Dazzled by the big store

Text 1: A Palace of Plate Glass, by Louisa Penhallow

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Dearest Kate, I promised to tell you of the new emporium, and I hardly know where to begin. Imagine a shop as large as the Assembly Rooms, with windows of plate glass taller than a man, lit at four in the afternoon by more gas jets than I could count. Silks hang from the galleries in cascades like waterfalls, and every counter is arranged so that one cannot reach the thing one came for without passing a dozen things one did not.

I went in for a yard of ribbon. I came out, two hours later, with the ribbon, a pair of gloves, a lace collar and the sensation of having been very cleverly robbed by persons of the most perfect manners. The young men behind the counters bow as though one were a duchess, and one feels it would be ill-bred to refuse them.

And yet, Kate, I saw a girl about our own age standing at the great window outside, with no gloves at all, gazing in at the silks as if they were the gates of Paradise. I did not much enjoy my lace collar afterwards.

Text 2: Lost in the Megastore, by Jordan Achebe

An original contemporary article.

The new flagship store opened last week, and I went along to see what all the fuss was about. It is enormous: four floors of white light, video walls, a coffee bar, music pitched exactly at the level of pleasant excitement. There are no clocks and almost no windows. The escalators are arranged so that to get from one to the next you have to walk past most of the floor, and I suspect that is not an accident.

I went in for a phone charger. Ninety minutes later I left with the charger, a hoodie, a scented candle and a vague feeling that I had been pickpocketed by people who were very, very nice to me. The staff all smile and call you by your first name if you give it, which I did, because it felt rude not to.

On the way out I passed a boy of about ten standing by the glass doors with his mum, staring at a games console display he was clearly not going to get. His mum steered him away. I carried my bag to the bus stop and the candle did not smell quite as nice as it had in the shop.

Both writers describe visiting a large new shop.

What are the similarities between the writers’ experiences and feelings in the shop?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.