Urgent: commentaire de texte steinbeck: the grapes of wrath

Anglais > sujets expliqués - 24/01/2008 - correction

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		Bonjour, Dans le cadre des lire

Bonjour,

Dans le cadre des prestations ici proposées, je vous propose de voir comment poser les jalons d’un commentaire à travers une introduction et un plan ordonné.

Introduction : you must first of all give the title and the name of the author and tell very shortly the story, introducing the main characters (Tom and his parents above all and their relationships). Then, explain when this scene precisely occurs and what happened just before (what Tom did, how his found his parents back, in which situation etc.). You just have to sum up the facts that will help the reader understand what you are saying then in your development. Just these two introductive and explaining parts (do not into further details, just tell about these subjects what will be useful after), finally give the names of your two or three parts. You can also in the short summary explain the author’s point of view, what he wanted to say in this book. That will also help you to choose your plan, seeing what really matters and trying to find parts which explain or precise the main ideas of the book. So you have four parts :
- a global and general idea to come to the subject;
- a presentation of the author and the book, short summary;
- a situation of the excerpt in the novel to give keys for the great parts afterwards;
- your plan.

Having the book in mind and these principles, you can think about the following (and do not forget to study both the idea and the style, the way it is said) :

1) a description of a typical financially and socially poor farmers American family : the way of speaking (“’em”, “ain’t” etc. : describe and study the effect of this language : speed, not always well understandable, always the same words, not an evolved and precise vocabulary etc.); the situation of the family : a sort of emigration, the situation of the father (insist on the fact that according to him everything will keep “going downhill” : pessimistic, no way to escape : poorness is not only an economic issue but also a moral and social one), the son who was in jail, the other children (see what the mother tells about them), the alcoholic uncle etc. By this tricky situation and the way of speaking of the main characters (many speeches in the books in this way of speaking), Steinbeck makes us aware of the poorness (global one) of a typical farmers family hinted by the agricultural revolution and the evolution if the society.

2) Tom’s character : in this very tricky situation, the character of Tom seems a bit more detached from this situation. Study more especially the difference between the image given by the mother (different from his brothers and sisters and from the family : he is “better”, she has known it for long) and the more negative image he has from himself. He is a complex sometimes contradictory person. It is interesting to study what image he gives and what we can think about the evolution of people from this social ground from this special example (compared for example with his sister).

3) And finally some positive signs : thing can be better provided everyone does something for it and collective efforts for cooperation are made. The sister for example seems more and more beautiful and happy, what gives a positive touch to all is written. There is also the awareness of Tom and sometimes the father and the uncle, and above the mother, who really tries to make something for her family.

This plan should you to have an organizational plan and to go from the easiest to the more difficult things.

Voici donc quelques éléments pour ce commentaire, auxquelles il faudra apporter une conclusion. Le principal est de bien vous appuyer sur le texte en citant à chaque fois de courts extraits pour justifier vos dires, de relier les analyses de forme à celles de fond (par exemple, toute l’étude du vocabulaire spécifique tant utilisé ici), et enfin d’organiser vos propos en allant comme ici du tableau général au message plus fin à voir, le tout en se référant au contexte global de l’½uvre pour montrer l’importance de ce passage, sa spécificité dans l’½uvre. Je vous ai répondu ci-dessus en anglais pour aussi amorcer quelques réflexions sur le vocabulaire d’analyse à aborder, avec quelques expressions possibles. Voilà donc pour des bases pour avancer ; il vous reste maintenant à finaliser la réflexion et passer à la rédaction.

Sur ce, je vous souhaite bon courage et un bon travail.

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