Compare 'Oliver Twist' and 'the Workhoue Cookbook'

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The two texts that I am going to compare are an extract from ‘Oliver Twist’ by Charles Dickens and ‘The workhouse cookbook’ written by Peter Higginbotham. Both texts are based on food and in the way which it is conveyed however both texts have a different purpose. In text 28 food is portrayed in a very negative way, we can see this as they use such words such as ‘gruel’ which emphasizes the forbid taste and does not make it sound very appealing. The word ‘gruel’ also states which era the book was written as no one would tend to eat that in society nowadays, that was the food they ate almost every day in the workhouse. In the text there is also a sentence such as ‘the boys polished them with their spoons’ this quotation is showing that they were underfed in the workhouse and shows that they were suffering with starvation. The quote can also come across as quite emotive as it makes us feel very grateful for the food that we get and should be lucky for the food we get. The metaphor used makes the audience to create an image of what’s happening and can make audience feel very light hearted. In the other text they have also showed negativity views on food such as ‘dreaded bowl of gruel’ this portrays that they did not look forward to eating the food, this also shows the setting of the place very negative as it doesn’t seem very luxurious and shows that although they didn’t get any more food they still ate it because they had nothing else to eat and they needed to as they were suffering from starvation already and needed enough protein to stay healthy. Another quote is ‘was alcohol banned’ this is a rhetorical question which makes the audience think that the person who is asking the question is in despair because stereotypically alcohol is thought to be able to drown sorrows in. To compare both texts are portraying food in negative ways, however in text 27 it is

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