There was once…
TOK
A. The conversation about the opening phrase tells us that the introduction of a character is very important. It can already cause people to make judgements of the character that is being introduced. Each word describes something about the girl and some may translate what they understand to such an extreme which probably was not intended by the one who wrote the story.
B. The second speaker objects to how the story teller was portraying the kind of surroundings the girl had. The second speaker stresses on the fact that the society has changed and that it was inappropriate to use the common old places humans used to live. (The forest) He is very cautious of the kinds of words that are used, for they may paint a completely wrong picture for a character. He relates the word poor with reality by insisting that such a word is only appropriate to be used towards someone who actually has nothing and lives on the streets, sleeping in cardboard boxes. He objects to the use of the word beautiful for he seems to be against the fact of how women try and compete at all levels with models on television that are always meant to be beautiful. He must feel that by using the word beautiful, it would only influence women to try and fix their appearance if they were too dissatisfied because everything around them would be introduced as beautiful. When the narrator changes the first few descriptions of the girl ‘…little overweight girl and whose front teeth stick out,’ the response of the second speaker is a natural one. People can easily get influenced through descriptions like that perhaps even encouraging some to go to extremes as starving themselves, just to prevent themselves from being described in not a very positive way. Description oppresses as it is stated in the conversation. The second speaker also comments on the use of the word wicked towards the stepmother. Wicked already put a very harsh label across the step mother not allowing a reader to perhaps sympathise or understand why she is not a good, nice person. He objects that women especially step mothers are the usual targets for bad comments and males are never given that position
