Charlotte Hobson GAP Analysis

The genre of this piece of text is travel writing. It’s a record of a trip Charlotte Hobson went on ‘Black Earth City’. I think the audience of this piece of writing is people looking to travel maybe young people or wants an opinion on where to go or not to go. I think she makes it suitable for the target audience by commenting on things that would appeal to young people. She uses an asyndetic list ‘slept, worked, had parties, ate, drank, sulked, wrote letters, cooked, smoked and hung out there washing’. This would appeal to youngsters in a way with the words ‘parties’ and ‘drank’ which is what a lot of teenagers do. She could also reach out to people that are fans of hers as she gives her opinion a lot which could influence the readers.

I think part of the purpose of this piece of text is to entertain. She does this by exaggerating how bad her trip was. The majority of the text is negative including words like ‘smouldering rubbish’, ‘stray dogs’ and ‘filthy charm’. It’s entertaining to read as it almost sounds so disgusting it’s funny as the readers aren't the ones in the situation. Another purpose of this text is to inform the audience what it is like where she went. She does this by using senses to describe things. A lot of what she uses is smells, for example ‘stale, sweaty smell’ and ‘the stink of rust coloured paint’. I think she uses this sense more than others because smell is one the reader can imagine more than others. I think she uses senses to inform the audience about her stay to persuade them not to go. She would persuade them not to go as she describes everything in a negative way.