An analysis of Considering
a baby? from the perspective of Tools (I)
At the end of the introduction to this paper I
have mentioned some important features that typically characterise Adrienne Eisen’s hypertext works,
namely a post-modern feminist approach to women’s
lifes, an ironic and sometimes contemptuous sense of humour, and a sexually
explicit content. Considering
a baby? is not an exception, and it also displays other common
characteristics of Eisen’s writing. Let us carry out a more in-depth analysis
of this piece of online hypertext literature which will answer some basic
questions about the plot, the characters, the core topics, etc. by means of
examining the rhetorical tools used in the work. As stated in the introduction,
rhetorical tools found in hypertext fiction can be divided into two major
groups, the traditional literary ones (linguistic tools) and the electronic
hypertext ones (non-linguistic tools). As a result, the following analysis
consists of two parts, each one corresponding to one of the mentioned groups.
Linguistic tools found in Considering a baby?
Considering
a baby? is about the
most secret thoughts and feelings of a liberated young woman who gets pregnant
by her husband. These are the typical ones of any young woman during her first
pregnancy, i.e. the fear that your baby will suffer from a congenital disease,
the worries about your physical appearance and weight, the constant changes of
mood, and so on. The story, then, focuses on the woman’s personal feelings, and
thus the woman is supposed to be the main character of the story.
But the question is, does she really play the most
important role of the fiction? If we focus our attention on the type of
language used, we will notice the constant use of the second person “you” to
refer to the actions carried out by the “main character” of the hypertext (and
the use of the possessive “your” to refer to the things that belong to this
“main” character). An example of it is provided by the first sentence of the
node “Month
One: Your Finances”: “You will spend way too much money on pregnancy tests”. Links themselves are always the expression of
something that is “yours” but refers to the woman of the fiction: “Your
Finances”, “Your
Sleep”, “Your
Skin”. What is the reason for such a use of the second person in the
hypertext? The answer is simple: the use of the second person makes it possible
to establish a particularly close relationship between the main character of
the story and the person who reads it. By using this rhetorical device, the
reader feels very able to identify with the character and her feelings. Of
course, it does not mean at all that the “main character” of the story is the
reader – the main character is and will always be the woman of the story. But
it implies a very special “participatory position” of the reader in the story,
in the sense that it allows the reader to “live” what she is reading with a
greater intensity.
It is clear from this discussion
that Considering
a baby? is particularly addressed to women, especially present-day
women with a more or less high level of education and economic independence. As
said, the hypertext talks about personal feelings and emotions, therefore the
language must accommodate to convey all these sensations to the reader. To
begin with, the style of language used (or register) is informal, as
corresponds to the type of scenes portrayed in the work – most of them are
monologues in which the woman talks about her relationship with her husband,
with her mother and with her friends. Colloquial expressions such as “buck”(
informal for “dollar”), “tummy”(
informal for “stomach”) or “pic” (informal for “photography”), idioms like “be at
each other’s throats” (meaning “to be arguing angrily”) and phrasal verbs
such as “seep out”
or “pick
up” found throughout the hypertext prove that the register used can
perfectly be defined as informal.
Furthermore, it is worth noting the
high level of modality expressed in the text. As we know, modality refers to
the way in which a text can express attitudes towards a situation, and is usually
realised in the use of modal verbs (can, will, shall, should, etc.) and in the
use of adverbs such as “possibly”. In Considering
a baby? almost all the verbs are preceded by the modal “will” – the example
provided in the first paragraph of this section, “You
will spend way too much money on pregnancy tests”, is also useful in this
case. “Will” is used in English as a way of expressing the future and as such
can have the force of prediction – this is likely to happen. In our hypertext,
then, the modal auxiliary “will” conveys the idea that the actions described
are predictions that are likely to happen – predictions that are likely to
happen to “you” as the reader particularly involved in the action that you are.
It is also noticeable the use of words that carry
very strong connotations – as corresponds to the whole world of feelings and
emotions that is portrayed in the work. An example is the word “nuzzle”,
which means “to rub with the head or nose” but also implies that the person is
performing the action in a way that shows her love. As well as the use of some
slang expressions in the text that can sometimes turn out to be offensive, such
as the sexually explicit expression “to
give a blow job”.
All these linguistic devices help to create the
strongly emotional atmosphere that characterises Eisen’s Considering
a baby? They all are used to convey emotion, heighten the reader’s
involvement and give the text a particular sense of immediacy.
Go to: [Introduction] [Analysis (Part Two)] [Conclusion] [References]
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ana Albalat Mascarell
almas2@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press
