 80 Dates’ Jennifer Cox presents Paris as a unique and contrasting
place through her visit to Jim Morrison’s grave. Cox presents the visit as a date, making a
reference to his impact in the Teenage Power movement and the interest she had in him as
a teenager. She describes Jim Morrison as ‘sex god’, ‘Lizard King’ to highlight his teenage
idol status but later refers to him by his full name ‘James Douglas Morrison’ and ‘Lard King’
to present the fact that he was a regular human who died as a result of overindulgence in
food and bad health. This contrast between Jim Morrison as an Idol and a regular human,
constructs the overall theme of the text within the opening paragraphs of the memoir. A
similar construct is presented in ‘What do you wish someone had told you?’ where the
writer present Parisians as ‘not cold or rude, but they are not bubbly’, ‘they are warm and
wonderful with family and close friends, but there is a reserve that is cultural’ this depicts
Parisians as contrasting nature showing how Parisian culture is cold towards foreigners and
warm to other Parisians and locals.
In ‘Around the world in 80 Dates’ Cox also presents Parisians as contrasting through her use
of figurative language ‘players’, ‘drama’, ‘sense of the theatrical’ as well as similes and
compound adjectives such as ‘passing it round like a joint’ and ‘baseball-capped’ By
describing the visitors and Parisians around the grave as ‘theatrical’ and dressed in casual
wear whilst performing rituals, it creates a sense of disrespect. Jennifer Cox presents this
idea of disrespect through the Frenchman who shouts, ‘have you no respect?’ to the people
around the grave however she later states that ‘he was wrong to say they lacked respect. It
was the very reason they were there: out of love and respect.’ This shows how the divide
between Parisians and visitors to the grave depicts the contrast in culture and attitudes
towards respect. A similar contrast is shown through the class divide in the cemetery itself
as the Père Lachaise cemetery is the resting place of famous and noble figures within
history. Cox describes the cemetery as ‘It was Napoleon who converted what was originally
a slum neighbourhood into a vast cemetery’, ‘painstakingly scrubbed mirror-clean by
stooped middle-aged women every single day.’ This class divide again shows the contrast of
Parisian culture as the now famous and well-renounced cemetery was once a slum
neighbourhood, which is now still cleaned by the poorer working class showing how despite
regenerating this once poor area into a grand cemetery for the famous, this class divide still
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