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Letter Isabella Lucy Bird - Coggle Diagram
Letter Isabella Lucy Bird
GRAMPS
Genre
Personal letter and travel writing
Register
formal as a result of the archaic language
Audience
Primary audience was her sister. May have also been intended to have a secondary wider audience as Isabella had previously published a collection of letters
Mode
Written
Purpose
to inform, describe, entertain, reassure
Structure
Second half of paragraph is told in chronological order, story-like
"then" - adverb emphasises the extent that the people helped her
However, there is a snobbish tone about her, as if she looks down on these people
"little incidents" - obnoxious
"free-and-easy tone" - hyphenated adjective - arrogance
"wild West" - declarative statement
Structure - graphology
The capitalisation of 'GREEN' is an unconventional graphological feature which reinforces how much she misses her home and the natural green grass at home. The vivid description of 'the pines' changes from her earlier sarcastic tone showing how important nature is to her. The description of the colours takes the foreground in this image, helping to make this image vivid to her sister.
Semantic field of nature
Personification of elements of air, she uses low-frequency lexis to demonstrate her upper-class and fondness for the outdoors to hint at her educated upbringing
"the air so keen" and "intoxicating" and hyperbolic metaphor "the elixir of life" (medicine). Although this is an oxymoron to 'furry death-hug' - semantic field of suffocation - hints at the paradox and harshness of nature
'the first GREEN grass I have seen in America; and the pines, with their red stems, looked beautiful rising out of it'
'smitten by its beauty', hints that she is only emotive towards nature, not people
content
Her vivid descriptions and observational abilities are prevalent in the letter. Her use of imagery creates a clear picture of what Bird was witnessing.
Throughout the letter, she balances her personal perspective with an analysis of societal and cultural norms of 19th-century Malaysia.