Once Upon A Shop

Big shops and brands like Tesco are taking over the world. It is not any longer easy to be independent and run a little shop. The essay Once Upon a Shop is written by Jeanette Winterson, who is a British writer. The essay was published the 13. June 2010. The essay is about Jeanette Winterson and her vegetable shop, which is located in Spitalfields in the East End of London. Jeanette Winterson tells in the essay how she opened a vegetable shop instead of being employed in a cooperative brand. She also tells about her passion for running her own shop, and she tells about the challenges and the possibilities by running her own shop and the fact that we still need to be independent.

Jeanette Winterson’s style is a little bit a journalistic style. She tells a story, but she also questioned on the way in which we live. Jeanette Winterson uses words like “we, global, human.” In that way is her language a little bit a journalistic style, because journalists have to write articles which can make a debate, but Jeanette Winterson does not uses a journalistic style, because she is not only objective, but her language has touches of the journalistic style. Jeanette Winterson also uses a subjective style in her essay. She tells her own thoughts about running her vegetable shop. “I started the shop because I believe that working from the bottom up is a good idea,” (p, 10 l,l 249-251). The quote is an example of the fact that she uses a subjective style in the essay. The subjective style in the essay makes that we get sympathy with Jeanette Winterson and we begin to think about the possibilities for running a small shop and be independent instead of always thinking about the money and the jobs in the big brands.

Jeanette Winterson has some arguments in her essay. She uses Toulmin’s model for argumentation, because she has a claim, which she supports with grounds and a backing. The main claim is that the market has change so much by the time that it is difficult to be independent instead of being employed in a brand like Tesco. “We are just coming through an experiment in turning the whole planet and all of its resources and all of its people into a money-making machine,” (p, 10 l,l 234-237). She says indirectly that money has taking over the world, and she says that we live in a world where we do not have our own choices. “We live in a cloned world where there is no real choice,” (p, 10, l,l 267-268). The quote shows one of her claims.

She supports her claim by asking a rhetorical question. “What is the point of being human if you cannot live your own life in your way? It is such a simple obvious ambition – and so hard to achieve,” (p, 10, l,l 276-279). It makes her claim stronger, because the reader perhaps thinks that she is right. She appeals to ethos, when she says these things, because she seems like an expert in the topic. She also uses a little bit logos, because she appeals to the logical sanity. She tries to tell that money is not all and she tries to make attentive to the independence, but there is only a little use of logos, because Jeanette Winterson is not objective, she is subjective, but she still gives reasons and argument for the sense.

Jeanette Winterson also uses ethos in her essay, when she uses the subjective style. Jeanette Winterson tries to make reliability. “Small shops could be well-supplied and profitable – just because Britain used to have the worst food and the worst food shops in Europe doesn’t mean that we do any more, or that we only supermarkets offer variety,” (p, 10, l,l 297-303). The quote shows her use of ethos, because she looks like an expert in the independent business, because she has been in the business in many years.

Jeanette Winterson uses the history as a backing for her arguments. She uses the history to describe how it has changed for running a shop through the time. She says for example that her shop is right opposite than the Spitalfields in 1805 and she uses the Napoleonic Wars and the year of the Battle of Trafalgar as an example of the differences. She also says that the market has been bigger and bigger through the time, and that is why it is difficult to be independent and run your own shop, because the competition is so big. “The market has moved out to Nine Elms now, and the pyramids of oranges, gassed lemons, King Kong-size bananas, forests of parsley, potato towers and crates of pears, red tomatoes, pink grapefruit,” (p, 8, l,l 51-55). The quote shows, how she describes the market in Spitalfields has changed through the time.

The target group could be the republic, because Jeanette Winterson tries to tell that money is not all. She tells her story about being independent instead of being employed in a big brand. Today the competition is bigger than never before. It all acts about money and prestige. That is why the republic in general could be the target group, because the republic has to know that it is still possible to be independent and run your own shop even the competition and the market has become bigger than never before. The target group could also be people who want to be independent and have their own business or shop, because she draw attention to the independence by telling her story about her shop. This is also Jeanette Winterson’s message. The message is to tell that money is not all. It is still possible to be independent as long you have the passion and live the life you want instead of thinking about money and prestige.