In modern day society, big grocery shops like Tesco are ruling the market. The intern fight of having the lowest prices is never ending. The price war is in no way positive for the small amount of small grocery stores. This fight of becoming the cheapest shop makes it more and more uncommon to see small private owned grocery stores because they cannot afford to keep up with the low prices. In the article ‘’Once Upon a Shop’’ by Jeanette Winterson published the 13th of June 2010 she expresses her opinion about the way the market works. Jeanette Winterson is through her article trying to persuade the reader of the text to stop buying groceries from the big shops and start supporting the small private owned grocery stores.
Jeanette Winterson is the owner of a vegetable shop in Spitalfields, which is located in the east end of London. She owns the store with her friend Harvey Cabaniss. Winterson’s article is trying to convince the reader to eat green and organically like, she does. She is through her own biased opinion trying to convince the reader not to eat fabricated food from the big shops. Winterson to convince the reader to start eating healthy and organically because she believes that, it is the healthiest way of living. Winterson says that if we keep buying our food from the big companies they will take over all of the production and nothing can be done to prevent it. She has different arguments to prove this point. For example her first argument where she says that the big companies does not care about the quality of their products but only cares about making the biggest profit. She also criticize the government by accusing them of being one of the main reasons of this negative development. Winterson says that the government by only helping the big companies will make sure that the small private owned grocery shops will go bankrupt.
Winterson is very good at using different methods to get the reader on her side. First of all her title ‘’Once Upon a Shop’’ makes the reader feel sorry for her as she describes how the area looked when she opened her first shop(Page 7, Line 1-2). It makes the reader want to finish the article to get the reason behind the title. She also mentions that everything was very familiar back then and she knew many of the other shop owners but know she does not anymore. That also makes the reader have more empathy for the rest of her article and only wishing the best for her. At page 7 line 36-39, she is describing in an exact way how it all was and that makes the reader able to see it for himself and picture it which also helps her to prove her points. That is also one of her ways of using the history of her shop in the article to affect the reader’s opinion on the case.
In the article Winterson is using informal language with short and simple sentences to make sure as many readers as possible will understand her article and be able to relate to her story and feel empathy with her. The informal way Winterson uses her language is the same way she wants the reader to see her shop. She likes her shop very much and she thinks that it is much better than the big companies are. The very casual way she describes her shop also makes the kind of people how enjoy the smaller grocery shops more likely to finish the article and support her. Winterson is also questioning the audience by asking ‘’what can we do?’’(Page 10, line 248) and by using the word ‘’we’’ she is trying to encourage the audience to help her fighting the big companies. She is also trying to get more empathy from the readers by saying ‘’The bottom line isn’t profit; it is being human’’ (page 10, line 232-233). All in all she is trying to convince the reader that her products and her shop is way better than ‘’The chilly world of corporate retail’’ (Page 10, line 259-260)
It is obvious through the whole article that Winterson is trying to persuade the readers of the article to fight with her against the big companies. Her main argument is that organic food is way better than the food the big companies produce and therefore the readers has to help her stop the big companies. Winterson is a good user of pathos and by that she very good to state the problems and get supporters to her way of thinking. As earlier mentioned Winterson is using simple and informal language, which could attract more readers as it is a simple article to read and it is a current problem. The way that she is criticizing the big companies could make her article look a bit too one-sided and in that, way she might lose many supporters. Some readers might even think that she is crazy to start a fight against the big companies. Through the article, Winterson does not use any expert knowledge or any data that could prove her right and that weakens her arguments a lot. The lack of ethos in her arguments weakens them a lot. The way she describes her small shop might still attract many customers who prefer the organic food and small grocery shops but Winterson’s idea of replacing the big shops with small grocery stores like hers might be a bit too ambitious. She would need to work a lot on her rhetorical methods if she wants to write an article that would actually persuade the majority to boycott the big shops and only buy their foods from the small grocery shops.