Margaret Atwood's Personal Essay 'Ka-Ching'

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In Margaret Atwood’s personal essay “Ka-Ching”, she achieves a nostalgic tone by writing informally, in a personal tone, by describing her challenges at the time in detail while rarely speaking of her successes and ending off the essay with a positive twist. Margaret begins to set a nostalgic tone in her personal essay by beginning with an introduction in which she speaks fondly of her previous jobs in an informal manner which creates a connection between the reader and Margaret in her past. She speaks informally of her previous jobs because she writes in the first person when she writes “I’ll pass over...I mean…..I was entirely unsuited”. She also uses expressions such as “I’ll pass over” and “mini-jobs” which demonstrate to the reader that …show more content…

By doing this, Margaret receives empathy from the audience because the audience may recall a point in their lives where they were faced with similar challenges which were very difficult at the time but now they hold happy associations with those times. For example, Atwood begins her second paragraph with “The year as 1962…It was summer, and I was faced with the necessity of earning the difference between my scholarship for the next year and what it would cost me to live.” This excerpt from her essay is critical to establishing nostalgia because for most young adults, money is a problem and many people can relate to this and they believe that it is the end of the world for them if they cannot make ends meet. However, as one grows older, they come to realize that there will be many more serious problems in life and managing finances as a young adult are among the smallest of problems. Throughout the essay, Margaret continues to retell her challenges such as her uniform misunderstanding, her struggles with the cash register and being harassed by the Greek cook, but she fails to retell any of her successes such as earning enough money or any times when she had dealt with pleasant customers. This helps the author to achieve a nostalgic tone because it reminds the reader that

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