The author presents a prose text for the reader. The author of this text tells about the feelings and the state of mind of a girl named Karen. She is definitely suffering from a tragedy in her life and the author even allows the reader to see the world in her own eyes. Everything that the author describes in the text is linked with Karen’s emotions and thoughts.

The text isn’t characterized by a definite type of register. But when reading it, one is under the impression that the author has close relations with the reader and conveys all the feelings of his heroine. It seems that he doesn’t hide anything from us and even tries to make the reader feel sympathy for the girl. That’s why he gives questions, which harass Karen and which should occupy the reader’s mind too: “Why was it all right for Dad to be away, but not to her mother? Was that the way the world ran?…“. The author of the text probably wants the reader to share the problem, which is not clearly expressed but somehow implied, with the girl. Considering the arguments like these, it may be affirmed that the text has some peculiarities of the intimate level of speech. On the other hand, the text includes variations of style, since the author relays simple factual information as well, such as “School was finished… The house was dark… She was alone in the house” and so, it has also features of the consultative level of speech.

The most interesting thing about the text is how cohesion within it is realized. It’s easy to notice the cohesion here is present on both lexical and syntactic levels. Almost in each passage we may discover lexical repetitions – these are mainly such words as “dark, empty, warm, quiet, alone“. These words have a substantial function: they do not only allow the author to make the atmosphere of despair and anxiety, but also keep the reader in this atmosphere from the beginning to the end of the text. On the other hand, it is these words that help the author to illustrate other sides of Karen’s state of mind and her perception of the surrounding world – they somehow introduce the reader into Karen’s world of grief and loneliness. The author also uses other words, which convey the gloominess of Karen’s mood; besides each paragraph is full of them, which contributes to the total effect of progress: “unwillingly, exhausted, furry, jumble, listlessly, disorientated, depressing, misery, dispensable, fainter” and others. It’s noticeable that the author knowingly avoids polysyllabic words, as if expressing the emptiness and the misery of the situation presented. Reading non-polysyllabic words, one feels a certain monotony of the speech and the absence of bright and cheerful shades. That’s the effect the author wants to achieve.