L. VIDELOUP. S.

de BAECQUE

anglais
au baccalauréat
Solange DE BAECQUE Laurence VIDELOUP
Agrégée d’Anglais _ Ancienne éléve
de I’'Ecole Normale Supérieure
Agrégée d’Anglais

L’ANGLAIS
au Baccalauréat

Nouveaux programmes

FERNAND NATHAN
t
INTRODUCTION

Ce livre est destiné aux éléves des classes terminales qui ont a
subir une épreuve d’anglais au baccalauréat : épreuve écrite « nouvelle
formule » pour les séries A (A1, A2, A3) et B; épreuve orale pour les
autres séries.
Nous avons aussi pensé aux éléves qui aborderont ces €preuves en
candidats libres. C’est pour eux que nous avons décidé de faire figurer
des textes formant un tout (c’est-a-dire présentables tels quels) et non
pas des fragments.
Ce livre pourra également étre.utilisé fructueusement pendant une
premiére année d’enseignement supérieur et, plus généralement, par
tous ceux qui désireront revoir leurs connaissances en anglais : faits de
civilisation aussi bien que de langue.

NOTRE BUT
Notre but est de donner aux candidats qui n’ont, ne l’oublions pas,
que deux ou trois heures de cours d’anglais par semaine pour préparer
leur examen, une méthode de travail autonome et efficace, pour qu’ils
puissent comprendre un texte, l’analyser, puis s’exprimer en anglais sur
ce texte, par oral ou par écrit. Les éléves ne doivent jamais oublier que
nul examinateur, quelle que soit la matiére, n’apprécie les banalités, les
phrases creuses ou une expression par trop pauvre.

L’anglais au baccalauréat vient d’étre assez profondément modifié par

les nouvelles dispositions concernant les épreuves écrites qui commen-
ceront a étre appliquées dés juin 1984.
L’épreuve écrite, d'une durée de trois heures, comprendra :
a) des exercices de « compétence linguistique » permettant d’évaluer
la capacité du candidat a manier la langue étrangére.
b) un texte en anglais suivi d’exercices divers (grilles, QCM, résumé en
frangais, traduction d'expressions, rétablissement d’un ordre logique ou
chronologique, recherche d’un titre, questions right/wrong ...) dans le
but d’évaluer le niveau de compréhension du texte.
c) des exercices de production semi-guidée et libre : expansion,
réduction ou comparaison de documents fournis, réécriture d’un paragra-
phe, séquence a compléter, etc., pour la production semi-guidée ; point
de vue a défendre, histoire a raconter, phrase, texte ou illustration a
commenter, etc., pour la production libre. Ces différents exercices ont
pour but d’évaluer la richesse, l’originalité et la correction de
Vexpression personnelle du candidat.

ISBN 2-09-170131-9 © Editions Fernand Nathan 1984.

 Il est donc moins que jamais question de donner des recettes toutes
faites. Il s’agit bien au contraire de fournir au futur candidat les éléments
de connaissance et les outils nécessaires pour qu’il apprenne a
manier la langue et qu’il puisse parvenir a une production personnelle et
originale, tant a l’oral qu’a l’écrit.
Si rien, dans les directives ministérielles, n’impose la civilisation
américaine comme unique sujet de réflexion, il n’en demeure pas moins
que la quasi-totalité des manuels de terminale traite des Etats-Unis. ||
nous a donc paru nécessaire de nous aligner sur ces manuels pour que
le candidat qui, en classe, étudiera, dans la majorité des cas, des textes
« américains » puisse se servir de maniére profitable des tableaux et
des « themes » présentés de maniére extensive en introduction de
chaque texte.
Ce faisant,,nous avons également pensé a nos collégues; ils
trouveront dans ces « themes » une introduction a la fois condensée et
relativement approfondie a tous les textes américains qu’ils se propose-
ront d’étudier avec leurs éléves.

LE CONTENU
1. Un ensemble de textes et de photos de film 4 commenter sur
l'histoire et la civilisation des Etats-Unis, groupés par theme sous deux
rubriques principales : Dream et Reality. Chaque texte sera introduit par
un exposé du theme auquel il se rapporte. Un encadré précédant
chaque exposé du theme servira a la fois d’introduction simplifiée et
d’aide-mémoire apres la lecture de |’exposé.
Un diagramme ameéricain pour bien visualiser le contenu du texte
permettra au candidat de s’exercer au résumé oral ou aux exercices de
production écrite (réécriture d’un paragraphe, par ex.); un plan de
commentaire proposera une méthode d’analyse du texte, il renverra aux
« notions » (cf. outils linguistiques) a partir desquelles le candidat
pourra batir son propre commentaire et s’exercer a produire un travail
original ; enfin une série d’exercices de « compétence linguistique »
variés serviront a acquérir une certaine dextérité dans la manipulation de
la langue.
Rappelons aussi que les candidats peuvent présenter des docu-
ments visuels (photos de film par exemple); ils y seront méme tenus
dans les nouvelles épreuves orales prévues a partir de 1985.

Il. Les outils linguistiques se présentent sous forme :

1. de tableaux de grammaire notionnelle/fonctionnelle, illustrés
d’exemples, construits a partir des commentaires composés. Ils mettent
ainsi a la disposition de |'éleve un ensemble d’expressions et de

e 3
constructions dans lequel il peut puiser pour s’exprimer de maniére
personnelle ;
2. de tableaux d’expressions pouvant servir au débat oral ou au
commentaire écrit;
3. de tableaux de mots-charniére pour structurer un exposé oral ou
une production écrite.
Nous avons partout gommé la distinction oral/écrit, qui nous parait
artificielle et nous avons essayé de donner les outils nécessaires pour
augmenter le niveau de langue, développer la richesse de |’expression et
l’'autonomie langagiére du futur bachelier.

CONSEILS PRATIQUES
L’épreuve d’anglais au baccalauréat, orale ou écrite, sanctionne un
niveau d’anglais : pour l’oral, le candidat doit donc avoir réfléchi a
l’'avance aux besoins langagiers qu’il aura pendant toute la durée de
l’épreuve et il devra savoir, dans une langue simple mais authentique,
véritablement converser avec son interlocuteur.
Par besoins langagiers, nous entendons, outre la langue du commen-
taire, les expressions du débat (cf. outils linguistiques), les propos
simples qui consistent a saluer en anglais, a répondre en anglais aux
demandes de |’examinateur, a proposer une méthode de commentaire
ou interroger le professeur. Exemples :
— Présentation : Good morning / afternoon...
Here's my text list / Here’s a list of texts I’ve studied at school / I've
studied myself...
Shall | read the text first / study this text ?
Would you like me to / Do you want me to...
I'd like to comment on... / to study different themes...
— Cropping up problems:
Sorry / Excuse me, | haven't quite understood your question / grasped
the meaning of your question / seen the point of...
Could you repeat, please / Would you be so kind as to repeat / Would
you mind repeating...
Well, I’m looking for the word / | can’t remember how to say / I'm afraid
| have forgotten...
Let me think...
I’m sorry to say | hadn’t seen the problem in the same light as you have...
I'd forgotten this aspect... That wasn't exactly what | meant...
ll faut également que le candidat se soit préparé a l’avance a
l'exercice de la lecture afin que celle-ci ne soit pas monotone et que la
prononciation des mots rares ou difficiles soit correcte. || faut également

4
respecter les pauses internes a |’intérieur d’une méme phrase (ne pas
séparer par exemple le verbe et le complément d’objet, le verbe et la
postposition), veiller a intonation (descendante en fin de phrase ou
pour une « WH Question », ascendante pour une « Yes/No Ques-
tion ») et aux accents (l’accent tonique du mot et l’accent de mise en
relief des mots porteurs d'information).
Une bonne lecture, faite avec le ton qui convient, est déja une
explication de texte. Pour que cette lecture soit riche, il faut que la
lecture silencieuse du candidat qui aborde un texte soit bien faite. Les
conseils qui suivent valent donc aussi pour |’épreuve de compréhension
d'un texte (@épreuve n° 2) dans le nouvel écrit du baccalauréat.
ll faut toujours penser que les divers éléments d’un texte sont
solidaires, il faut donc les mettre en relation, opérer un découpage des
unités de sens, repérer les mots porteurs d’information, les éléments de
coordination, les conjonctions afin de découvrir |’articulation d’une
pensée; repérer également les comparaisons, les images, etc... Tout
cela pour ne pas se satisfaire d’une analyse de surface, mais bien aller a
l’'implicite voulu par l’auteur.
Enfin, que l’expression soit écrite ou orale, un des critéres impor-
tants de l’évaluation est « l’exécution adéquate de la tache demandée ».
Ainsi, un commentaire de texte est bien une analyse du texte et non
une paraphrase, ni une lecon apprise par coeur, ni des éléments de
civilisation plaqués sur un texte. A |’écrit, analyser, c’est bien prendre en
compte et étudier tous les éléments importants du texte (themes, lieux,
personnages, relations, style, etc.) dans le but de définir le contenu
implicite du texte. La synthése rappellera les éléments importants de
l'analyse pour donner une vision plus élevée de |l’ensemble. Comparer,
c’est bien mettre en rapport deux phrases/avis/textes/jugements/person-
nages... afin d’en étudier les ressemblances et les différences
explicites ou implicites. || faut donc commencer par analyser puis
comparer.
Le candidat doit se rappeler sans cesse que les exercices proposés
et les questions posées (qui doivent étre « de formulation claire, ni trop
complexe ni trop technique ») sont toujours a la portée du futur
bachelier. || suffit de bien les lire (ou de bien les écouter) et de bien y
réfléchir avant de se lancer!
 1. THE FRONTIER

The Frontier: an important phenomenon to be analysed for the

understanding of American Society.

|. THE MAKING OF A MYTH

1) Definition.
— a moving zone versus a fixed border.
— various receding geographical limits.
2) The opposition between different worlds.
— Wilderness versus society.
— Birth of a new type: the Pioneer.
— The new West versus the old East.

3) A new type of hero.

— The hero of the West: boldness, enterprise, energy.
— The hero in American history: from the conqueror to the self-
made man.

ll. INTERPRETATIONS OF A MYTH

1) F. J. Turner’s theory.
— An assessment of the Frontier made in 1893 : on its
“significance in American history”, “the promotion of democ-
racy”.
2) Criticism of “Turner’s theory”.
— A reassessment of the Frontier in relation to the evolution of
American society, from 1890 on today: the dangers of an
agrarian myth.
3) Contemporary attitudes.
— Still a most powerful myth, used by twentieth-century
politicians Kennedy's “New Frontier”.
— A complex myth: its significance for the Hippies and the
silent majority.

CONCLUSION:
The West today: from a horizontal and vertical dimension to a
more interiorized one.
To understand America and its evolution and even some of its modern
features, one must study a rather exceptional phenomenon in the
history of the country, that of the frontier, which, for over two centuries,
from the Pilgrims’arrival to 1890, symbolized the conquest of a huge
continent. No other example can be found in history. The U.S.S.R. did
move westward but never did their drive acquire such a mythical power
as that of the American Frontier, over a whole people and even over
people from other countries.

|. THE MAKING OF A MYTH

1) Definition.
From the beginning of settlement in the first British colonies, the
Frontier appeared as a zone rather than a precise, well-delineated line.
It never resembled anything like borders in Europe. Moreover, this zone
was uncertain and could vary in size from place to place.
Another distinctive feature was that it was moving and kept
advancing till the western limit of the Pacific ocean was reached. So,
unlike the closed rigid boundaries of Europe, it suggested something
positive, an open continent endlessly stretching west.
In this drive westward, there were different frontiers which corres-
ponded to natural boundary lines to be crossed successively, namely
the Fall Line marking the Frontier of the xvith century, The Allegheny
and the Appalachian mountains marking the xviith century, the
Mississippi that of the first quarter of the xixth century, the Missouri that
of 1850 and the arid lines and the Rocky mountains which was the last
frontier, closed officially in 1890.
These natural lines affected the characteristics of each frontier (the
trader’s frontier, the rancher’s, the miner’s and the farmer's frontier).

2) The opposition between different worlds.

The frontier was also the opposition between two worlds: a
primitive form of society versus wilderness, be it the virgin lands or the
indian tribes. Settlers were trying to put some order into this wilderness
by setting up small communities and by tilling the soil. Fences were the
visible signs of an agricultural “order”.
First, territories were defined, then they became states and part of
the Union. In this encounter of civilization and wilderness, reactions
could not be just one-sided; and if men left their imprint on nature,
nature in turn “modified” them, especially since such a settlement was
by no means an easy task,
People often stress the feeling of enthusiasm and excitement
inherent in the conquest, but undervalue the great difficulties the
settlers had to meet with, for instance, the climate was a natural enemy.
Colliding with a task which could often seem overwhelming, the
pioneer had to rely on himself. Man’s strength and faith generated
a great dynamism which is a distinctive feature of American optimism.
In this precarious society, only the fittest survived, and a staunch
individualism marked the period and the men who tended to draw
some support from the close unit of the family. They would not hesitate
to take justice into their own hands.
So, along with qualities such as courage and endurance, came a
string of defects which could degenerate into vice: violence (with many
outlaws), corruption, selfishness, disorder verging on anarchy.
The opposition was twofold because there was another larger
opposition, again between two worlds: the old one, mainly embodied by
Europe but also by the East, and the new one, which was constantly
moving.
The East was static and to a more organized stable form of society
such as the one which for some years already had been set up in the
East, the West appeared as coarse and sometimes barbaric. With its
refinement, growing institutions and industries, the East smacked of old
Europe. The West and its free land which could be taken “without any
part being claimed either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot or a mighty
Lord” (to quote Jean de Crevecceur who, after being an officer in the
French army, settled in America and became a farmer) conjured up a
land of plenty and of opportunity.

3) A new type of hero.

The Frontier world and the legend it became saw the birth of a new
type of hero: the Hero of the West, a man devoid of all weaknesses and
endowed with all possible qualities. He was bold and dashing, never
balked at a job, full of hope and energy. His stature grew into that of a
national hero, the perfect example of the perfect pioneer, that is to say
of the perfect American. Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill were
some of those western heroes, now legendary figures of the move
westward.
Such a “mythical” character and such a use of the Frontier helped
America to change the course of History. The Indian, the defeated was
the baddie; the western hero, the conqueror was the goody; being such
an alteration of reality, the epic of the West came in handy to glorify a
deed (the massacre of a people) and expansionist views. (In 1845,
John O'Sullivan wrote: “it is our manifest destiny to overspread the
continent allotted by providence for the free development of our
multiplying millions”! In a typically puritan way, with God’s bles-

9
sings—success and divine approval being one and the same thing—
more land could be conquered.)
After the civil war and after 1890, with the growing industrial
development, there came yet another hero: the self-made man, the
hero of so many rags-to-riches stories, the new pioneer of a new
frontier. J. P. Morgan, A. Carnegie, J. D. Rockefeller and H. Ford
were also called “the robber barons”, and having a lot in common with
the heroes of the West (they made it too!) they were more ambiguous
and more dangerous, for their prestige (stemming from their material
successes) was more visible and more efficient. To the Average
American, they served as a ready-made image on which he could
model his conduct.

ll. INTERPRETATIONS OF A MYTH

1) F. J. Turner’s Theory.
It was quite significant that Frederick Turner should have written
and spoken about “the significance of the frontier in American history”
at a meeting of the American historical association held in Chicago in
1893, just a few years after the frontier had been officially closed.
1890 marked the end of an era and of a fundamental trait for the
country. A possible limitation of natural resources was then feared. In
his essay, Turner stressed the fact that, up to that time, American history
had been, to a large degree, the history of the colonization of the
West. He pointed out the various stages of frontier advance, the
consequence of such a phenomenon on America mentality and
especially insisted on the fact that “the most important effect of the
frontier had been in the promotion of democracy”.
Turner thought the frontier was productive of individualism: it made
the pioneer go to the frontier, enabling him to survive. It led to a
rejection of direct government control (great distances turned the
federal government into something abstract). Thanks to this frontier
individualism, local governments could flourish, defending their privi-
lege and autonomy.

2) Criticism of “Turner's theory”.

The triumph of the frontier came with good and evil elements:
liberty confused with the absence of an effective government (specula-
tion, corruption, the spoil system). Turner's view was mainly positive;
the frontier is now criticized.
During the frontier era, the West, a constant reminder of the
importance of agriculture in American society, had nourished an agra-
rian myth which prevented people from tackling the problems created by

10
industrialization when they arose. The distrust of the city and of industry
impeded cooperation between farmers and factory workers.
Moreover, such a tradition affirmed that the destiny of America led
her away from Europe, toward the agricultural interior of the continent (a
point which was heavily made by Turner); thus it made it difficult for
Americans to think of themselves as part of a world community and
reinforced isolationism. It had an effect on politics as it contributed to
creating unbalanced domestic and foreign policies.

3) Contemporary attitudes.
The myth of the frontier and of the West is of paramount
importance, because even if reality was not all that exhilarating, the
myth of the West is just as important as its reality, and perhaps even
more so. From it, Americans drew the strength of their patriotism and it
was this enormous power.of a myth that J. F. Kennedy understood
admirably and used in his campaign, calling up on the American past
and the pioneers’virtues to try and conquer a “new frontier” (cf:
Kennedy's Acceptance Address). In adding the adjective “new” to the
word frontier, he did not want to equate the myth of the West, so dear to
the American people’s hearts, with a conservative attitude of withdrawal
or isolationism, but, on the contrary, he wanted it to symbolize concrete
actions such as technological, economic and social conquests.
For the silent majority, the myth of the West still represents the
possibility of material success and of climbing up the social ladder. “Go
West young man” and you will find your fortune! It also symbolizes a
narrow-minded nationalism, the “crew-cut” farmer of western states is
the good American who sticks to good traditional values. The myth, then,
works as an apology of conservatism.
For the Hippies, for students, intellectuals and leftists, the West
appears as an escape valve. It is full of utopic qualities. Communes
were set up in rural parts of the country, people were motivated by
various ideals (ecology, more political protests, antiwar or antinuclear
feelings...). Paradoxically enough, their vision of the myth is also of a
romantic pre-industrial West. Finally for different reasons, the silent
majority and the Hippies share the same dream and the same fears (an
idyllic pastoral past never to be recovered). The ultimate value of the
Frontier myth is that of Paradise lost.

CONCLUSION:
Today the West is no longer in the west, but in people’s conscience.
After taking a horizontal dimension (expansion in the country and all
over the globe) and a vertical one (conquest of space) it has now a
more interiorized dimension, nonetheless alive.

11
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 1

American myth and reality

I'd like to begin with a sweeping generalization and argue that

every country or culture has a single unifying and informing symbol
at its core. (Please don’t take any of my oversimplifications as
articles of dogma which allow of no exceptions; they are proposed
simply to create vantage points from which the literature may be
viewed.) The symbol, then—be it word, phrase, idea, image, or all
of these—functions like a system of beliefs (it is a system of beliefs,
though not always a formal one) which holds the country together
and helps the people on it to cooperate for common ends. Possibly
the symbol for America is The Frontier, a flexible idea that contains
many elements dear to the American heart: it suggests a place that
is new, where the old order can be discarded (as it was when
America was instituted by a crop of disaffected Protestants, and
later at the time of the Revolution); a line that is always expanding,
taking in or “conquering” ever-fresh virgin territory (be it the West,
the rest of the world, outer space, Poverty or the Regions of the
mind); it holds out a hope, never fulfilled but always promised, of
Utopia, the perfect human society. Most twentieth century Ameri-
can literature is about the gap between the promise and the
actuality, between the imagined ideal Golden West or City upon a
Hill, the model for all the world postulated by the Puritans, and the
actual squalid materialism, dotty small town, nasty city, or redneck-
filled outback. Some Americans have even confused the actuality
with the promise: in that case Heaven is a Hilton hotel with a coke
machine in it.
Survival, by M. Atwood,
in A thematic Guide to canadian
literature, Toronto, House of Anansi Press, 1972.

12
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PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. INTRODUCTION
An excerpt from Survival by Margaret Atwood, a
Canadian female writer (born in 1939).
As an introduction to her book she argues that every
country can be seen through a symbol (“a word, an
image, a phrase”, etc.) which shapes the nation, is
present all along its history, unites all the inhabitants
information and provides them with a common goal.
(13) England: the Island:
portrait (20) — self-contained
— well-structured
— a Body Politic: the head is the king; the hands are
the statesmen; and the feet are the farmers and workers.
Canada: Survival:
— hanging on in the face of hostile elements,
— carving out a place and a way to keep alive,
— fostering anxiety.
The U.S.A.: The Frontier

ll. THE FRONTIER

What does it correspond to in the American history and
the American heart?
Atwood suggests three main ideas:

1) Novelty.
a) the place: the immigrants arriving in a “virgin” land;
b) a new order:
— the Pilgrim Fathers fleeing religious persecutions
purpose (23) and creating New England to establish a new puritan
order.
refusal (24) — the Revolution: the “Colonies” getting their indepen-
dence, rejecting the British rule;
portrait (20) — the immigrants leaving old, war-ravaged, tyranny-
ridden, decaying Europe to get to the promised land
(as the Hebrews left Egypt and crossed the desert to
Canaan).

14
 c) a new man: America = a new creation for a new
man. Ex.; Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe: “a lone self-
sufficient individual relying on his rational resources”.
Thoreau, Emerson, Cooper: the myth-makers of the
American ADAM: an_ individual emancipated from
history, bereft of ancestry, untouched and undefiled by
the usual inheritance of family and race; self-reliant,
self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him
with his own inherent resources; fundamentally innocent
(cf. M. Twain's Huckleberry Finn).

2) Conquest.
a) the West: the pioneers pushing the Frontier west-
wards. In 150 years, the frontier moved 2,000 miles
westwards.
In 1890, the director of Census said the country no
longer had a frontier of settlement.
preference Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) said that “Man was no
(21) longer a Pilgrim seeking his way to heaven but a
conqueror of the earth whose best weapons were
industry, honest and sound practical judgment”.

to persuade b) the rest of the world: The end of the Frontier Time
(19) pushed the U.S. to build an overseas empire: Cuba,
Puerto Rico and the Philippines were taken from the
Spanish less than ten years after the Census Bureau
announced the end of the frontier time.

c) the outer space:

1962: first American in orbital space flights;
1965: White was the first man to walk in space;
1969: Neil A. Armstrong was the first man to walk on
the moon;
1981: the shuttle, the first space craft to land like an
airplane and to be ready for other missions.

d) the Regions of the mind: M. Atwood alludes to the

tremendous development of medical research in parti-
cular and more generally, to the development of science.
In the New Frontier, Kennedy said: “Together let us
explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate
disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts
and commerce.”

1S
 3) Hope.
Utopia: “a perfect human society”. Before landing, the
Pilgrim Fathers signed a solemn agreement binding
them in a “civil body politic” to make just and equal
purpose (23) laws. They meant to establish “a City upon the Hill” that
should be an example to all men.
On the 4th of July, the Declaration of Independence
proclaimed that “all men are equal, with the right to Life,
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”.
At home, the Frontier has fostered political democracy
and mass politics; it has persuaded the Americans that
obligation (16) the “American way” is the best and must serve as a
model for all the world; Americans are convinced that
the U.S. has to be the champion of freedom against the
Communist system and to play the role of World
probability Gendarme. If the disappointing and humiliating expe-
(22) rience in Vietnam has led many people to question the
American international responsibilities, most Americans
feel themselves invested with a special mission to
extend humanitarian aid, to promote human rights and
to support the cause of individual freedom.
As H. Humphrey put it: “We can’t be the world’s
policeman, but we can be the world’s idealist” (quoted
in Time, Jan. 78).

personal ill. REALITY

opinion (18)
“The gap between the Promise and the actuality”. The
disapproval
American dream is said to have turned into a consum-
(10)
ing nightmare.
suggestion
(25)
1) Materialism.
The American economy is based on an ever-increasing
appearance production; hence:
(5) an increasingly alluring advertising to create new
tastes- needs, more and more credit (you can buy anything
distastes (26) with a credit card, from food to burial) induce people
obligation (16) into buying and consuming.
What people aim at is:
— owning more than their neighbours (to keep up with
the Joneses);
— having a more and more comfortable, standardized,
push-button life: “Heaven is a Hilton hotel with a coke

16
information fountain in it”: it’s the Consumer Society, questioned by
(12) many young people (Hippies and the counter culture).

2) Urban crisis.
“Nasty city”: in the 19th century, cities sprang up like
mushrooms: numbers of ex-slaves and impoverished
whites flocked to rapidly-growing Northern metropoli-
ses where wages were higher and jobs more plentiful.
In the 20th century, two main movements:
Past/Present a) from cities to suburbs: flight of upper and middle
(17) classes to the suburbs: the automobile made possible
ability (1) the development of affluent suburbs with luxurious
housing development (suburbia).
b) from the country to the cities: the vacated apart-
alternative ments of the middle classes were then occupied by
(4) impoverished tenants with large families: Blacks and
Hispanics from the rural south, Mexico, Puerto Rico.
Buildings deteriorated; the apathy of the landlords and
the demoralization of the tenants increased in a vicious
circle of worsening physical and human conditions. The
helplessness inner city was transformed in ghettos where violence,
and crime, mugging and drug addiction reached high
resignation
levels. AS municipal Government has traditionally been
(11)
paid out of local tax collections (property taxes and a
contrasts (8) variety of excise taxes), the exodus of individual and
business tax payers to the suburbs led to a drastic cut
in the cities’ resources at the very moment when the
need and cost of social services increased by leaps
and bounds.
From the late 30’s to the 60’s, slums were replaced by
housing projects (Urban renewal). But this programme
had disastrous effects: it concentrated the poor in grim,
vertical barracks, monotonous and depressing in their
condition (7) uninspired uniformity.
The housing policy led to the late 60’s urban riots.

3) “Redneck-filled outback”.
The average middleclass American outside the large
urban centers has retained some of the defects of the
early pioneers.
(cf. the New Frontier: the defect of the pioneers)
Far from questioning the American consumer society,

17
 they remain conformists and racialists: They cling to the
WASP’s privileges.

IV. CONCLUSION
This very short piece of prose is remarkable for its
conciseness and its suggestiveness.
Each phrase evokes a part of the American history. The
text's 2-beat rhythm suggests the beating of the
American heart, with its diastole: the great dream of a
perfect society and its systole, the often squalid reality.

EXERCICES

|. Mettez le verbe entre parentheses au temps voulu.

1. So far, Americans ...... comfort for happiness. (mistake)
2. When the Pilgrim Fathers ...... in America in 1609, they ...... to
create a model society. (land - intend)
3. As soon as the pioneers ...... West, they will clash with the Indians.
(go)
Aindiansi <n sane harmoniously for years when the European civiliza-
tion broke in. (live)
Seulfitheyes: se. smaller cities, there would have been fewer problems.
(build)

ll. Remettez les mots dans Il’ordre afin d’obtenir une phrase qui ait
un sens.
1. have / themselves / the / champions / always / considered / as /
freedom / of / Americans.
2. is / best-known / in / today / writer / Canada / Atwood / of / one / the.
3. the / did / bring / Puritans / along / not / a / order / only / new, /
to / but / they / model / as / tried / impose / a / it.
4. neighbours / owning / many / aim / people / at / than / more / their.

18
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 2

Down the Mississippi

This second night we run between seven and eight hours with
a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched!
fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off
sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river,
laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel
like talking loud, and it warn’t? often that we laughed, only a little
kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general
thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night nor the
next, nor the next.
Every night we passed towns, some of them up on black
hillsides nothing but just a shiny bed of lights, not a house could
you see. The fifth night we passed St Louis, and it was like the
whole world lit up. In St Petersburg they used to say there was
twenty or thirty thousand people in St Louis, but I never believed
it till | see that wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that still
night. There warn’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night, now, I used to slip ashore, towards ten o’clock, at
some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meat or
bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that
warn’t roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said,
take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don’t want
him yourself you can easy? find somebody that does, and a good
deed ain’t ever forgot’. I never see pap when he didn’t want the
chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

Mornings, before daylight, I slipped into corn-fields and

borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a pumkin,or some
new cor, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn’t no harm?
to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometime;
but the widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing,
and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow
was partly right and Pap was partly right; so the best way would be
for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we
wouldn’t borrow them any more—then he reckoned it wouldn’t be

19
no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night,
drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether
to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or
what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory?, and
concluded to drop crab-apples and p’simmons. We warn’t feeling
just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the
way it came out, too, because crab-apples ain’t ever good®, and
the p’simmons wouldn’t be ripe for two or three months yet.
We shot a water-fowl, now and then, that got up too early in
the morning or didn’t go to bed early enough in the evening. Take
it all around, we lived pretty high.
The fifth night below St Louis we had a big storm after
midnight with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain
poured down in a solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and left
the raft take care of itself. When the lightning glared out we could
see a big straight river ahead, and high rocky bluffs on both sides.
By-and-by says I’ “Hel-lo, Jim, looky yonder”. It was a steamboat
that had killed herself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for
her. The lightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over,
with part of her upper deck above water, and you could see every
little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with
an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it when the flashes come.
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Penguin Books Ltd.

1. catched: caught. — 2. wam’t: wasn't / weren’t. — 3. easy / satisfactory: easily /

satisfactorily. — 4. ain’t ever forgot: is never forgotten. — 5. it wam’t no harm: it
was no harm. — 6. ain’t ever good: is never good. — 7. says I: | said.

20
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PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. INTRODUCTION
Huck, the disreputable boy in the Adventures of Tom
Sawyer, ragged, uncared for, beaten whenever his
drunken father was sober enough to hold the strap, ran
away from the respectable widow who meant to civilize
him and turn him into a decent boy.
In Jackson Island, he met a runaway slave Jim. They
likeness (9) both decided to sail down the Mississippi River on a raft,
in order to reach a “free state”. Down the river, they will
live all kinds of adventures which will give Mark Twain
the opportunity to draw a satire of the South-Western
society in the little towns on the banks of the Mississippi.
This text describes their first nights down the river.

ll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS

1) Everynight life on the Mississippi + everyday life.

a) Very precise mentions of time: “this second night”;
“that night, nor the next, nor the next”; “the fifth night”;
“Towards ten o’clock”; “mornings before daylight”.
Jim and Huck live at night and sleep during the day: they
are outcasts.
On the contrary, on the banks, in the small towns and
contrasts (8) villages, in St Louis, people live in the daytime and
sleep at night: they are civilized, decent people.
comparisons The banks represent civilization; the Mississippi rep-
(6) resents freedom and adventure, as the West represen-
ted freedom and adventure for the pioneers.
b) Huck and Nature:
— Huck is deeply impressed by and in communion with
Nature and its solemnity at night: “It was kind of
solemn...”;
intensity (14) — but he is also very much attracted by the glittering
aspect of civilization: “a shiny bed of lights”, “a
wonderful spread of lights”.

22
 2) Borrowing things.
a) Borrowing: every night Huck goes ashore to buy
“stuff to eat” but on the way he lifts (steals) chickens.
ability (1) Before daylight he “slips” ashore to borrow waterme-
lons, some new corn, mushmelons... etc.

”
b) Is “ borrowing right or wrong? Moral arguing
between the two characters Huck and Jim, but in fact
between four characters: Pap and the Widow being
brought in by Huck “Pap always said... but the widow
said...” (here we can note the importance of the oral
tradition, of Huck’s oral knowledge).
So, we have three main opinions from the three persons
who made Huck’s personality: Pap, the widow and Jim.
negative — Pap’s opinion: the outcast’s opinion, a man who had
orders (15) to survive. It’s a pragmatic opinion: “when you get a
purpose (23) chance, take it”; but who nevertheless tries to find some
self-justification: “if you don’t want it yourself you can
easy find somebody that does”. It is no harm to borrow
condition (7) things, providing you mean to pay them back... some-
time.
personal — The widow’s opinion: the puritan opinion. Borrowing
opinion and things is stealing and it is not decent (importance of
disapproval
decency in the puritan education).
(10)
— Jim's opinion: actually, he has not got any opinion
(“the widow was partly right, pap was partly right”).
Huck and Jim have to find a middle solution: they will
suggestions cross out two or three things from the list; after a whole
(25) night arguing, they decide to cross out the crab-apples
(which aren’t very good) and the p’simmons (which are
comparisons unripe); and they feel alright, their conscience is at ease.
(6) — This discussion represents:
— a satire of the puritan moral education based on
probability respectability and hypocrisy more than love and genero-
(22) sity;
— the necessity for Huck and Jim and therefore for the
western pioneers whom they represent to build a new
morality based on pragmatism, to decide by themselves
what was good and what was bad, to find in themselves
obligation (16) their own justification (if he does not take the chicken,
someone else will). The new world was there ready to
take and difficult to hold. They had to make their own

23
 laws in a hard and violent environment. “The truth is
what works”. 3
— This part of the text is full of humour because:
— of the funny details Huck uses to justify himself: he
lifts the chickens “that aren’t roosting comfortably”; he
shoots the water fowls “that got up too early in the
morning or didn’t go to bed early enough in the evening”
as if it were the animals’ fault: they weren’t prudent
enough, all the worse for them;
— of the naivety pervading the whole passage: the child
is or seems to be dead earnest when he speaks of his
robberies or when he argues about borrowing things;
— it’s a piece of lively prose: the illusion that these are
Huck’s words is never destroyed. Huck is true to himself
in the way he tells the story, in the details he remem-
bers, in his problems of conscience.

3) The storm.
Contrast with the beginning: “mighty good weather”:
“we lived pretty high”.
a) strength of Nature: a power of thunder and light; the
probability lightning glared. The high rock bluffs on both sides. The
(22) river is “a strong brown god” (T.S. Eliot).
b) its domination over Man: the steamboat has killed
herself on a rock. What’s left of man’s achievement
looks ridiculous and miserable: the upper deck, a chair
and an old slouching hat hanging on the back of it... seen
in the flashes of lightning.
c) Huck’s reactions: no fear, the storm appears to him
as a show; no compassion for the wreck and for the
suggestions people. As a child, he is quite detached and on level
(25) ground with adventure, mystery, nature.

lil. ROLE OF THE RIVER IN HUCK’S ADVENTURES

1) Technically.
It's the thread of a string of picaresque adventures.

2) But it also plays a part.

It is one of the characters in the novel. It symbolizes:

24
 a) destiny: it runs southwards and carries Jim towards
freedom;
ability (1) b) experience: Huck becomes gradually aware of the
evils of society. He does not only see the beauty of the
Mississippi, he is also aware of its dangers;
c) an escape from society into nature: the two heroes
intensity (14) are a runaway slave and a boy on the run; the river is the
vehicle for Huck’s escape from civilization. Each time
they land ashore, they can experience the evils of
civilization; each time they come back to the river, they
feel as if they were re-born in the innocence of nature.

3) Doubleness.
We have here the two aspects of the river: its benevolent
aspect (1st part) / its malevolent aspect (storm), as we
have good weather / storm; night / day; right / wrong;
what must be done / what needs to be done. Double-
ness, which is a recurrent theme in the book, shows the
two aspects of a same thing which is “life on the
Mississippi”. The river is an ambiguous paradise with
contrasting, contradictory faces, and that is why it is also
the symbol of the West, of the Frontier.

IV. CONCLUSION
In Huckleberry Finn, there is more than satire, more than
the observation and description of the ridicules and
faults of a society. There seems to be the destruction of
the author’s hopes and dreams and that’s what gives the
book its pathos: that dream was that of the western
adventure, the western quest for justice and freedom...
the hope was the hope for a true American democracy.

25
 EXERCICES

|. Complétez la phrase avec la postposition qui convient.

1. Every night, Huck would slip ...... the fields to steal some food.
2. He looked at the steamboat as the raft drifted ...... the river.
Salut |OOKEG eae or. and could still see the island they had just left
behind.
4. He came ...... to the raft carrying ...... the chicken he had
borrowed ashore.
5. As soon as they get to the steamboat, they will climb ...... on board
the ship.

ll. Introduisez dans la phrase le groupe de mots entre parentheses

et faites les modifications nécessaires.
1. Borrowing is not stealing provided you intend to pay the people back.
(Pap used to say)
2. Jim and Huck were travelling on the Mississippi. (for three days)
3. He’s found a watermelon. (/ast night)
4. They are starving. (/f they hadn't stolen)
5. They must land. (When the night has fallen)

26
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 3

The New Frontier

Today our concern must be with the future. For the world is
changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.
Abroad, the balance of power is shifting. There are new and
more terrible weapons, new and uncertain nations, new pressures
of population and deprivation. One-third of the world, it has
been said, may be free—but one-third is the victim of cruel re-
pression—and the other one-third is rocked by the pangs of
poverty, hunger and envy. More energy is released by the awake-
ning of these new nations than by the fission of the atom itself.
The world has been close to war before—but now man, who
has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his
mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some
seven times over.
Here at home, the changing fact of the future is equally
revolutionary. The New Deal and the Fair Deal were bold
measures for their generations—but this is a new generation.
A technological revolution on the farm has led to an output
explosion—but we have not yet learned how to harness that
explosion usefully, while protecting our farmers’ right to full parity
income. An urban revolution has overcrowded our schools,
cluttered up our suburbs, and increased the squalor of our slums. A
peaceful revolution for human rights—demanding an end to racial
discrimination in all parts of our community life—has strained at
the leashes imposed by the timid Executive leadership. A medical
revolution has extended the life of our elder citizens without
providing the dignity and security those later years deserve. And a
revolution of automation find machines replacing men in the mines
and mills of America, without replacing their income or their
training or their need to pay the family doctor, grocer and landlord.
There has also been a change—a slippage—in our intellectual and
moral strength. Too many Americans have lost their way, their will
and their sense of historic purpose.
It is time, in short, for a new generation of leadership—new
men to cope with new problems and new opportunities.

ral
 I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier.
From the lands that stretch 3,000 miles behind me, the pioneers of
old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to
build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of
their own doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto
was not “every man for himself” but “all for the common cause”.
They were determined to make that new world strong and free, to
overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies
that threatened from without and within.
Today some would say that those struggles are all over—that
all the horizons have been explored—that all the battles have been
won—that there is no longer an American frontier.
But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or
not. Beyond that frontier are unchartered areas of science and
space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets
of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and
surplus.
The harsh facts of the matter are that we stand on this frontier
at a turning-point in history. We must prove all over again whether
this nation—or any nation so conceived—can long endure—
whether our society—with its freedom of choice, its breadth of
opportunities, its range of alternatives—can compete with the
single-minded advance of the Communist system.
Can a nation organized and governed such as ours endure?
That is the real question. Have we the nerve and the will? Can we
carry through in an age where we will witness not only new
breakthroughs in weapons of destruction—but also a race for the
mastery of the sky and the rain, the oceans and the tides, the far
side of space and the inside of men’s minds? Are we up to the task?
Are we equal to the challenge? Are we willing to match the Russian
sacrifice of the present for the future? Or must we sacrifice our
future in order to enjoy the present?
That is the question of the New Frontier. That is the choice our
nation must make. All mankind waits upon our decision. A whole
world looks to see what we will do. We cannot fail their trust; we
cannot fail to try.
John F. Kennedy, Acceptance Address,
Democratic National Convention
Los Angeles, July 15, 1960.

28
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PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
This is Kennedy’s address at the Democratic Convention
which took place in Los Angeles, in July 1960. Kennedy
was then elected as the Democratic Candidate for the
Presidential campaign. In November 1960, Kennedy
was elected President of the U.S.A., the first Catholic,
non-WASP President. He was assassinated in Dallas on
November 22, 1963.
In the fifties, the U.S.A. had gone through a series of
ordeals: the Korean war, Senator McCarthy’s witch-hunt
against the communists (cf. Théme “The fifties”), and
many Americans seemed to have lost their faith in the
future, “their way, their will and their sense of historic
purpose”.
Kennedy uses the theme of the Frontier to cheer them
up, to remind them of their courageous and enterprising
purpose (23) ancestors, the pioneers, and to give them a new ideal.

ll. THE STYLE

This is a speech; it has the characteristics of the
rhetorical style.

1) It is very clearly built.

The attack of each part very clearly states what Kennedy
is going to speak about:
1st part: Abroad, the balance of power is shifting;
2nd part: Here at home, the changing fact of the future is
revolutionary;
3rd part: /t is time fora new generation of leadership.
a/ “| stand tonight facing west...”
b/ “Some would say... but | tell you...”
c/ “A New Frontier is here...”
4th part: Can a nation such as ours survive?

2) Repetitions.
a) of words: new, revolution, future, today, frontier...

30
 b) of clauses: a technical revolution...
an urban revolution...
c) of patterns: in the paragraph about the revolutions, all
the sentences are built on the same pattern.

3) Rhetorical questions.
Usually rather short and placed at the end to impose a
greater pressure, to arouse the Americans’ courage, to
urge them on.
“Are we up to the task? Are we equal to the challenge?”

4) Very short, abrupt sentences.

a) at the beginning to attract the attention, to impress his
audience from the beginning;
b) at the end: after the set of rhetorical questions, to
ability (1) dramatize the issue, to increase the pressure on his
audience.

5) Well-balanced sentences.
Between the clear beginning and the strong energetic
end, we have long well-balanced sentences, built on:
a) contrasts: “not only ...... but also”; “A revolution
od coe and yet”; “A revolution ...... without”...
b) dramatic, solemn sentences to appeal to the imagin-
ation of the Americans: “| stand tonight facing west...”;
“Man has taken into his mortal hands the power to
exterminate the entire species”; “We stand on this
frontier at a turning point in history”...
c) the general rhythm is a three-beat rhythm, very well
adapted to a rhetorical style:
— Lines 3-4: “There are new and more terrible
weapons, new and uncertain nations, new pressures of
population...”
— Lines 41-42: “They were determined to make that
new world... to overcome its hazards... to conquer the
enemies...”
— Lines 55-56: “our society with its freedom of choice,
its breadth of opportunities, its range of alternatives”...

31
 lll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE
MAIN IDEAS
1) The world is changing.
a) There are new nations: Kennedy alludes to the third
world; the old empires have crumbled down; new,
young countries want to live, to have their place in the
sun.
They are a threat to the world in so far as they are poor
and starving;
b) There are new weapons: the atomic bomb, nuclear
weapons are proliferating; man can destroy the planet
several times;
c) There is a new generation who want new solutions.
The previous “deals” are obsolete:
— the New Deal: Roosevelt's plan to get the US out of
the depression of the thirties;
difference/ — the Fair Deal: Truman's plan to get the US out of the
likeness (9) post-war crisis.

2) The old leadership was unable to face the new

revolutions.
This paragraph is built on the contrast between the
dramatic changes that are taking place in the US
(revolutions) and the unability of the political leaders
(“timid executive leadership”) to take advantage of
persuade (19) them. The use of “we”, “our” is meant to bring the
Americans together, to show that they are responsible
for what is going wrong in the country and that they can
get out of the crisis if they stick together.
As Kennedy will put it in his inaugural address, 7 months
later “Ask not what your country will do for you, ask what
you can do for your country”.
a) A farming revolution has \ed to an increased pro-
duction but farmers have got lower income than the
other professions;
b) An urban revolution led to slums (cf. text n° 1);
alternative (4) c) A revolution for human rights, but racialism is
plaguing the US; the Blacks have not yet been given the
Civil Rights, are still discriminated against, especially in

32
wishes and the South (school busing); they live in ghettos in large
regrets (27) cities (cf. Théme: The Blacks);
d) A medical revolution: people live longer but poor old
people are not protected enough or not covered at all by
the Welfare State;
e) A revolution in work: automation. Machines take the
place of men, which leads to unemployment, poverty
and sometimes starvation;
disapproval f) A moral revolution: The Americans are losing their
(10) energy, their faith in the future.

3) A New Frontier is opening:

a) The first frontier time: between 1785 and 1890, when
the pioneers pushed the frontier of the USA from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
change — They were our ancestors;
Past/Present — They had faith;
(17) — They gave their lives for the building of our nation;
appearance — They stuck all together against the dangers and the
(5) enemies.
b) There is still another frontier to push: the limits of
science, of peace, of ignorance and prejudice, of poverty
likeness (9) and starvation.
alternative (4) c) We are challenged by our enemies; the Communist
system.
It's a race for new weapons; for the mastery of Nature, of
Space, of Man’s mind.
We need faith to be “up to the challenge”.
difference and Like the pioneers, we must be ready to sacrifice the
likeness (9) present for the future.
Like the pioneers, we have to stick all together behind a
refusal (24) new leader.
What our forefathers did, we can do as well.

IV. WHAT WERE THE FIRST PIONEERS LIKE?

1) They had qualities.

a) They had to be hardworking, capable of adjusting to
whatever circumstances required, they had to learn to

33
 make do without conventional tools, to invent new ways
of doing things. It fostered initiative, self-reliance, pride.
They weren’t, as Kennedy says, “the victims of their
own doubts”.
b) On the Frontier, equality and liberty were no abstract
concepts: ranks and status tended to be disregarded
(“they were not the prisoners of their own price tags”),
men had plenty of elbow room, were far from prying
neighbours. They were the first to introduce universal
manhood suffrage in their constitution.

2) But they also had defects.

In fact the frontiermen bore little resemblance to the
glamorized hero of the western films.
a) A lot of corruption: land speculation. A large part of
the land was fraudulently appropriated by railway and
mining companies.
b) Roughness and brutality due to hard conditions of
living, the pioneer was often a rough, ignorant, drunken,
wife-beating brute prone to violence.
c) Selfishness: Even if Kennedy says that they united in
front of danger (“all for the common cause”) their motto
was rather “each for oneself”: no time to care for others
led to stubborn individualism. Not always very tolerant
and free from prejudice, they were the only masters on
board and could not admit anyone questioning their
authority and their rights. It was often a matter of life or
death.

Vv. CONCLUSION
The Frontier has grown into a national myth. No wonder
Kennedy built his presidential campaign on the theme of
the New Frontier, projecting the image of a- dynamic,
energetic, go-ahead America launching on a new
conquest over poverty, diseases, ignorance and misery.
As to the challenge with the Communist world, it must
not be forgotten that Kennedy approved of the CIA's
attempted invasion in Cuba and sent the first American
“advisers” in South Vietnam.

34
 EXERCICES

I. Posez les questions correspondant aux mots en italique dans les

phrases suivantes.
1. The urban revolution has led to cluttered up suburbs.
2. The USA has gone through a scientific revolution for the last two
decades.
3. Every four years, the Americans elect a new President.
4. Kennedy tried to whip up the will and enthusiasm of his country-
fellows in order to persuade them to vote for him.
5. It was a long time since they hadn't heard such a cheering up speech.

Il. Complétez les phrases avec un mot dérivé de celui donné entre
parentheses.
1. Kennedy argued that the nation’s ...... depended on the Americans’
Se to match their forefathers’courage. (survive - able)
2. It was time for the new leaders to geta fresh ...... of the problems
the country was facing. (aware)
3. He blames his predecessors for their ...... (care)
WR ofoWe ste at said that America was challenged by the Communist world.
(repeat)
Bar AS welts, as a President would prove to the world that the US was
ready to face a new era. (appoint)

35
 2. MOBILITY

“America, the most mobile nation in the world”: facts and fiction.

|. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAST AND OF A SYSTEM

1) Past and present migrations.

— Across oceans and across a continent: the making of a nation.
— Recent migrations: shifts of population within the country.
The “Decade of the Sun Belt”.

2) Social mobility.
— Moving to seize better opportunities and climb up the social
ladder.
— Criticizing the “rat-race”.

ll. WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY THE SIZE OF A

CONTINENT

1) A huge landmass.
— Influence of the size of the country over its inhabitants, the
foreigners’ first shock.
—.Immensity calls for movement and action.
— Building the appropriate civilization.

2) Mobility in American art.

— The cinematographic image of Mobility: the western tradition;
“Easy Rider”, a new epic.
— Mobility as a literary theme: from real journeys to metaphor-
ical ones.

CONCLUSION:
— A typical American phenomenon, yet to be qualified.
— A more unconscious urge to be on the move: the gap
between Dream and Reality.

36
Mobility is one of the most typical American traits. The American nation is
even said to be the most mobile in the world. Already in 1831, Alexis de
Tocqueville wrote: “a man settles in a place which he soon afterwards
leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere”. In America as a
Civilization (1957), an important overall view of the United States, Max
Lerner said “Americans have always been voyagers”. How can their
mobility be accounted for?

|. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAST AND OF A SYSTEM

1) Past and present migrations.

For America, the past is full of images of movement: immigrants
sailing across the ocean, settlers moving west across a continent and an
ever-receding frontier which was closed only 94 years ago...! Such a
recent past was thus bound to turn a nation into a mobile one. It is easier
to pull up roots when you have already done it once.

On top of those first two important migrations (transoceanic

and transcontinental) there were more recent internal migrations:
from state to state and, on a smaller scale, from city to city, from city
centre to suburb and finally, a more recent trend, from urban centre to
rural area.

The black population migrated from the South to the industrial North.
Over the past few years, people have migrated to the sun belt and this
trend was confirmed by the 1980 census: the 70's were called the
“decade of the sun belt” (in the South, new well-paid jobs were to be
found especially in aeronautics and in oil industries. Cities like Houston
and Dallas have steadily increased in size).

During this decade, the South's population grew by 12.5 million,

that of the West grew by 8.3 million. Throughout the North central region
growth was very slow. The population of two north-eastern states actually
decreased. (New York’s fell by 3.8 percent and Rhode island’s by
3 percent.) According to census demographers, throughout the 70’s
there was an “unprecedented shift of population toward small urban
clusters and rural territory”. So Americans seem to have moved back to
the country.

37
2) Social mobility.
Such a mobility is first and foremost a social one; people change
place when they change jobs and they do not remain in a place if
something better is available somewhere else. America is the land of
opportunity: Americans are still moving to seize better opportunities.
The frontier spirit, the puritan spirit, the spirit of enterprise, the American
dream of material success, all of these account for such a trend.

Up to recent years, the system had compelled people to move so as

to climb up the social ladder, if possible. Executives working in big firms
can limit their possibilities and delay promotion if they refuse to move
(employees of |BM—lInternational Business Machines—jokingly, but with
some truth, say the company’s initials stand for “l’ve been moved”).

With a new awareness, some people have now started to criticize

this constant longing for more (a better job, more money, more comfort, a
larger house...). calling this pursuit of wealth, in a derogatory fashion, the
“rat-race”. In a word, people are becoming interested in things money
can’t buy (a sense of belonging somewhere, a stable homelife, a good
environment...).

ll. WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY THE SIZE OF A

CONTINENT

1) A huge landmass.
Another factor may well account for the mobility of Americans, this is
the huge landmass of the country itself. Such a factor cannot be
measured, reactions to it may vary from one person to another, yet
people cannot be indifferent to the amount of space they are living in: it
affects their way of thinking, their mentality; it defines the scope of their
activities and, as far the U.S.A. is concerned, this scope is the size of a
continent! The New-Yorker who goes to Florida, the American Riviera,
is in the same situation as the Parisian going to Sicily; if he goes skiing to
Sun Valley, Idaho, he can be compared to a Parisian going to the Ural
mountains!

Already in 1823, in The Pioneers, Fenimore Cooper, describing a

village as it was, right after its foundation, dead in a forest, was struck by
the size of the main road, so large that the founders’future prospects
seemed to be extraordinary.

38
 For a European, going to America means a real change of scale.
Jean de Crevecceur, some 200 years ago, described the feelings of
exaltation triggered off by such space, equated with immense freedom of
actions.

Space means freedom, it also means gigantic creations, it needs

to be conquered and tamed, and such a conquest is typically American,
be it national or individual. Immensity calls for movement and for action. It
compels people to react accordingly. For instance, so huge a country
compels its people to construct better transportation systems and to
move from trail to highway (Revolutionary developments in communica-
tions would render possible industrial expansion; cf: the railroad and
canal booms...).

In turn, so many facilities enjoyed by the people make it all the easier
for them to move (in the twenties, the introduction of automobiles on a
large scale increased mobility which even changed the face of many
towns and the life of the people by starting the shuttle movement back
and forth between working centres and residential suburbs). Drive-in
(restaurants, cinemas or even churches) and mobile homes are typically
American.

2) Mobility in American art.

Mobility can also be a pleasure and American genres such as
westerns and folk-songs, convey this magic of the land, this call of
immensity.

In John Ford's films, the hero is a free man, always shown coming
back home from-a long journey or ready to move and ride his horse for
miles and miles! A road or a track vanishing into the distance, a wagon or
a train pulling away, a door or window looking on to the open space of the
prairie or the desert and the figure of a horseman standing out from afar
against an immense horizon, all these images are typical and almost
hackneyed shots in American films. Traditional as they may be, they are
nonetheless effective, and representative of a people’s mentality and of
its imaginary world.

More recently, Easy Rider, a Dennis Hopper film, with a significant

title, describes a journey across the country from coast to coast.
Embarking on a journey, whether real or metaphorical, is a common
theme in American literature (from H. Melville's Moby Dick to S. Bel-
low’s Augie March).

39
 Folk-songs also are full of images of mobility; Woodie Guthrie
sang the pleasure of discovering a land which is “made for you and me”.
Tramps with no ties are glorified and “hitting the road”, for the sake of it,
became the rallying cry of a generation (cf. the analysis of the excerpt
from Kerouac’s On the Road and of the beat generation).

CONCLUSION:
Mobility is undoubtedly an American trend but things are changing and it
seems that recently the country has not lived up to its reputation (as it
used to); different aims and hopes have appeared. Yet the tendency to
move is still more important than in Europe; perhaps also because in this
constant mobility, some dissatisfaction can be felt. Such a feeling is
understandable in so far as great hopes cannot be totally fulfilled and
some shall never be. Yet, this lack of fulfillment makes them all the
stronger. Mobility can be explained by this gap between dream and
reality, by the effort, constantly renewed, to realize a dream which always
lies ahead.

40
 ~
TEXTE A COMMENTER 4

On the road

I went to sleep and woke up to the dry, hot atmosphere of July

Sunday morning in Iowa, and still Dean was driving and driving
and had not slackened his speed; he took the curvy corndales of
Iowa at a minimum of eighty and the straightaway 110 as usual,
unless both-ways traffic forced him to fall in line at a crawling and
miserable sixty. When there was a chance he shot ahead and
passed cars by the half-dozen and left them behind in a cloud of
dust. A mad guy in a brand-new Buick saw all this on the road and
decided to race us. When Dean was just about to pass a passel the
guy shot by us without warning and howled and tooted his horn
and flashed the tail lights for challenge. We took off after him like a
big bird (...).
Eighty miles of lowa we unreeled in this fashion, and the race
was so interesting that | had no opportunity to be frightened. Then
the mad guy gave up, pulled up at a gas station (...), and as we
roared by he waved gleefully. On we sped, Dean barechested, |
with my feet on the dashboard, and the college boys sleeping in the
back. We stopped to eat breakfast at a diner run by a white-haired
lady who gave us extra-large portions of potatoes as church-bells
rang in the nearby town. Then off again.
“Dean, don’t drive so fast in the daytime.”
“Don’t worry, man, I know what I’m doing.” I began to flinch.
Dean came up on lines of cars like the Angel of Terror. He almost
rammed them along as he looked for an opening. He teased their
bumpers, and eased and pushed and craned around to see the
curve, then the huge car leaped to his touch and passed, and
always by a hair we made it back to our side as other lines filed by
in the opposite direction and | shuddered. | couldn’t take it
anymore. It is seldom that you find a long Nebraskan straightaway
in lowa, and when we finally hit one Dean made his usual 110 and
I saw flashing by outside several scenes that I remembered from
1947—a long stretch where Eddie and I had been stranded two
hours. All that old road of the past unreeling dizzily as if the cup of
life had been overturned and everything gone mad. My eyes ached
in nightmare day.

4]
 “Ah hell, Dean, I’m going in the back seat. | can’t stand it any
more, I can’t look.”
“‘Hee-Hee-Hee” tittered Dean as he passed a car on a narrow
bridge and swerved in dust and roared on. | jumped in the back
seat and curled up to sleep. One of the boy jumped in front for the
fun. Great horrors that we were going to crash this very morning
took hold of me and I got down on the floor and closed my eyes
and tried to go to sleep. As a seaman I used to think of the waves
rushing beneath the shell of the ship and the bottomless deeps
thereunder—now I could feel the road twenty inches beneath me,
unfurling and flying and hissing at incredible speeds across the
groaning continent with that mad Ahab at the wheel. When I closed
my eyes all I could see was the road unwinding into me. When |
opened them I saw flashing shadows of trees vibrating on the floor
of the car. There was no escaping it. I resigned myself to all.
On the road, by Jack Kerouac, Viking Penguin Edition, 1957.

42
 AHL GQVO¥

43
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

Il. INTRODUCTION
On the Road is the title of the novel by Jack Kerouac
from which this passage is taken. It tells the story of a
group of exuberantly, uninhibited young Americans
roaring back and forth across the continent and down to
Mexico in one of the most fantastic journeys ever to
appear in the American literature. It is a celebration of life
itself by one of the “beat generation” as Kerouac himself
named the young people of his time.

il. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART

The text is very simple: hardly any events, but an all-
pervading feeling of lyrical excitement. Dean and his
friend Sal, the narrator, are driving through lowa at
tremendous speed. Two hitchhikers (the college boys)
are at the back of the car.

1) The challenge.
likeness (9) Dean is challenged by a “mad guy” driving a Buick.
They race for some eighty miles until the guy gives up.

2) The Angel of Terror.

ability (1) Dean drives his car as the Angel of Terror drives his fiery
char in the Apocalypse. It’s a kind of revenge against the
monotony of life, a challenge against death.

3) Moby Dick.
appearance Sal, the narrator, can’t stand it any more and jumps in the
(5) back where he tries to sleep. But speed has “got into
him”, he cannot help thinking about the car. Dean
appears. to him as Ahab, the mad sailor chasing the
White Whale in Moby Dick, the famous American novel
by Melville.

44
 lll. A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
1) Speed.
It is the main subject of the passage. As the speed “gets
into” the narrator, it also gets into the reader:
a) by the verbs used: verbs of quick action: “shot”,
“flash”, “flying”, “leap”, “roared on”.
purpose (23) b) by the throbbing rhythm: a succession of strong
verbs with and, and, and: “he eased and pushed and
craned around to see the curve”; “he shot by us without
warning and howled and tooted his horn and flashed the
TallilightS2e eis san
Rather long sentences followed by a very short one
starting with the postposition: “we stopped to eat
breakfast, 37-2. in the nearby town. Then off again.”
Something like a jazz beat in the rhythm: here we can't
help mentioning the friendly acquaintance between
Kerouac and the musician Charlie Parker who belonged
to the “bop generation” (Jazz in the late 40's).
c) by the image of the road that unfurls, unreels, never
stopping.
d) by the quick appearance of various characters that
are just seen for a few seconds and then gone: the mad
guy in the Buick, the white-haired lady, the two college
boys, the narrator and Eddie stranded on the Nebraskan
straightaway...
e) by the memories that flash by: “several scenes” that
crop up from nowhere and are gone...
f) by the feeling of madness: the word “mad” or similar
images come up several times: “a mad guy”; “mad
Ahab”, “everything gone mad”, “dizzily”, “nightmare
day”, etc.

2) Excitement.
a) because of the rhythm (cf. above);
b) because of the speed (cf. above);
c) because of the sounds conveyed by the verbs:
“howled and tooted”; “tittered Hee, Hee, Hee”; “the
alternative (4) engines roared”; “the road hissed”; “the continent
groaned”...

45
 d) because of the glitter of the “brand-new” car, the
flashing tail lights and the gleeful challenge;
e) because of the danger we feel through the narrator:
“| shuddered”; “great horrors that we were going to
crash this very morning”.

3) Friendship.
a) between the characters: mainly Dean and the narra-
tor;
b) but also ail the characters seem to take part in the
adventure: Dean, the mad guy, the white-haired lady, the
car itself;
c) a kind of connivance between the actors: |t is a sort
of celebration in which everyone wants to take part, the
narrator in the race with the mad guy (“I was so
interested that | had no opportunity to be frightened”),
the college boy who jumped in front “for the fun”; the
mad guy in the Buick who “waved gleefully” when he
gave up the race; even the white-haired lady who “gave
likeness (9) them extra large portions of potatoes” and the church-
bells that “rang in the nearby town”.
preference This atmosphere is so friendly, so cheerful, so exciting
(21) that the passage appears as a celebration of life: the
boys are “living” intensively, risking their lives at any
obligation (16) moment in order to relish it more intensely, going to the
intensity (14) extremes of danger.

IV. AN EPIC METAPHOR

Numerous metaphors in the text, more numerous than
comparisons:

1) The car is compared to several animals:

— When it has to slow down, it is compared to a snake:
“crawling”.
— When it runs very fast, it “leaps” like a puma or a
jaguar.
appearance — When it passes another car, it “swerves” like a horse.
(5) — The engine is compared to a lion that “roars”.
— When it takes off after the Buick in response to the
challenge it looks like “a big bird”, suggesting power,
speed and aggressivity (an eagle, a bird of prey).

46
 Dean is compared to the Angel of Terror suggesting
youth, passion but also fear and revenge.

2) In the last paragraph.

The car becomes a boat and the road is compared to the
resignation sea “unfurling” and “hissing” as the waves rushed and
(11) hissed under the shell of the ship when Sal was a
seaman.
Dean is compared to Ahab, the hero of Moby Dick by
Melville:

a) same challenge: in the same way as Ahab was

chasing the White Whale, Dean is chasing the Buick;
difference / b) same purpose: both are driven by one only purpose,
likeness (9) to chase; and the purpose becomes gratuitous, an end in
itself;
c) same madness: in the same way as, after the storm,
Ahab’s compasses get mad: North becomes South, the
sun rises in the West, here, the narrator feels “as if the
cup of life has been overturned and everything gone
mad”.
Compared to the famous quest of the white whale, itself
the symbol of another more mystical quest, this chasing
and this trip at full speed along the curvy corndales of
lowa takes on a new dimension and appears as an epic.

V. THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUE

The road, the landscape, the miles unreel like a ribbon,
and the images unreel like a motion picture film. The
metaphors dissolve into one another like the various
shots of a film. “Eighty miles of lowa unreeled in this
fashion”.
The old road of the past and the memories unreeled
dizzily as Dean made his usual 110.
The road was unwinding into Sal, the narrator, as he
closed his eyes.
Let's keep in mind that Orson Welles speaking about the
cinema said: “it has no boundary; it is a ribbon of
dream”.

47
 VI. CONCLUSION
The passage, in spite of, or perhaps because of its
simplicity is very lyrical:
— because of its style based on comparisons and
metaphors;
— because it is a celebration of life and friendship;
— because of the pervading feeling of Nature: Dean is
one with the car, which is itself one with the road, the
road being one with lowa and with the groaning
continent. Doesn’t this bold, roaring trip suggest the
daring adventure of the pioneers pushing the Frontier
westwards and building America?

EXERCICES

|. Choisissez la conjonction qui convient:

yet nee: Dean passed the Buick, the guy tooted his horn and took off
after him. a) provided that; b) as soon as; Cc) as far as.
Zw iMenotesickeiiea <Caliane. nist | drive myself. a) whether; b) Jest;
c) provided that.
3. They had breakfast on the road ...... the tank was being filled up at
the gas station. a) as soon as; b) while; c) since.
4. | was not frightened ...... | knew the boy at the wheel was not a
reckless driver. a) in so far as; b) as soon as; c) for fear.
5. He did not want to look up...... he should see a car rushing toward
them. a) for fear; b) on condition that; c) although.

Il. Mettez les phrases suivantes a la voix passive (avec ou sans

complément d’agent suivant le sens).
1. The white-haired lady attended to the boys with much kindness.
2. She gave Dean and his friends extra large portions of potatoes.
3. They saw her rush out of the car and smack the boy.
4. They will pass the car and leave it behind crawling along the road.
5. The straightaway in lowa reminded him of the happy days when he
used to hitch-hike.

48
 3. IMMIGRATION AND ASSIMILATION
The frontier and immigration: linked phenomena.
Assimilation: the other side of the dream.
Immigrants: past and present, the Melting pot: facts and fiction?

|. THE DIFFERENT WAVES OF IMMIGRATION

1) The original settlers.
— Coming from England: the Puritans, the Cavaliers.
— Referred to as the W.A.S.P.S.
2) The two waves.
— Two different stages: 1850-1890/1900-1920.
— Different geographical areas (Northern Europe # Southern,
Eastern Europe); different backgrounds (language, religion...).
3) The creation of a myth.
— Differences but a common dream: fleeing from poverty and
oppression to a land of plenty, a “golden country”.

ll. THE PROBLEM OF MUTATION AND ASSIMILATION

1) The other side of the dream.
The immigrants “golden vision” did not coincide with reality:
hardships of their journey; difficulties to make a good living in a
“Jungle society”; conflicts with the first-generation immigrants.
2) The racist discrimination of the Quotas.
Before W.W.|.: “the Nativists”’ campaigns against further immi-
gration. 1921, 1924: vote of the “Quota Laws”.

lll. IMMIGRATION TODAY, IS AMERICA A MELTING POT?

1) Today, new important ethnic groups emerge:
The Asians (the 70’s: “the Decade of the Asian”, 1980 census);
the Hispanics.
2) America is: an uneasy melting pot with a confusion of
tongues.

CONCLUSION:
The Immigrants’ contribution to America is to be discussed.
American and foreign traits can and must blend successfully.

49
Immigration was a complementary phenomenon to that of the frontier;
the fascination triggered off by an open continent and the hope of a better
life went far beyond the actual limits of the country and contributed to |
bringing over 45 million people (from 1820-1860). Who came to America
and when? What are we to say about the other side of immigration,
assimilation? ls America a “melting pot”?

|. THE DIFFERENT WAVES OF IMMIGRATION

1) The original settlers.

They were all coming from England, be it the people of the 1st
english colony in Jamestown (Virginia) or the Pilgrim Fathers of the
Mayflower, English puritans who had fled from the religious per-
secution of Anglicans (1620-49), or also the Cavaliers (royalist Angli-
cans fleeing from the puritan Commonwealth of Cromwell, 1649-1658).
At the end of the xvilith century, despite the presence of other ethnic
groups, the Anglo-Saxon element was predominant and already some
W.A.S.P.S. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) were feeling concerned
about the growing immigrant community.

2) The two waves

The first wave of immigrants started towards the middle of the xixth
century, right before the civil war. They were coming from Ireland and
Germany, moved by economic and political reasons (famine, per-
secution). They were 78000 in 1844, 380000 in 1851. (Other people
came from continental Europe such as Swedes and Norwegians mainly
in. the 1880's.)
Gradually the origin of those immigrants changed, the northern
protestants being replaced by catholic people from the mediterranean
area, followed by slavic people, Jews. They were altogether, in their
ways of life, language, religion, even physical aspects, very different.

3) The creation of a myth

Nevertheless, those immigrants at the end of the xixth, beginning of
xxth century (about 10 million between 1890-1920) had one thing in
common: they all fled from dire poverty and political oppression. They
all hoped to find in America what their own country could not give them,
even sometimes a bare survival. This longing, enhanced by people's
talks, letters sent by immigrants to their families back home (even
transformed) and the way emigration agencies dealt with the transport, all

50
contributed to the making of a myth, that of a promised land, a land of
plenty, a golden country where landmass, opportunities, a hearty
welcome, in a word, happiness would be everyone’s lot.

ll. THE PROBLEM OF MUTATION, AND ASSIMILATION

1) The other side of the dream.
The image of a friend or parent welcoming the immigrant or of a
benevolent boss offering a good salary right away was one facet of the
immigrants’ dream but this was just a dream and on their arrival (first Ellis
Island was not a friendly place) the Immigrants were faced with the
double problem of mutation and assimilation.
After the numerous hardships of a long journey (sometimes at the
cost of their lives—in 1868, on board the Leibnitz, after a 70 days’
crossing, a fifth of the passengers died!), there was yet another type of
journey to be made: inside the country. In the words of Max Lerner (in
America as a Civilization, 1957) the difficulties they encountered were
bigger than those encountered by the early American pioneers, for they
were those of a “jungle society rather than a jungle wilderness” the
immigrants were needed, they provided a labor force for a rapidly
expanding industrialism. They helped build railroads, worked in mines,
ran the machines; the country could produce more but also counted
more consumers. ;
One obvious visible facet of the American dream was for them the
reality of rising living standards. Having been so poor, they were
somehow obsessed about it. Their imagination was caught by the “self-
made man” stories or the “rags-to-riches” ones of immigrants boys
who could make it to the top. They contributed to the making of a
materialistic, comfort-oriented society in which wealth is equated with
happiness and to be with to have.
They were full of wonder at all the miracles of a modern prosperous
society but this wonder often just remained so, the wonder of a child
staring at sweets behind the shopwindow unable to buy them (cf. the
coffee shop scene in The Grapes of wrath). In a so-called land of plenty,
not everyone could get a share of this wealth.
With, most of the time, no qualification and a poor knowledge of the
language, they were exploited in sweat-shops, lived in slums and
because of cultural differences, were rejected by the first-generation
immigrants who felt in many ways threatened by these newcomers who
“sold themselves cheap, pulled down wage standards, read dangerous
books, lived like pigs and bred like rabbits” (Max Lerner).

51
2) The racist discrimination of the quotas
Even before World War |, a feeling of racism towards the newly-
arrived immigrants was rampant. “The Nativists”, white anglo-saxon
protestants, wanted to preserve the “purity” of the country and felt
threatened by the mass-arrival of the second-wave immigrants (Poles,
Jews, Turks, Italians, Slavonics...). It was also a question of preserving
the law and order which was an element of national pride. The immigrants
were illiterate reds, in a time of prosperity when wealth was concentrated
in the hands of a few and the vast majority of workers were exploited, the
number of socialists, communists, anarchists, subversive people grew
and so did repression. Such political fears increased after W.W.|. and
the 1917 Russian revolution. Even labour groups did not like the
immigrants who accepted low wages, making the rise in salaries
impossible. So, for different reasons, different people wanted the same
thing: the restriction of immigration.
1882 — The Exclusion act put an end to Chinese Immigration;
as early as 1800, local measures, especially on the west coast, stopped
them from coming.
1897 — The congress tried to impose a literacy test on the
immigrants. Three presidents, Cleveland, Taft, Wilson opposed their
veto, in turn.
1917 — But, in a war atmosphere, with a two-thirds majority the
Congress adopted the literacy test, despite presidential veto.
1921 — The Quota laws. 3% of the number of the residents for
each nationality in 1910, could enter the U.S.A.
1924 — The law was modified and made more restrictive. 2% were
allowed into and the year of reference was significant: 1890, Slavic and
Mediterranean people had not then started to flow into the country; it
meant an 80 to 95% reduction for them.

lil. IMMIGRATION TODAY, IS AMERICA A MELTING POT?

Before World War |, over a million came to America. With the quotas
they were 700 000 in 1923 and 300 000 in 1925. Immigration figures fell
even more drastically in 1929 due to the crisis.
Despite restrictive legal measures, the country’s suspicious attitude
(just to get a tourist visa, you must fill in a long form and say you have
never been affiliated to a communist party), new Americans are still
pouring in by the million, benefiting from special measures like the
displaced persons act (1948) and the refugee Relief act, 1953. With
such acts, despite low figures allowed by the quotas, some countries
could send more people. This was the case for Hungary and Greece in
the 50’s and 60's.

Sy
 The 1980 census gave interesting information as regards immi-
gration. The 70’s were the decade of the Immigrants. In 1977, 78, 79 the
numbers admitted to the States were higher than those for any year since
1924. From 1969 to 1979, 4.3 million immigrants were admitted. If we
compare their origins with the origins of those who came before, there
are some differences: 46.4% fewer immigrants came from Europe
whereas there were 815.2% more Asians). This is why it was called the
decade of the Asian (Asians, Pacific islanders, refugees from Indo-
china, students from the Philippines, families from the Fiji Islands and
Taiwan). Most of them headed to the West, especially the west coast
where most Asians concentrate (the largest Asian group being the
Chinese).

The census figures may not always be accurate, because of illegal

immigrants who are not counted. Such is the case of a good many
Mexicans. They used to be called “the Wetbacks” as they illegally
entered the States by swimming across the Rio Grande, settling in the
South-West, or working temporarily (for instance as fruit-pickers in the
fruit valleys behind San Francisco). Among the Hispanics (Puerto Ricans,
Cubans) the Mexican population is the biggest and the fastest growing
(almost doubling in size from 1970 to 1980).

Cuban Immigration is concentrated in Florida and is two-fold: on

the one hand, rather wealthy people who fled from Castro’s regime when
he took power and who still contemplate a comeback just like other rich
refugees from Nicaragua for instance; on the other, poor ill-educated
Cubans, “the Marielitos” supposedly expelled from Cuba by Castro
(they left from a port called Mariel and were named after it). Between the
two communities there are obvious differences which contribute to
aggravating tensions already existing in big urban centers like Miami
where different ethnic groups, Hispanics and Blacks, live.

In America, the most common foreign language is obviously

Spanish (approximately 188 million Whites, 26.5 million Blacks, and
14.6 million Hispanics) hence the need to put bilingual signs in public
places (Los Angeles, New York) to give bilingual education, hence the
problems attached to this. In such conditions, how can we say today
America is a “melting pot”? (a word first coined in 1909 by a Jewish
immigrant, Israel Zangwill). National concentrations to be found in cities
like Chinatown, little Italy, “little Poland” are given as negative examples
by those who think the melting pot is a mistake. There are also many
people who still marry within their ethnic group and stick with their own
but feeling Polish or Italian... and American at the same time, so having a
two-fold identity.

53
CONCLUSION:
America’s contribution to the immigrants’ lot is always discussed but the
/mmigrants’ contribution to America rarely is. It is something which should
not be left aside. Each nationality brought along some specific traits and
qualities. (The Brain Drain being the most visible form of extremely high
standard contribution the U.S.A. benefited from, in scientific and
technical fields alike). The melting pot originally meant an ideal of unity
and conformism; it would be in fact very impoverishing if achieved and it
would mean narrow-minded nationalism. On the contrary, America must
draw from so many different ways of life, cultures and ideological
backgrounds which, even if they do generate tensions, increased by
social differences, must not be regarded as obstacles but as a means to
prevent premature ageing and sclerosed attitudes. (Jewish American
humour especially in New York with someone as famous as Woody Allen,
is the perfect example of a successful blend of American traits with
foreign ones).

TEXTE A COMMENTER 5
Hungry Hearts: I. The legend

1901: A young Russian Jewess is emigrating to the U.S.A. to

escape from poverty, ignorance and oppression. She describes the
feelings of hope of her fellow-immigrants as their ship is nearing
New York.

Steerage—dirty bundles—foul odors—seasick humanity—but

I saw and heard nothing of the foulness and ugliness around me. |
floated in showers of sunshine; visions upon visions of the new
world opened before me.

From lips to lips flowed the golden legend of the golden

country.

54
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55
 “In America you say what you feel—you can voice your
thoughts in the open streets without the fear of a Cossack.”

“In America is a home for everybody. The land is your land.

Not like in Russia where you feel a stranger in the village where
you were born and raised—the village in which your father and
grandfather lie buried.”

“Everybody is with everybody alike in America. Christians and

Jews are brothers together.”

“An end to the worry for bread. An end to the fear of the
bosses over you. Everybody can do what he wants with his life in
America.”

“There are no high or low in America.”

“Plenty for all. Learning flows like milk and honey.”

“Learning flows free.”

The words painted pictures in my mind. I saw before me free

schools, free colleges, free libraries, where I could learn and learn
and keep on learning.

“Land! Land!” came the joyous shout.

“America! We're in America!” cried my mother, almost

smothering us in her rapture.

All crowded and pushed on deck. They strained and stretched

to get the first glimpse of the “golden country”, lifting their children
on their shoulders that they might see beyond them.

Men fell on their knees to pray. Women hugged their babies

and swept. Children danced. Strangers embraced and kissed like
old friends. Old men and women had in their eyes a look of young
people in love. Age-old visions sang themselves in me—songs of
freedom of an oppressed people.
America! America!
Hungry Hearts, by Anzia Yezierska, 1920,
© Houghton Mifflin Company.

56
 Hungry Hearts: II. Facts

(But work in New York is difficult to find. A number of women

immigrants can only make a living by working at their sewing
machines in a sweat-shop. One day, the boss comes to the shop.)

A sudden hush fell over the shop as the boss entered.

He raised his hand.
Breathless silence.

“Hands,” he addressed us, fingering the gold watchchain that

spread across his fat belly, “it’s slack in the other trades and I can
get plenty girls begging themselves to work for half what you’re
getting—only | ain’t a skinner. From now on, I'll give you fifty cents
a dozen shirts instead of seventy-five, but I'll give you nightwork, so
you needn't lose nothing.” And he was gone.

The stillness of death filled the shop.

A sudden sound broke the silence. A woman sobbed.
It was Balah Rifkin, a widow with three children.

“Twenty-five cents less on a dozen—how will we be able to

live?”

“Why didn’t anybody speak to him?”

“Tell him he couldn’t crush us down to worse than we had in

Russia?”

“Can we help ourselves? Our life lies in his hands.”

Something in me forced me forward. Rage at the bitter greed

tore me. Our desperate helplessness drove me to strength.
“Tll go to the boss.” I cried, my nerves quivering with fierce
excitement. “T’ll tell him Balah Rifkin has three hungry mouths to
feed.”

Sil
 “Long years on you!” cried Balah Rifkin, drying her eyes with
a corner of her shawl.

“Tell him about my old father and me, his only breadgiver”’,
came from Bessi Sopolsky, a girl with a hacking cough.

“And | got no father or mother and four of them younger than

me hanging on my neck.” Fennie Feist’s young face was already
scarred with the worries of age.

America, as the oppressed of all lands have dreamed America

to be; and America as it is flashed before me —a banner of
fire!—Behind me I felt masses pressing—thousands of immig-
rants—thousands by thousands crushed by injustice.

I entered the boss’s office without a shadow of fear.

“We can’t stand it.” I cried. “Even as it is, we’re hungry. Fifty
cents a dozen would starve us. Weren’t you yourself once a
machine slave—your life in the hands of your boss?”

“You—money for nothing you want. The minute they begin to

talk English they get flies in their noses... A black year on
you—troublemaker. Ill have no smart heads in my shop!” “Out
you get... out of my shop!”

As I opened the door, they read our defeat in my face.

“Girls!” I held out my hands. “He’s fired me.”

My voice died in the silence. Not a girl stirred. Their heads

only bent closer to their machines.

Not a hand was held out to me, not a face met mine. | felt
them shrink from me as I passed them on my way out.
Hungry Hearts, by Anzia Yezierska, 1920,
© Houghton Mifflin Company.

58
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59
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
At the beginning of the twentieth century, many Jews,
persecuted in Czarist Russia (pogroms) flew to western
Europe and to the United States where they expected to
find freedom and wealth. From lips to lips, the golden
legend of America had reached the Russian Jewish
community.
But 1890 was the end of the Frontier Time. From that
date on, the immigrants arrived in a fixed, settled society
into which they had to fit.
Unlike the first wave of immigrants who had a virgin
continent lying in front of them, the second wave often
met very difficult working and living conditions. The story
takes place in 1901, when a boat with Russian Jewish
immigrants on board is sailing towards New York. The
second part takes place in New York some time later
portrait (20) when the Russian Jews try to overcome the numerous
hardships they encountered on their arrival.

ll. COMPARE BOTH PASSAGES

1) similarities.
difference / They both deal with the same people; they have both the
likeness (9) same layout;
a) description of a scene:
— Passage 1: the description of the boat;
— Passage 2: the description of the boss’s arrival.
b) the group voice their thoughts:
— In the first passage they are not named, it sounds like
a litany, or a folk song.
— In the second passage, the girls are named, each
one has a particular problem. The reader is moved by
their stories.
c) action:
— First passage: the explosion of joy when they see
New York;
— Second passage: Anzia goes to the boss and is fired.

60
 2) Differences.
The two passages answer to each other. We are made to
see the contrast between their hopes and the reality.

lll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS
First passage: The legend.
a) The passage. The passage was long and difficult.
These people were poor and travelled in bad conditions
(foul odours; seasick humanity). Before getting on the
boat, many of them had had to walk from their villages to
the ports of embarkation. After reaching the port, they
had had to wait days, weeks or perhaps months before
they could get on board a ship. The ship was often
subject to winds, storms, and unskilled seamanship. The
voyage itself lasted nearly two months. “The force that
moved them to begin an adventure filled with uncal-
culable uncertainty must have been of overpowering
proportions” (Kennedy) and their hearts were really full
of hopes.
wishes (27) b) Hopes: they had suffered from poverty, fear and
segregation. Here we have a litany of hopes. Each
immigrant voices his hopes according to what he had
most suffered from in Russia. It is not a dialogue but the
expression of the whole community. All these Bible-
reading people voice their hopes in a biblical way: They
see America as the “Promised Land where learning
flows free like milk and honey”. This expression taken
from the Bible is used to describe the Promised Land to
which the Hebrews will arrive after the Exodus.
We can group all their expectations into five main
chapters:
1. The end of poverty and starvation.
2. The end of fear.
3. Freedom of expression.
4. Equality.
5. Brotherhood.
intensity (14) c) Landing in New York: an explosion of happiness. It's
the dawn of a new life: Old men and women look young
again. They have to express it physically: dancing,
embracing...

61
 Second passage: The facts.
Some time later we find the same people again in their
daily life. The girls had it very difficult to find jobs and
they are now working in a sweat-shop. The text is built
like a short play.

Act I: the boss enters the shop to tell the girls he will
to persuade pay them less for the same work. He takes advantage of
(19) the fact that many immigrants are looking for a job and
comparisons ready to accept any condition in order to feed their
(6) families. We must note the contrast between the boss
appearance with his fat belly, his gold watchchain and his contempt
(5) and the hands, silent, frightened and starving.

Act Il: Here we have the “counter litany”. The whole

comparisons community express their fear, their difficulties, their
6 despair, in the same way as they had voiced their hopes
on the boat. Each line is an answer to a line of the first
part. Ex.:
— Legend: “an end to the fear of the bosses over you.”
helplessness — Facts: “our life lies in his hands.”
(11) — Legend: “an end to the worry for bread.”
difference / — Facts: “how will we be able to live?”
likeness (9)

Act Ill: “\'\l go to the boss”. Anzia can’t stand the

contrast between America as she and her fellow
portrait (20) immigrants had dreamed it to be and the reality she is
obligation (16) now facing. She is literally pushed forward by her
indignation: “Behind me | felt”...

Act IV: in the boss's office. She vents her indignation.

disapproval The boss was an immigrant himself, he had experienced
(10) the same hardships, he must understand. But the boss is
refusal (24) pitiless, he fires her, he can’t bear troublemakers, all the
absence of girls have to do is to work and shut their mouths. This
obligation (2)
former immigrant, who has already worked his way up
preference the social scale has to protect himself, his own property
(21) from the newcomers, they are a threat to him.
negative
orders (15) This is the climax of the play.

contrasts (8) Act V: the anticlimax. Anzia goes out in the general
resignation silence; the other girls know they are slaves; no one can
(11) help them.

62
 IV. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICA AS THE
OPPRESSED OF ALL LANDS HAVE DREAMED
AMERICA TO BE AND AMERICA AS IT IS
refusal (24) In the same way as we have grouped their hopes, we
can group their disillusions into five main chapters:

1) The end of poverty and starvation.

The immigrants had to accept very low wages and the
contrasts (8) dirtiest jobs because they didn’t speak English and were
not qualified. Many of them were unemployed so that in
most families they had to do with one small salary: Balah
Rifkin has three hungry mouths to feed, etc.

2) The end of fear.

The immigrants arrived in a society where workers were
badly protected (no unions), the boss was very powerful
and could fire them as he liked. Here: when the boss
intensity (14) comes in, “a sudden hush” falls over the shop; “the
stillness of death” when he raises his hand; “a breath-
negative less silence” fills the shop when the boss goes out.
orders (15) When Anzia is fired, the same fearful silence greets her...

3) Freedom of expression.
Anzia is fired as a troublemaker because she dare say to
the boss what everybody is thinking. “The minute they
change
Past / Present begin to talk English they get flies in their noses”:
(17) overcoming the language barrier was difficult for the
immigrants; the foreign minorities didn’t have their say;
they lived in ghettos.

4) Equality.
They arrived in a society in which the first immigrants
had already worked their way up, had acquired property
condition (7) owing to a hard life, and were not ready to share their
profits with the newcomers. It was a society based on
money and those who hadn't any were at the mercy of
their bosses.

5) Brotherhood.
The boss doesn't appear to be the hands’ brother, neither
comparisons do the hands to Anzia when she is fired! Each one for
(6) oneself: the law of the jungle. Anzia has no place in such
a society because she rebels against injustice.

63
 V. CONCLUSION: THE BIRTH OF THE UNIONS IN
THE US
Wild capitalism, based on free enterprise and compe-
tition developed quickly in the fledging industries of
the U.S. because of:
— the natural resources of the country;
— the quick development of the railways;
— the immigration providing cheap labour. The workers
were unorganized.

In the 30’s.
A few daring, enterprising female workers calling them-
selves “radicals” or “socialists”, in fact many of them
belonging to the Communist Party, started fighting
against capitalist oppression.
They protested against the bad working conditions,
started heroic strikes in big concerns such as the
stockyards and packing houses of Chicago, challenged
the police, created the first unions.

Unionism in the U.S. grew rapidly in the late 30’s and

during the second World War.

In 1944.
The great bulk of the factory workers (blue collars) were
unionized either in the A.F.L. (American Federation of
Labor) or in the rival confederation, the C.1.0. (Congress
of Industrial Organisations).

In 1955, A.F.L. merged with C.1.O.

Then, loss of influence and prestige,
because of:
— bureaucratisation,
— collision with the Mafia (several instances of rack-
eteering by the top leaders of powerful unions),
— participation in McCarthy’s witch-hunt (the most
militant and devoted organizers of the Unions in the 30’s
were then driven out of the labour movement),
— the rank and file grew cynical and passive.

64
 EXERCICES

|. Complétez la phrase en choisissant l’un des trois modaux

proposés.

1. Life in Russia ..-... terrible for the Jews who felt strangers in their
own villages. a) must have been; b) must be; c) should have been.

2. The immigrants ...... stand starvation and persecution in their

countries any longer. a) mustn’t: b) shouldn't; c) couldn't.

3. In N.Y., the hands sometimes wondered whether they ...... in

Russia since life in America was still worse for them. a) shouldn't stay;
b) shouldn't have stayed: c) mustn’t stay.

4: the: gitlsy se. live on such a small salary. a) mightn’t; b) mustn't;

c) couldn't.

5. If the unemployment rate had not been so high, she ...... a better-
paid job. a) must have found; b) should find; c) might have found.

ll. Complétez la phrase avec les prépositions qui conviennent, si

nécessaire.

1. When they came ...... VIGWEE, wines New York, the immigrants fell
weak their knees to pray; then they raised ...... their feet and fell
seen s each other's arms, embracing and kissing ...... old friends.

2. They thought that.it would be anend...... the worry ...... bread;

they would now live ...... the fear =. .<.7 al0OSS eos them.

3. When the boss entered ...... the room, the girls were bending
ee their sewing-machines.

UIE DE the first immigrants who could go ...... West and find space
and freedom, the immigrants ...... the second wave arrived ...... a
fixed society where it was very difficult to work one’s way up.

5. Her life is quite different ...... her sister's, because her husband's
got a good job, so she can stay ...... home and look ...... her
children.

65
lll. Mettez le verbe entre parentheses au temps voulu.
1. When they left their countries, the immigrants ...... from segrega-
tion for years. (suffer)
2. If they had stayed in their countries, most of them ...... (starve)
3. When she heard the girls ...... and may esr , she thought she ......
to go to the boss. (cry-sob-have to)
Ay THEY isientaee in New York for three years, and they still ...... in
slums. (live - live)
5. By September, she ...... in the same sweat shop for ten months.
(work)

66
 4. INDIANS, PAST AND PRESENT

The Frontier time: also the history of the Indian tragedy.

|. BEFORE THE WHITES’ ARRIVAL

How Indians used to live:
— a tribal civilization.
— hunters of the Buffalo.
— a pantheistic religion.

ll. WHITE SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSIONISM

1656: First Indian reservation in Virginia.
1787: The Northwest Ordinance, allowing White settlement in
the Northern Midwest.
1820: Beginning of the policy of removal.
1837: Indians were driven to the west of the Mississippi River.
1830-80: The Frontier kept moving westward.
Destruction of the Indians’ traditional economy (extermination of
the buffalo).
Bloody battles; 1876: Little Big Horn, 1890: Wounded Knee.

lll. INDIANS NOW

1) What is left:
— Little is left of the old Indian civilization.
— Westerns and the legend of the bad Indian and the good
cowboy.
— 1953: Rights of citizenship.
Reservations: underdeveloped countries.

2) What is rising.
— 1968: creation of the A.I.M. (American Indian Movement).
— 1969: the Alcatraz proclamation, reclaiming the Island.
— 1973: action of the A.I.M. at Wounded Knee.

CONCLUSION: Indians today?

— getting a new assertiveness.
— on the way to solve the problems of reservation life.

67
The history of the Frontier time was also the history of the Indian tragedy,
of what many people today consider as a genocide.

Il. THE WHITES’ ARRIVAL

At the beginning of the xviith century, when colonization started for
good and all in America, there were about 1,200,000 Indians, who lived in
tribes. They were very numerous (some 250 numbered: Navajos, Nez
Percé, Apaches, Sioux...). They were distinguished by dialects. Most
tribes were hunting, fishing and farming ones, their crops were beans,
squash and maize (corn), then unknown to the first Puritan settlers.
The arrival of the Spaniards brought them the horse and turned
them into horseback hunters of the buffalo, especially in the great plains
where herds of a huge size roamed around. 50 to 75 million buffalo were
thought to be living at the beginning of the xvith century. The buffalo was
precious to them as a source of food, clothing (resistent hides) and
weapon.
The Cherokee had a more advanced civilization with a written
language but most tribes had no such language and used to record
events by engraving symbols in the rock; examples of them are to be
found mostly in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
Their religion was an extremely important feature of their life (also of
paramount inportance to understand why in some ways they could not
properly defend themselves against the ever-increasing process of
colonization). They worshipped various gods but mostly Nature; the
earth was sacred and a Mother to them. Their land was the land of their
ancestors buried in the sacred soil. Ploughing the land would not have
been contemplated, it would have meant harming their mother Earth and
been a sacrilege.

ll. WHITE SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSIONISM

1) A few landmarks.
1656: First Reservation in Virginia.
1787: The NorthWest Ordinance opened the Northern Midwest to White
settlement. It was a hotchpotch of good intentions and contradictory
Statements. Since a very early stage of the conquest, the Whites
benefited from a superiority over the Indians (due to demographic and
cultural conditions). They never had doubts about their rights to the land,
and parts of this ordinance are worth being quoted: “The utmost good
faith shall always be observed to the Indians (...) in their property rights
and liberty; they shall never be invaded or disturbed unless in just and
lawful wars authorized by Congress”.

68
From 1820 onwards: policy of removal.
— Dec. 1837: Jackson’s 7th annual message to Congress, “the plans of
removing the aboriginal people (...) to the country west of the Mississippi
River” were openly discussed. In the South, all the tribes were in turn
driven, with much suffering and often at bayonet point to a track of land
(now Oklahoma). It was called the “trail of tears”.
— 1831: Indians were referred to as “domestic dependent nations”
(Justice J. Marshall's opinion). Their relation to the U.S.A. was like that
of “a ward to his guardian”.
Introduction of the first horse-drawn reaper McCormick. It meant
agricultural prosperity but hunting ground was partitioned and fenced.
— 1850-80: As the Frontier moved westward, the traditional aspects of
the Indians’economy tumbled down.
— 1848: Gold was discovered in California. “Fortyniners” rushed west.
— 1869: The Union Pacific Railroad was built. The buffalo was
deliberately exterminated. The prices of hides being high, it encouraged
hunters to engage in a systematic slaughter.
— 1883: There remained 200 buffalo or so.
The population was decimated by massacres, diseases, alcoholism,
which was, in the words of B. Franklin (Autobiography, 1767) a
“providence”, “annihilating” the tribes.

2) Battles.
— 1832; Bad Axe Massacre: ended the resistance of the tribes east of
the Mississippi.
— 1876: At Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull and his Sioux slaughtered
General Custer and his troops.
— 1877: Surrender of the Nez Percé tribe.
— 1886: defeat of Geronimo, chief of the Apaches.
— 1887: Allotment Act: Indian territories officially became reser-
vations.
— 1889; April 22nd: Oklahoma was opened to white settlement.
The 200,000 Indians left alive were penned up like cattle in barren
reservations. Indians were totally defeated (among other reasons: poor
weapons, less numerous, division between tribes).
— 1890: Wounded Knee: Introduction of the machine gun. Hundreds
of Indians were massacred.

69
Il. INDIANS NOW

1) What’s left.
There remains very little of the old Indian civilization, apart from the
fact that many places and 28 states have Indian names, reminding the
American people that the land was once theirs. There also remains the
legend of the “bad” Indian and the “good” cowboy shown in so many
westerns.
Only in 1953 were the Indians granted full rights of citizenship but
all the same, in reservations they were, and still largely are, maintained
under protection as underdeveloped countries. The very word “reser-
vation” is significant. Their living conditions are very dificult.
1970 Census: 900,000 Indians in the U.S.

2) What’s rising.
— 1934: They were allowed to buy land, cattle on credit. People are
getting more and more interested in Indian culture, especially young
Americans attracted by another, more natural way of life.
— 1968: Creation of the American Indian Movement.
— 1969: |Indians occupied Alcatraz (in the San Francisco Bay) and
issued the Alcatraz Proclamation in which they, native Americans,
reclaimed the island, ironically wishing to establish a reservation in a
place which resembled most Indian reservations (isolated from modern
facilities such as healthcare, educational centers, population exceeding
the land base, people held as prisoners, kept in a state of dependence,
etc.). See the text Navajo Power for further details.
— 1973; The A.|.M. took the initiative of occupying the village of
Wounded Knee (South Dakota) in memory of the massacre. Since 1968
they have organized demonstrations and occupied Government buil-
dings to attract public attention to their tragic plight.

CONCLUSION:
So today, things have changed and are still changing even if at a slow
pace. The Indians are getting a new assertiveness and try to convince the
Americans that several communities can live and respect each other in
the U.S.A.

70
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 6
Indians now, Navajo Power
The Navajo Reservation stretches across 16 million acres of
sagebrush! desert and red sandstone? mesas* in three South
westem states—Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The land was
ceded to the Navajos in 1868, after the Indians had been battered
into submission by Colonel Kit Carson. Today, the reservation is in
effect a separate nation state, subject to neither state laws nor taxes.
It is frontier country where trading posts and prejudice flourish. The
Reservation’s 140,000 inhabitants are still eyed by many whites as
savages. But the Navajos are slowly gaining a degree of prosperity
and political power, and with it, a renewed sense of pride. Some
Navajos these days drive cars with bumper stickers proclaiming
DINE BIZEEL (Navajo Power). In the towns that ring the
reservation, this new assertiveness has been happily greeted by
sympathetic Anglos*, but others have reacted violently. Last week,
TIME’s David Devoss visited the Navajos and filed this report from
Farmington, N. Mex.
“Around here, prejudice too often leads to more than insults.
On April 21, John Harvey and Erman Benally died after being
stripped, beaten and covered with burning rags. Six days later,
David Ignacio, his ribs crushed, died after a two-hour battle for
breath. For the three white teen-agers who confessed to the
murder, their sin was locally viewed by Indians haters as mainly
one of degree. Harassing drunken Indians is considered a prank by
Farmington highschoolers.

“Farmington has more rednecks than anywhere else in the

world” says Wilbert Tsosie, 27, a founder of the Coalition for
Navajo Liberation. “They kill you with their eyes first, then pick a
secluded spot to beat you up. For the past six weeks Tsosie’s

1. Sagebrush: hautes herbes de la prairie américaine. — 2. Sandstone: grés. —

3. Mesa: haut plateau. — 4. Anglos: Américains blancs. — 5. Rednecks: péque-
nauds, réactionnaires.

71
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coalition has sponsored Saturday parades in Farmington to protest
the murders and press for more service for the Indians. The
demonstrations were peaceful until the most recent one when the
Indians collided with the annual sheriff's passe rodeo parade®. The
drill team’ was dressed in old cavalry costumes like the ones worn
by the Indians’ original oppressors. The result in fracas left one
policeman injured and 31 Indians under arrest. “These people are
just trying to stir up trouble”, says Councilman Jimmy Drake.
“These parades could be caused by subversives, you know,
Communists for instance.”
The demand most stressed by Tsosie’s young militants is strict
enforcement of laws against selling alcohol to the obviously
intoxicated. Prohibited by the New Mexico constitution from
buying alcohol until 1953, Indians now find it all too easily
available, and many Navajos are outraged by the profiteering
taverns in towns near the reservation border. In just the past ten
weeks, more than 6,250 Indians have been taken into “prospective
custody’”® in Gallup for drunkenness. “Once Navajos start drink-
ing, an incredible wave of hostility pours out,” says the Rev. Henry
Bird, director of the San Juan mission. The boiling sea is visible
only when the defences are down.”
Despite an unemployment rate that averages 30%, the
Navajos are increasingly directing their rural economy toward a
structured industrial society. In the past 3 1/2 years, Navajo tribal
Council Chairman Peter McDonald, 45, a former electrical
engineer for Hughes Aircraft Co., has done much to improve the
tribe’s financial position. Aided by the growing number of college-
educated Navajos returning to the Reservation, he has forced
companies operating on reservation land to pay more. The Indians
used to collect from uranium prospectors only if the metal was
discovered, but EXXON is now paying $6 million for the privilege
of prospecting on a 400,000 acre section of the Reservation. By
1985, Navajos revenues from mineral leases are expected to

6. Passe Rodeo Parade: rodéo organisé par la majorité silencieuse. — 7. The drill
team: |’équipe de téte (bien entrainée) locale. — 8. Prospective custody: incarcéra-
tion préventive pour état d’ivresse.

73
exceed $30 million a year, and their exploitation should help
provide thousands of jobs for the Navajos.
Financial gain is breeding a new euphoria among Navajos—a
feeling that they can at least stand on level ground with Whites.
Last month, McDonald proposed that this reservation be made the
51st state, much to the disdain of local white politicians. Plans are
afoot to build a new town inside the Reservation, and the Tribal
Council intends to ask the Anglo owners of the 130 trading posts
on the reservation to sell out to Indians by next year. Says
McDonald firmly: “The Whites in the Southwest are going to have
to get rid of their negative attitude and learn to accept us.”
David Devoss, in Time, June 24th 1974.

74
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

I. INTRODUCTION
An excerpt from Time Magazine. A report sent by a
journalist, which accounts for the matter-of-fact style and
the numerous quotations.

ll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS

1) Prejudice.
Most Whites (Rednecks) do not accept the Navajos’new
assertiveness and still consider Indians as savages. This
prejudice which leads highschoolers to bothering
drunken Indians and beating them up can also lead to
contrasts (8) murder. In April 1974, three Navajos were killed by
purpose (23) white teenagers. To protest against these murders, the
Coalition for Navajo liberation organized peaceful
demonstrations; but the latest met the sheriff's parade
whose members had provokingly dressed up in old
cavalry costumes. 31 Indians were arrested.

2) Alcoholism.
disapproval The laws that prohibit selling alcohol to people who are
(10) obviously drunk are not enforced. On the contrary, the
wishes / taverns ringing the reservation which belong to the
regrets (27) Whites make money on the Indians.
Consequences:
a) When the Indians are drunk, the wave of hostility that
smoulders inside them pours out; they get aggressive,
cause trouble and get arrested.
b) In the past ten weeks, 6,250 Indians have been
arrested for drunkenness.

3) Things are beginning to change.

condition (7) The rural economy has been slowly turned into an
purpose (23) industrial one. The prospecting companies, who used to
pay only when they found metal, are now forced to pay
for prospecting. Improved economy should lead to lower
unemployment rate.

75
 4) Plans for the future.
They plan to build a new town on the Reservation. They
intend to buy the 130 trading posts from the Whites.
Hopes to stand on level ground with the Whites. Why not
become the 51st state?

Ill. What can account for the “wave of hostility” that

“pours out” of drunken Indians?
When drunk, the Indians easily lose their self-control:
the “defences are down” and hostility pours out; but
what can account for this hostility? Do they have any
persuasion / reason for being aggressive and defiant?
dissuasion
(19) 1) The past.
disapproval The Indians were driven off their land,
(10)
— starved by the killing of the buffalo,
— thinned by epidemics brought by the Whites,
— robbed of their territories and cheated into treaties
which were never respected,
— parked in Reservations.

2) The present.
In those Reservations,
— the infant death rate is 60%,
— the unemployment rate is 30%,
— illiteracy is rampant,
— they are prejudiced against by the surrounding
Whites,
— they are maintained under protection like under-
developed countries.

IV. HOW IS THE SITUATION CHANGING? WHAT

DOES NAVAJO POWER MEAN TO THEM?
1) What has changed in the last few years:
a) The creation of a Navajo Liberation Movement; they
now protest against discrimination and try to promote the
Indian culture.

76
purpose (23) b) The fact that college-educated Navajos come back to
wishes (27) the Reservation instead of leaving it: ex.: McDonald, the
ability (1) chairman of the Navajo town Council.
c) New economic decisions: the revenue from the
mineral leases will help provide jobs on the reservation.
d) The will of the Navajos to take their own affairs in
hand as in former colonies and developing countries.

2) Navajo Power means:

a) Convincing people that spending a dollar out of the
community makes the community poorer and the other
richer (even if you spend your money in the community,
you get poorer because the Whites own the shops and
stores, the trading posts and the taverns); hence you
have to get your own trading posts, shops, etc.
purpose (23) b) Raising the level of the community by fighting
refusal (24) alcoholism, vices and drug addiction so that people
preference should desire to stay inside the community and fight
(21) for it.
c) Not relying on the Whites to improve the situation;
they are hopeless.
d) U.S. is not one community consisting of Whites,
Blacks, Indians, Hispanics, etc. (the melting pot) but
several different communities that must have full power.
The principles of Navajo Power are the same as those of
Black Power,

77
 EXERCICES

I. Récrivez les phrases suivantes au discours indirect.

1. “Prejudice often leads to more than insults”. (Wilbert Tsosie said)
2. “The Indian demonstrators are just trying to stir up trouble”. (The
Councilman said)
’ 3. “Don’t allow the companies to drill on the reservation unless they pay
for the right of prospecting”. (McDonald told them)
4. “After the Navajos have bought the trading posts from the Whites,
they will be able to direct their own economy”. (The tribal council said)
5. “Will the Whites accept the Navajo’s new assertiveness when the
Indians get their own financial independence?” (The old man asked)

Il. Choisissez un élément de phrase dans chaque colonne et

assemblez-les, en ajoutant le mot de liaison qui convient.
1. The Navajos still have a very
poor rural economy
2. The young college-educated
Indians won’t return to the reser-
vation
3. The young Whites, dressed in
old cavalry costumes, marched
along the streets
4. Alcohol is available in the
taverns ringing the reservation
5. Sympathetic Anglos happily
greet the Indians’new assertive-
ness
— the law forbids to sell alcohol
to the obviously intoxicated.
— they try to improve their fi-
nancial position and change into a
structured industrial society.
— most Whites still consider the
inhabitants of the reservation as
savages.
— the cultural and moral en-
vironment of the reservation give
them brighter prospects.
— the Indians were demonstrat-
ing against the murder of three
young men.

Mots de liaison : unless - whereas - while - and yet - though.

78
 5. BLACKS IN THE U.S.A.,
PAST AND PRESENT

The Blacks being the largest and oldest ethnic group in the
country, the Black problem is still one of the most acute.

|. SLAVERY
— 1619: Jamestown, Virginia: Blacks were brought as “workers
under contract”.
— The South: big cotton plantations and slavery.
— xviith, xvirth century: heydays of the triangular slave trade.
— 1808: The slave trade was outlawed, slaves kept being
smuggled in.
— 1820: No slavery north of the Mason and Dixon line — free
and slave states.

ll. THE CIVIL WAR (1861-65)

1) Before the Civil war; growing antagonisms.

1831: Nat Turner’s Rebellion; anti-slavery ideas increased.
1852: publication of H. Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin.
1859: John Brown's action and death.
1850: Growing oppositions between the South and the North
(economic, political and philosophical ones).

2) After the Civil war, a heritage of bitterness and hatred.

— 1863: Emancipation was proclaimed.
— 1865, 68, 70: Three amendments to the constitution, to give
the Blacks freedom and citizenship.
— 1865: Creation of the “Freedmen’s Bureau”. “40 acres and a
mule”.
— Problems of mutation for the Blacks: from slaves to free men.
— Resistance of the whites: the Ku Klux Klan; The Black
Codes; Clauses to stop the Blacks from voting.
— Segregation: the Jim Crow Laws, or the “separate but equal”
doctrine.

79
 Ill. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND THE BLACK REVO-
LUTION

1) Before the second World War.

— End of the xixth: Booker-T. Washington’s action. Creation of
the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.
— 1909: creation of the N.A.A.C.P., W. Dubois’s influence.
— “The Great migration”: extension of the Black problems and
segregation to the North.
— Revelation of a Black culture: musicians and writers.

2) The second World War and desegregation.

— From former passiveness (“uncle-Tomism”) to action: influ-
ence of W.W.II.
— 1954: The “Brown-Topeka” case; beginning of the school
desegregation process.
— 1955: M. Luther King’s first action in Montgomery, Alabama;
Boycott of the bus system.

3) Black movements, actions and principles.

— Movements:
— 1956-1967: M. Luther King’s civil rights movement.
— 1960’s-70’s: Rise of the Black Muslims and of the Black
Panthers.
— Principles of:
— Non violence;
— Black Nationalism:
— the Black Muslims’views: economic independence, pride in
the Black culture, separatism.
— the Black Panthers’views: part of a world-revolution.
— Cultural Nationalism.

IV. THE BLACKS IN THE 80’S

1) The Black population.

— Figures and geographical distribution: urban centers, the
north, the south.
— What the 1980 census showed: papain) in the national shift
westward and southward.

80
2) Work.
— The rise of a Black middle class.
— Economic integration versus social integration: the Black
executives’ complaint.
— The overall recession and the Blacks’ living conditions.

3) Education.
— Affirmative action and “Tokenism”.
— The “busing” system: origins and difficulties.

CONCLUSION:
— Economic integration must come first.
— Social integration may follow.
— A remaining obstacle: rampant racism.

81
As the black problem is one of the most acute in the U.S.A., we shall
study it at length and apologize for an exceptionally long exposé.

|. SLAVERY
— 1619. It was first introduced in Jamestown, Virginia (one year
before the Mayflower anchored in Cape Cod), Blacks were not then
called slaves but “workers under contract”, they could bear the hot and
humid climate Whites could not bear.

— So, from a very early stage onwards, the history of slavery was
linked to that of the big cotton plantations of the South. The North, on
the contrary, with already an altogether different economy, was only
slightly affected by the problem.

— The xviith and xviith century saw the heydays of the triangular
slave trade. The slaves'living conditions could vary a lot depending on
the masters’personalities: brutes who had every right even that of killing
their slaves or benevolent people who gave them a certain “decent life”
(cf Uncle Tom's cabin for a further description of life in the plantation).
Entire negro families could be broken when parents and children were
sold separately. The “Auction” was always degrading.

— In the 1787 constitution, after the Independence had been

proclaimed, no mention was made of the existence of slaves in America.
“All men were created equal”. In a country pretending to be democratic,
when politicians had to refer to slavery they would use an understate-
ment: “The peculiar institution”.

— 1808: the slave trade was outlawed, but with the invention of the
“cotton gin” (a machine separating fibres) and the growth of exports
towards Europe, more and more hands were needed. From 1808 to
1860, 300 000 slaves were smuggled into the U.S.A. Slaves being highly
valuable, as valuable as land, slave owners even raised and sold them.

— 1820. The Mason and Dixon line (1767) was chosen to limit
north slavery. In the Missouri Compromise, the country was cut into two:
“free” states in the North (where Blacks were free men but in fact
despised by the Whites and considered as outcasts), slave states in the
South. Each time a new territory was admitted in the Union, there was the
problem of keeping a balance between free and slave states.

82
Il. THE CIVIL WAR (1861-1865)
1) Before the Civil war, growing antagonisms.
— Among other people in the North, the Quakers, a humanitarian
sect played a great part in extolling anti-slavery ideas. Religion was not
then the only force to be counted upon in the fights against slavery. The
xvilith century was the Enlightenment period and Europe with the
philosophers had contributed its share to it.
— 1827: creation of the first Black newspaper, The Freedom’s
journal;
— 1831: Will Garrison created an abolitionist newspaper The
liberator.
In Virginia, Nat Turner stirred up some sixty blacks and killed white
people.
— 1833: Creation of the American Anti-slavery society.
— 1852: Publication of H. Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
which did a lot to make people, at home and abroad, aware of the
atrocities of slavery.
— 1859: John Brown supported by extremist abolitionists tried to
stir up slaves in Virginia. Caught and sentenced to death, he became a
hero (in a Yankee song: John Brown's body).
— Yet, in the middle of the xixth century, slavery was still important.
Economic factors prevailed in favour of the South, supported by
congressmen, then in majority in the South. Concessions were made,
like a law on runaway slaves. (To counter it the Underground railway
helped runaway slaves, saving thousands of men). And the law did more
to make anti-slavery a militant thing in the North than actually to capture
slaves.

Between the South and the North, the opposition was growing, an
opposition between diverging economic and political systems, between
federal authority and state authority, an agrarian type of society in the
South, more aristocratic, refined, fraught with the spirit of the “Cava-
liers” (royalist anglicans who had fled from Cromwell in 1640-1660),
versus an industrial type of society with the spirit of the first Puritans.

The war which broke in 1860 when Lincoln was elected, was not
waged by the North for sheer humanitarian reasons but also on account
of this cultural gap. This aspect of the conflict is worth noticing in so far
as it explains why, after its victory, the North humiliated the South,
creating a more bitter atmosphere where turning the black slaves into
free men would be more difficult and also why it was somehow
unprepared to tackle the black problem well.

83
2) After the civil war: a heritage of bitterness and hatred.
— Emancipation was proclaimed in February 1863. The 13th
amendment to the Constitution (1865) along with the 14th (1868 “nor
shall any state deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws”) and the 15th (1870) gave the Blacks freedom
and citizenship.
They were also theoretically granted civil rights; in 1865, the
Freedmen’s bureau was created to help them and protect them from
violence and intimidation. Freed slaves were given food, clothing, “40
acres and a mule” but the mutation from the existence of slave in a state
of total dependence to that of a free man was difficult: they were
manipulated by “carpet-baggers” and scallywags and frightened into
submission by the white hooded horse-men of the Ku Klux Klan who
resorted to violence or lynching.
The Black codes enabled the Whites to turn the law. So from that
period onwards, there grew a gap between theory and practice which
proved difficult to be bridged. Little by little, the Whites imposed a real
segregation (actual separation) in buses, trains, churches, schools,
restaurants... even in cemeteries. A total segregation system was made
possible because of the American federal regime (each state enjoying
a certain amount of freedom in granting their citizens legal status). Blacks
could thus be prevented from voting by different clauses:
— “The Grandfather clause”: you could get registered to vote if your
Grandfather had been registered too!
— “The Constitution clause”: to be registered, you had to comment
on an article; the most difficult ones in the constitution would fall on
Blacks. There were also poll taxes the Blacks could not pay or residential
requirements they could not meet.
— To avoid open clashes with the States (or also perhaps because it
could not care less) the supreme court did not intervene. Segregation
was even made legal when the phrase “separate but equal” also known
under the name “Jim Crow laws” (J. Crow was a black man held in
ridicule in a xixth century song) was adopted by the congress. At the
dawn of the xixth century, no real change had been achieved.

Ill. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND THE BLACK REVOLUTION

1) Before the Second World War
During the first half of the century, no laws were passed to improve
the Blacks’lot, but in reality, things were beginning to change. There was
a growing interest towards the Blacks and their problems. Prominent
people in the Black community emerged and with them, some sort of
action.

84
 At the end of the xixth century already, Booker-T. Washington’s first
aim was to give the Blacks social equality, provided that they could get
jobs and be educated. Only after could the Blacks successfully fight for
their civil rights. From 1881 to 1915, he did some work in the Tuskegee
Institute he had created, in Alabama.
In 1909, for Lincoln's centennial anniversary, a conference was held
in New York. The N.A.A.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement
of Coloured People) was created. It had its root in the Niagara Movement,
led by W. Dubois, a writer, historian and the editor of a monthly: The
Crisis. It was a pacifist constitutional current.
“The Great Migration”: The Blacks moved towards the North which
had always suffered from a shortage of unskilled workers (especially
aggravated since W.W.I.) New York’s Black population swelled but the
factories and factory life were no heaven, and soon, the Blacks found
themselves shut up in ghettos, ostracized, spurned by labor movements
and brutally handled by the Police. With the Black exodus, segregation
also moved north, even if unofficially. The Black problem became
national and with low salaries, bad housing conditions and rampant
unemployment, racial riots occurred (East Saint Louis, 1917 - Detroit,
1949).
Black Culture: one of the reasons why the Blacks had been
despised for so long was that, as a people, they had no culture. The xxth
century witnessed the revelation of a culture. In music, with the Blues
and Gospel songs, at the root of Jazz, Black people got to be known;
some, like L. Armstrong, D. Ellington and E. Fitzgerald, became world
famous. They could gain recognition through art, proving to the Whites
they had a genius of their own. Black Folklore would then be used by
Whites, in plays (The Emperor Jones), musicals or operas (Porgy and
Bess). Black writers emerged too (James Baldwin, Richard Wright, who
wrote Black Boy, and later Ralph Ellison with /nvisible Man).

2) The Second World War and desegregation.

Because they played an active part in W.W.II and fought in Europe
on the same footing as White soldiers, a new awareness grew among the
Blacks who were far less despised on the Continent than back home.
Also African colonies started having their independence. A less passive
attitude was adopted. (The Blacks’former passiveness had been criti-
cized with the forged word: Uncle-Tomism, derived from H. B. Stowe’s
best seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Though in its time, the book had had a
real impact and had done much to awaken Northerners to the horrors of
slavery, it had given the Blacks a self-image of acquiescence and
submissiveness they found difficult to give up, especially in a hostile or
indifferent environment.)

85
 So, W.W.II triggered off a real policy of desegregation. The first
measures were taken under President H. Truman but the real fight
occurred under President D. Eisenhower. In 1954, ruling on a school
case, the “Brown versus board of education of Topeka” case, the
supreme court condemned the “separate but equal” doctrine (in the
words of the judge “an accepted gloss on the 14th Amendment”) and
started the school desegregation process. But there were wild white
demonstrations at the doors of schools. Eisenhower and later Kennedy
had to send in troops to enforce the Law and escort black students into
schools and Universities. Incidents were particularly violent in Little
Rock, Arkansas.

The Blacks themselves took things in their own hands. It was the
beginning of what would be called “The Black Revolution”. To back
individual actions, they used mass action, organized marches and sit-ins
in public places where segratation still existed. In 1955, in Montgomery,
Alabama, right in the Deep South, people led by M. Luther King (who
was then embarking on his first public action) boycotted the city’s public
transportation system. As a sign of protest, “Freedom Riders” chal-
lenged authorities on buses and trains. The boycott lasted throughout
1956; it ended in the surrender of the bus company and saw M. Luther
King’s development to national stature.

3) Black movements, actions and principles.

a) Movements.

From 1956 to 1967, when he was assassinated in Memphis,

M. Luther King was the champion of non-violence. His Civil rights
movement saw its peak in the “Mississippi Freedom Summer” (1963-
1964) and in the great march of 1963 in Washington. Resistance was still
strong in the South. In 1965, a pacifist demo ended in violence.
L. B. Johnson had to decide to put the National Guard under Federal
control to avoid such extremes.

— The 1960’s-1970’s saw the rise of the Black Muslims and of the
Black Panthers. They saw a continuing development of nationalist anti-
white movements recruiting among the poorest sections of the black
population and in all the big towns with a high percentage of Blacks. Both
movements had in common their criticism of white society and both
glorified the Black race and looked down on Whites as hypocrites and
“devils”.

86
b) Principles:

— Non violent people.

— They do not use weapons in their fight for equality.
— They do not want to instil fear but are ready to take suffering upon
themselves.
— Because violence does not solve the problem in the long run and
never brings peace; it is a downward spiral because violence breeds
violence.
— Because violence humiliates people rather than convert them.
So, it is both unpractical and immoral.
— Their purpose is to convince the Whites, to wake up their
conscience.
— They consider that America is one community of equal Blacks
and Whites (cf: M. Luther King’s famous address, “| have a dream”).
— Black Nationalists
— With Malcom X, their best speaker, they start from the principle
that the Whites are unchangeable. It is no good trying to appeal to their
moral conscience as it is rotten.
— The Blacks have to acquire an economic independence to own
their own shops and houses, so that when they spend one dollar in their
community it stays with them and makes the community all the richer.
They must be taught to take their own affairs in hand.
— To help the Black man re-evaluate himself and be proud of his
own culture, the moral level of the community has to be raised.
— They reflect non violence as unpractical: it is just dilly-dallying
and pussy-footing.
— Instead of repeating “we shall overcome” the Blacks should fight
until they overcome.
— Since appealing to the Whites’conscience is a waste of time, they
go even so far as to advocate separatism on the American ground,
wishing eventually to create a black separate state.
— The Black Panthers
They thought they could have some contacts with white people, not
so much with the white liberals but with more radical people in the white
militant revolutionary groups, seeing themselves as part of the world-
revolution.
Their criticism of american society is political and economical.
— Cultural Nationalism
Latter organizations stress what is called “cultural Nationalism,” that
is being black, showing the nature of the Black’s culture and heritage.
The “Black is beautiful” motto is in this vein.

87
IV. THE BLACKS IN THE 80’S

1) The black population.

Today, the black population is slightly over 26 million people. Up to a
recent period, the Blacks had concentrated in big industrial urban
centers. They make up 20 percent of the population in New York city, 35
percent in Chicago, 50 percent in Detroit and 68 percent in Washington.
They live mainly in ghettos (Harlem, and the Bronx in New York,
Southside in Chicago and Watts in Los Angeles).
Their life in the ghetto is poignantly described by Stevie Wonder in
Village Ghetto Land. \n the South, there still remains a high percentage of
the black population. The 1980 census is interesting in so far as the
figures (recently published in Newsweek’s special report: Portrait of
America, Jan 17, 1983) show that unlike before, the Blacks have not just
stayed North in big centres but have also joined in the shift of the
American population westward and southward, which makes the years
70/80 the “Decade of the Sunbelt”. The black population grows more
quickly than the white (over 15 percent of the children under 5 are black)
and such a growth will continue.

2) Work.
In the seventies, with the rise of incomes among the Blacks, the
phrase “Black middle class” became familiar, more and more black
people were achieving the American dream of climbing up the social
ladder and lifting themselves in the middle class. The Blacks have
actually won jobs which were once closed to them. For the first time in
recent years, non Whites have become professionnal pilots, for instance.
There has been a national effort to give the Blacks a more equitable share
of the nation’s wealth.
Blacks have also been hired as executives in big companies. But in
a recently published book: Black life in corporate America, some people
complain the prospects are not so rosy and things are still more difficult
for Blacks than for Whites in the work force. They are achieving economic
integration, not social integration. In many ways, due to their racial
difference, black executives feel obliged to outperform their white
competitors and feel they have been placed in high visibility jobs or
showcase jobs that are dead-ends.
This is an example of a well-known phenomenon in educational
matters called “Tokenism”: companies recruit Blacks just to show they
are not absent in their ranks. Being accepted as professional equals is
yet another matter. This is a real problem because things cannot be

88
measured and it is difficult to define manifest prejudice: The black
executive or the negro business: myth or reality?
More alarming is the sliding unemployment rate among black male
teenagers today in a time of recession hitting the U.S.A. (unemployment
rate is at a post-war record: 10.8 percent and one out of seven
Americans live below the poverty line).
So, suffice it to compare a few figures of the 1980 census. The
poverty rate is 11 percent for the Whites, 26.5 for Hispanics and 34.2 for
the Blacks. In 1954, 44 percent of black teenagers were employed, in
1982 only 20 percent were. In 1954, nearly 60 percent of black men over
the age of 20 and 85 percent of White were employed. In 1982, only 65
percent of black men had jobs compared with 75 percent of Whites. The
gap between black and white incomes has thus widened (also due to the
fact that the number of dual income black families have decreased).
So, with the recession hitting the country, Blacks (and minorities in
general) have suffered more and are worse off than a decade ago.

3) Education.
In the 60’s, with the civil rights campaign, a policy of affirmative
action was launched by the government. It seemed to become effective
in colleges and schools, taking in black people to show they were
integrated but these people were just examples or “tokens” with whom a
school could pretend to be integrated. This was a common trick known as
“Tokenism”. In 1967, the 400 black students in Little Rock (1 800 white
students) summed up their situation saying: “we aren't integrated, we’re
desegregated”.
Well-to-do Whites could still send their children to private-run schools
with more money, better equipment and more qualified teachers.
Children being assigned to schools near their homes, racial discrimi-
nation, especially in urban areas, is accompanied by racial segregation in
the schools. The government tried to overcome this through a “busing
system” taking black kids to white schools; but Whites have opposed it.

CONCLUSION:
A rising black middle class, more black graduates, riots in Miami, Dec
1982, and more Blacks jobless... all these are contradictory and yet true
statements about the Blacks’ living condition in America today. Economic
integration must be achieved to enable the two major groups to live in
peace. Social integration remains to be done, one of the major obstacles
to it being racism. White Dog, a Samuel Fuller film, released in the
summer of 1982, showed how rampant racism still is today among so
called good average Americans and how difficult it is to eradicate such an
age-old feeling from the people's hearts.

89
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 TEXTE A COMMENTER 7
Invisible Man
It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had
been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone
tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though
they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was
naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself
questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time
and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a
realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I
am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an
invisible man!
And yet I am no freak of nature, nor of history... I am not
ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only
ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed. About
eighty-five years ago they were told that they were free, united with
others of our country in everything pertaining to the common
good, and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the
hand. And they believed it. They exulted in it. They stayed in their
place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same. But
my grandfather is the one. He was an odd old guy, my grandfather,
and I am told I take after him. It was he who caused the trouble. On
his deathbed he called my father to him and said, “Son, after I’m
gone | want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our
life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the
enemy’s country ever since | give up my gun back in the
Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you
to overcome’em with yeses, undermine’em with grins, agree’em to
death and destruction, let’em swoller you till they vomit or bust
wide open.” They thought the old man had gone out of his mind.
He had been the meekest of men. The younger children were
rushed from the room, the shades drawn and the flame of the lamp
turned so low that it sputtered on the wick like the old man’s
breathing. “Learn it to the younguns,” he whispered fiercely; then
he died.
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, Random House, Inc.

on
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF THE BOOK

1) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a quest.

It is a book about identity, social and individual; its
pattern is therefore that of a quest: “All my life | had
been looking for something... | was looking for myself.”

2) It’s a novel of education.

It's a young man’s novel:
this aspect endows the novel with realism.

3) Ellison’s technique.
a) close to expressionism: the hero, a young black man,
has no name and the other characters’ names are
receive
information symbolical. The novel is made of various sequences in
(13) which various incidents occuring to the hero are told.
b) metaphors: All these sequences are metaphors of
the Negro condition: as this condition has changed over
the years (book written in 1952), 75 years of negro
history are in fact encompassed in a 2-year quest:
slavery—accommodation and segregation— the rise of a
black bourgeoisie—the northward migration of poor
Blacks and the encounter with communism.
The recurring metaphor linked with the book title, is
blindness: the other side of invisibility. In the prologue
purpose (23) which shows how the hero is after some 20 years’
comparison experiences and quest, invisibility is defined: “| am
(6) invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to
see me.” The corollary of the others’ blindness (i.e. the
Whites) is the hero’s own blindness towards himself.

Il. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART

This text is an excerpt from Chapter |. This opening
chapter, following the prologue, shows through various
incidents how accommodation is impossible.
The text falls into three parts:

2.
 1) “It goes a long way back... invisible man.”
a) A flashback: the hero is older and writes about
himself which also means writing about his race: he is
never independent of his race as he is defined by the
fact that he is a negro.
The whole book, the story of his quest (his growing old
and wiser through experiences) is a flashback. (“It goes
a long way back, some twenty years.”)
b) A fictive biography: | is repeated ten times in the
short passage.
2) “And yet | am no freak of nature... to do the
same.”
Looking back into the past:
The hero looks into his personal history and past which
is at the same time the past of his race: when Blacks
were slaves and then free; and then when they
dreamed about equality but were segregated.
3) “But my grandfather is.the one... died.”
The grandfather’s last words:

wishes/ It focuses on the hero’s grandfather, an ambivalent

regrets (27) character whose role as a reality teacher will be
understood later on by the hero when he has lost his
naivety, but is already strongly underlined here: an old
man’s last words on his deathbed are always potent and
will be remembered as a prophecy or a curse.

ill. COMMENTARY
1) From innocence to experience.
A. Innocence:
a) misinterpretation: Now that the hero has grown more
mature, he analyses his quest and how he embarked on
condition (7) it. He explains why he was mistaken and how his quest
could not be successful as long as he remained what he
was: a naive boy.
b) passivity: he was active in so far as he was looking
for something but passive because he accepted other
people’s answers to his own questions: “Someone tried
obligation (16)
to tell me what it was”, also meaning someone tried to
impose a view on him which he would submit to. He
even accepted “contradictory” answers.

93
suggestion c) a confusing process: How could he see the truth if
(25) too many interpretations were available, interpretations
which were not criticized but accepted? It was a
confusing process: different answers yet all valid; it was
comparison all the more confusing as they could even be self-
(6) contradictory.

B. Experience:
a) a turning point between his naive state of mind and
his awareness of his own identity came when the hero
condition (7)
realized the questions he was asking everybody else
were in fact questions about himself (his own identity as
a man and as a black man) which no one could answer
for him “I, only |, could answer”.
negative b) a painful process: to achieve this, the process is
orders (15) described as long and painful (“a long time... much
painful boomeranging”). The image of boomeranging is
a strong visual image linked with an abstract term “his
expectations” (cf. Dickens’ Great expectations), it is
receive
information close to illusions as hopes aren't fulfilled. The novel tells
(13) us about destroyed hopes and illusions.
c) the lesson of experience: “| am nobody but myself”:
no need to conform to types, to imitate models. In the
hero's case, it means being true to his race and to the
traits of his race. Through experience the hero must
discover his invisibility: “| had to”... Whites don't see
him because they don't want to see him. This is a first
level of interpretation, but there is another: he has lost
refusal (24)
his identity as a black man because believing in
accommodation and striving towards it, he has melted in
the white society, he has made efforts to deny his own
traits so that he could fit into a preestablished model. But
he has become so “Unblack”, so “White” that he is
invisible: he has lost his black race and is not seen by
intensity (14) the Whites.
This is the conclusion reached by the hero/writer at the
end of the book: with this central image of invisibility,
Ellison criticized accommodation, showing ironically that
the rewards of such a theory meant destruction and
oblivion of one’s identity (4 Booker T. Washington).

94
 2) From slavery to accommodation.
contrast (8) a) Invisibility is the link between the two parts, the
second being the real start of the story: the hero looks
back on his family’s past.
He is invisible YET he is no freak (a monstruous
creature); he insists on the paradox as Invisible Man
difference/ reminds one of H.G. Wells or science fiction creatures.
likeness (9) BUT he is real, he has a common past with all his race.
b) ashamed of his ancestors: He “at one time” was
ashamed of them having been slaves, when he was still
purpose (23)
naive and didn’t understand the real stake of accommo-
dation: to please the Whites, to be their equal, he was
full of contempt for his fellow negroes. He was a middle
class educated black boy who felt different from lower-
rank boys. His shame and contempt mean that he for “a
long time” steeped back from identification with his race,
a victim of some inner racism.
c) promises and desillusion:
— free but separate: “85 years ago” refers to the end of
the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. “Blacks were
told that...”: told means promised and deceived. “Free”,
which is positive, is immediately followed by a restric-
tion: in some respects “united with others” (the “Com-
mon good” is a vague, general, illusory term) but in
others (in “everything social”: not so vague: jobs,
houses, transportation) separate like the fingers of the
contrasts (8) hand. This image is good and striking: Blacks and
Whites live in the same country (fingers of the same
hand) and yet they are separated. In this image an
advice (3)
accusation is underlying: the fingers of one hand (the
people of one country) should stick together and this
solidarity would enable the hand (the country) to do great
ability (1) things and move forward.
The doctrine “separate but equal” (cf. exposé on the
Blacks) held on some time before it was denounced.
— personal deception: “They believed it” = they were
taken in... This, the young hero can write only because
he has changed; at the beginning he was fooled too and
strove to be a good black boy, to go to college... and he
also exulted in it (his receiving a scholarship; his speech
disapproval on humility on the day of his graduation). Ellison subtly
(10) shows through various incidents “boomeranging his

95
 expectations” that humility is dangerously close to
humiliation.
— dangers of accommodation: so, striving towards
equality, the hero’s family and himself accepted accom-
modation: Be good Blacks “stayed in their place”,
“worked hard”.
good Blacks = meek, compliant, humble.
obligation (16) stayed in their place = as the ex-slaves worked hard on
condition (7) the cotton fields, the good Blacks must now work hard in
the factories.
They must work hard to get some education in order to
get good jobs...
As the theory was transmitted from one generation to
another, no real evolution was possible.

3) The grandfather's advice.

a) rejection of difference: “But” introduces the third part:
— not everybody reacted the same: the grandfather
stands out;
intensity (14) — his last words created a shock: he had been
pretending all along (“the meekest of men”).
Reaction: surprise and rejection (“he had gone out of his
mind”) = an easy way out and the possibility to go on
living by one’s illusions: bettering oneself to better one’s
life, to try and reach equality.
contrasts (8) b) contrast life # death: the grandfather had lived all his
life as a good, meek, black man; on his deathbed he
reveals himself to his son and asks him to teach his
lesson to the young.
He is no longer meek, he whispers “fiercely”, his
change Past/ language is strong, he used ominous, violent words. and
Present (17)
images (fight war, head in the lion’s head); his relation
with the Whites (“em”, repeated 4 times) is antagonistic:
personal superficially: meekness and accommodation YET bitter
opinion (18) fight
yeses but overcome
grins but undermine
agreement but to death, to kill them
contrasts (8)
swoller but vomit, bust
apparently positive but —_negative in fact.
That's why the grandfather had been a traitor all his life, a
spy in the enemy’s country. The Whites are enemies,

96
 lions; the relation is a struggle for life and a fight to
death. He had tried to use accommodation as an
undermining process; he knew the injustice of the
separate but equal doctrine and realized accommodation
was all but deceptive; the white majority in the 20’s-30’s
didn’t want equality.
c) The hero and the grandfather: the grandfather's last
words were felt as dangerous by the family. The children
were “rushed from the room”, not to be contaminated.
obligation (16) Of course, the hero would be affected by them, but it
would take him some time before he fully understood
them. The grandfather is a reality teacher as his words
will remain with the hero all along his quest.

IV. CONCLUSION
Cf. exposé on the Blacks and situate the accommodation
theory in the Black History of the U.S.

97
 EXERCICES

|. Terminez la deuxiéme phrase de maniere a ce qu’elle ait le méme

sens que la premiere.
1. Although he was black, the young man wanted to get a good
education and go to college.
In spite of ......
2. When the grandfather uttered his last words, the family certainly felt
surprised.
The family must ......
3. The young Blacks could not make their way into society if they did not
reject their own identity.
WINESSimernee
4. As soon as the hero had heard the words, he felt surprised and
shocked.
No sooner ......
5. The meeker he looked, the more violent he felt inside.
He felt all ......

Il. Complétez la phrase en mettant le verbe entre parentheses au

gérondif, a linfinitif ou a Vinfinitif sans to.
1. Many young Blacks thought it was no use (fight) for their own culture,
they strove (better) themselves in order (improve) their own lives.
2. Accommodation meant (reject) black identity and (try) to fit into a
model imposed by the Whites.
3. The children were made (leave) the room in order not (hear) the
grandfather’s message.
4. The hero had rather (listen) to everyone's answers than (find out) his
own.
5, The grandfather wanted his son (keep) (fight) in the same way he had
always done.

98
 6. THE U.S.A. AND THE WORLD

The history of American foreign policy: isolationism or inter-

ventionism?

|. THE MONROE DOCTRINE

1) A doctrine or no doctrine?
— 1823: Monroe’s Message to Congress, influenced by
Washington and Jefferson.
1793, Washington’s farewell speech, on isolationism: “it is
unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the
ordinary vicissitudes of (Europe’s) politics”.

2) Monroe’s contribution, why?

— Causes: the situation of the 1820's.
— Russian pretences on Alaska.
— Independence of former Spanish colonies.
New interesting markets for the American economy.

3) The Principles.
— A replica of European imperialism.
— The American continent was “not to be considered as
subjects for future colonization by any European masters”.

ll. THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

1) A new interpretation of Monroe’s doctrine, why?

— 1890-95: from a defensive attitude to expansionism.
— Causes: — growing American power;
— end of the Frontier;
— Desire to play a part in the division of the world.

2) Manifestations.
— 1898: the Spanish-American conflict.
— 1903: the Panama canal conflict.

a9
 3) Theodore Roosevelt’s additions.
— International policemanship: speaking “softly” and carrying a
“big stick”.
— Pan-Americanism: defending North American interests
throughout the American continent.
— The Two-ocean concept: bases in America’s two natural
defenses, the Atlantic and the Pacific.

CONCLUSION:
— Principles still marking the relations of the U.S.A. and the
world;
— Involvement in the two world wars: preserving America’s
interests;
— Fighting with the Communist powers for world leadership:
the era of containment.

100
The history of American foreign policy has always wavered between
isolationism and direct—or indirect—interventionism and expansionism.

|. THE MONROE DOCTRINE

1) Doctrine or no doctrine?
When in December 1823, Monroe delivered his message to
Congress, he only devoted a few paragraphs to the relations of the
American nation with Europe. At that point he didn’t intend to put forward
a real doctrine. The actual word “doctrine” was first used only in 1954 in
a diplomatic dispatch. Monroe was only expressing ideas which had
already been extolled by both Washington and Jefferson who were the
first to delineate principles of isolationism, for many years a cornerstone
of American foreign policy.
In April 1793 (at the time of the French-English fight) in his farewell
speech, Washington had spoken in these terms:
“Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a
very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent contro-
versies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.
Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by
artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics...”.
In 1801, in his Inaugural Address, he reaffirmed the same principles:
neutrality, non-entanglement with Europe.

2) Monroe’s contribution, why?

Why did Monroe feel the need to make the American foreign policy clear?
In 1820-1823, two main problems made him do so; firstly, smerica was
worried by Russian pretences on North America and more precisely on
Alaska. Secondly, it was at this time that most Spanish colonies in
South America were being granted their independence. These new free
countries could offer vast, interesting markets for the American economy
and the U.S.A. feared a comeback of the old masters. Actually a threat of
intervention was looming. So the need to express one clear policy was
felt.

3) The principles.
Monroe declared “The occasion has been judged proper for
asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United
States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and
independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are

101
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any
European masters” .
— The American continent as a whole must be closed to any attempt at
colonization by Europe.
— Any attempt would be considered as dangerous to America’s peace
and safety.
The “doctrine” was both defensive and a replica of European
imperialism. The U.S.A. would defend the integrity and independence of
the new world, but how?
At the time it did not cause a stir, America was still a young nation,
her military power not yet so important.

ll. THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

1) A new interpretation of Monroe’s doctrine, why?

Towards 1890-1895 a new interpretation was given, making America
move from a defensive attitude to expansionism. The American power
had then become much stronger (along with its industrial power). The
end of the xixth century was the end of the Frontier (1890) hence the
need to progress outside the boundaries; it was also the end of the
division of the world between the Great European powers, hence a
feeling of frustration not to have had a share of it and the desire to play a
part in it.
So it was the beginning of imperialism, profitable to the U.S.A. and
its economy (new markets, raw materials...).

2) Manifestations.
The first one was the Spanish-American conflict in 1898 over
Cuba, where a civil war had been smouldering for years. This war with
Spain brought her Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and the Island of
Guam (still a main Pacific base under her supervision).
In 1903 the U.S.A. acquired the Panama Canal through a “coup”
that involved the creation of an artificial Republic.

3) Theodore Roosevelt's additions

In the beginning of the xxth century, Roosevelt actively partook in world
affairs, adding to the Monroe doctrine things of his own. If America
intervened in certain countries, it was because she had been asked to do
so, in the name of order, justice, peace... he was putting forward the
argument of International Policemanship and boasted he could go far
speaking “softly” and carrying “a big stick”. This was the beginning of

102
open Pan-Americanism which in fact boiled down to a more active and
efficient defense of worth-American interests throughout the American
continent.
“The Two-ocean concept”: it was Roosevelt's concept that the
Atlantic and the Pacific were two natural defenses against eventual
enemies, hence the Americans had to be predominant in both oceans,
and possess naval bases and friendly ports there. The acquisition of
Hawai (through a fraudulent “coup”), of other Pacific islands, the
Panama Canal... are to be considered in this light.

CONCLUSION:
Very early in the xxth century, all those principles of American foreign
policy, which marked and indeed still mark the relations of the U.S.A. and
the world, were defined. When the country, each time a late comer (the
desire not to get involved was still strong, there was a popular inclination
to neutrality) involved itself in the two world wars, it was not just for the
sake of Europe but also to preserve its own interests because it could not
allow the Atlantic and western Europe or the Pacific and eastern Asia to
be dominated by a single power. Non-entanglement was no longer
possible and isolationism was dying (if ever it was a real ideology or a
vague blanket term for anti-European currents and xenophobe opinions).
America was entering the era of a spiritual fight with the communist
powers for world leadership, the era of “containment”.

103
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 8

U.S. at war

There were priests and nuns on the Espagne the Atlantic was
glassgreen and stormy covers were clamped on the portholes and
all the decklights were screened and you couldn’t light a match on
deck.

But the stewards were very brave and said the Boches
wouldn’t sink a boat of the Compagnie Générale anyway, because
of the priests and nuns and the Jesuits and the Comité des Forges
promising not to bombard the Bassin de la Briey where the big
smelters were and stock in the company being owned by the Prince
de Bourbon and the Jesuits and the priests and nuns.

Anyhow everybody was very brave except for Colonel and

Mrs Knowlton of the American Red Cross who had waterproof
coldproof submarineproof suits like eskimo-suits and they wore
them and they sat up on deck with the suits all blown up and only
their faces showing and there were firstaid kits in the pockets and in
the belt there was a waterproof container with milkchocolate and
crackers and maltedmilk tablets.

And in the morning you would walk round the deck and there
would be Mr Knowlton blowing up Mrs Knowlton.
Or Mrs Knowlton blowing up Mr Knowlton.

The Roosevelt boys were very brave in stiff visored new

American army caps and sharpshooter medals on the khaki
whipcord and they talked all day about We must come in, We must
come in as if the war was a swimming pool.

And the barman was brave and the stewards were brave
they'd all been wounded and they were very glad they were
stewards and not in the trenches and the pastry was magnificent.

104
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 At last it was the zone and a zigzag course we sat quiet in the
bar and then it was the mouth of the Gironde and a French
torpedoboat circling round the ship in the early pearl soft morning
and the steamers following the little patrolboat on account of the
minefields the sun was rising red over the ruddy wine growing land
and the Gironde was full of freighters and airplanes in the sun and
battleships.

The Garonne was red, it was autumn, there were barrels of

new wine and shellcases along the quays in front of the greyfaced
houses and the masts of stocky sailboats packed against the great
red iron bridge.

At the hotel of the Seven Sisters everybody was in mourning

but business was brisk on account of the war and every minute
they expected the Government to come down from Paris.

Up north they were dying in the mud and the trenches but
business was good in Bordeaux and the winegrowers and the
shipping agents and the munitionmakers crowded in the Chapon
Fin and ate ortolans and mushrooms and truffes and there was a
big sign:

MEFIEZ-VOUS
les oreilles ennemies vous écoutent

Red wine twilight and yellow gravelled squares edged with

wine barrels and a smell of chocolate in the park gray statues and
the names of streets.
Street of Lost Hopes, Street of the Spirit of the Laws, Street of
Forgotten Footsteps.
And the smell of burning leaves and the grayfaced Bourbon
houses crumbling into red wine twilight.
At the hotel of the Seven Sisters after you were in bed late at
night you suddently woke up and there was a secret service agent
going through your bag.
And he frowned over your passport and peeped into your
books and said Monsieur c’est la petite visite.
The 42nd Parallel, by Dos Passos, © Mrs John Dos Passos.

106
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. INTRODUCTION
This is a passage from The 42nd Parallel by Dos Passos
which is part of a trilogy:
1) the 42nd Parallel,
2) 1919,
3) Big Business,
an “epic of democracy”, covering the prewar period, the
first World War and the postwar period of the booming
twenties.
Dos Passos uses several techniques:
— traditional fiction,
— newsreels: bits of newspaper articles and headlines
put end to end,
— biographies: Carnegie, Edison, Henry Ford ......
— the Camera Eye: more lyrical passages in which the
reader is made to see the world through the writer’s own
psychological eye. This passage is one of them.

ll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS
1) On the boat.
taste and 1917: the U.S.A. has just joined the war, partly for
distaste (26) economic reasons: the war effort means a boom in
wishes — and industry. The excitement is big on the part of some of the
regrets (27)
Americans who pictured themselves as heroes from the
New World coming to rescue poor old Europe.
a) War is present on the boat: blackout.
b) War is present above: it’s a kind of game. A merry-
go-round going from the priests and nuns to the prince
de Bourbon and back again to the priests and nuns.
c) The people on the boat: “the stewards”, “the
soldiers” (“the Roosevelt boys”, all volunteers), “the
American Red Cross”, all “very brave”...

107
 2) Arrival in the Gironde.
information a) The presence of war becomes more precise: cf. the
(13) words. The boat is escorted.
b) An impressionist description of the Gironde at
sunrise, in autumn.

3) In Bordeaux at the hotel of the Seven Sisters.

a) Contrast between “war” and “good business” in
Bordeaux.
b) War is only present through signs or secret
agents’visits; just enough to be thrilling but not enough
to be dangerous.

Ill. THE PRESENCE OF WAR

Not any war but very precisely World War |.

1) There is only one mention of the war proper:

“Up north they were dying in the mud and trenches”.
We also see the stewards who had been “wounded in
the trenches” being glad because they are out of it; but it
emphasizes the fact that the war is far away and not on
the boat.

2) But in fact the presence of war is all-pervading.

a) because of the words:
1st part: “les Boches”, “brave submarine”...
2nd part: “torpedoboat”, “mine”...
3rd part: “mourning”, “munition makers”...
b) because of the atmosphere:
— On the boat: all the lights are “screened” out “and
you couldn't light a match”; everybody was “brave”
(suggesting there was danger) except Mr and
Mrs Knowlton who are afraid and sit with their “suits
blown up” in case the boat should be blown up;
— In the Gironde: the danger of the “minefields”; the
“shell-cases” on the wharves; the battleships create the
atmosphere of war.
— In Bordeaux: the red and grey colours suggesting
blood and mud. War is everywhere but hidden like « les
oreilles ennemies » and “the secret service agent”
going through your luggage at night.

108
 3) The war itself does exist but far away in the
North or above:
In the dealings going on between Big Business: the
« Comité des Forges », the « Prince de Bourbon » and
the “Church”.

IV. IRONY
Dos Passos denounces the war, but more precisely:
— the attitude of the Americans arriving in Europe;
— the war in the civilian zone with its so-called danger;
— the profit people were making out of it while the rank
comparisons and file were killed in the trenches.
(6) This denouncing is violent, stringent, but the form is not
difference / that of a pamphlet. Dos Passos uses jrony in his
likeness (9) description.

1) lrony in the enumerations, repetitions and

accumulations:
— “and the priests and the nuns and the Jesuits”...: it's
like a round dance laughing at the dying soldiers in the
trenches;
— Mr and Mrs Knowlton “blowing up” each other and
sitting up in their “waterproof submarineproof suits” so
as to keep off danger and death;
— repetition of “brave”, when there is no danger and
every one knows it;
— enumeration of food at the Chapon Fin to show that
the munition makers were stuffing themselves with good
food as they stuffed guns with munitions.

2) But mostly irony in the contrasts:

a) in the words:
— “the barman was brave ...... and the pastry was
excellent”.
— “war” # “swimming pool”.
b) in the attitudes:
— Mr and Mrs Knowlton “of the American Red Cross”,
supposed to help and rescue the others and neverthe-
less over concerned with their own safety.
contrasts (8) — The brand new soldiers with their “sharpshooter
medals” acting as boys pushing each other into the
“swimming pool” and contrasting with the stewards who

109
 had actually been in the war and were eager to get out of
it.
c) in the situations:
comparisons — “up north they were dying” # “business was brisk”
(6) and the “munitionmakers” (who make munitions to feed
difference / the guns) were stuffing themselves with “truffes” and
likeness (9) “ortolans” at “the Chapon Fin”.
refusal (24 ) — No real danger and brisk business but danger
present in the form of signs: « Méfiez-vous... »

V. IMPRESSIONISM
Dos Passos is said to have used the impressionist
techniques of the painters to write his novels.

1) He paints in little touches as the Impressionists did:

many simple statements linked with “and... and...”

2) For the Impressionist painters, colours and light

had no objective reality, and only subjective: they
changed with the mood and feelings of those who looked
at a landscape. We must remember that this passage is
one of “the camera’s eye”, which means that everything
is described from the point of view of the man who is
looking at the scene.
Colours had a symbolistic and a psychological value:
That's why the prevailing colours in Bordeaux are “red”
and “grey”.
Red: the “sunrise”, “autumn”, the vineyards, the red
bridge.
difference / Grey: the wharves, the barrels, the house fronts. They
likeness (9) are symbols of war: blood and mud.

3) In impressionist painting, the colours dissolve into

one another with no neat lines of demarkation: here
“red wine twilight” mixing the colours of sunrise, wine
and the vineyards or the “greyfaced houses crumbling
into red wine twilight”.

Finally and as a conclusion, we may notice the major

importance of colours in the description which makes it
linger in our imagination more as a painting than a
written description.

110
 EXERCICES

|. Introduisez dans les phrases les groupes de mots entre paren-

theses et faites les transformations nécessaires.
1. Are we nearing France? (The passengers wanted to know...)
2. The Germans won’t sink a civilian boat (The stewards were con-
vinced...)
3. The steamers were following the little patrolboat (Since 2 o'clock.)
4. He was in.Bordeaux and had his belongings already gone through by
a spy. (for over a day)
5. The Knowltons couldn't relax on the boat (As soon as the boat
steamed into the Gironde...)

ll. Complétez les phrases suivantes a l’aide d’un mot dérivé de

celui donné entre parenthéses.
1. The colonel and his wife didn’t show much ...... (brave)
2. In this time of year, newcomers were always surprised by the ......
of the vineyards. (ruddy)
3. They said they had all been injured; but how many ...... had they
really received? (wounded)
4. Along the river banks, the autumn vineyards would ...... the
Garonne. (red)
5. From a distance, | couldn’t make out the town ...... (accurate)

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 7. TAYLORISM AND FORDISM

Work organization: F. Taylor’s and H. Ford’s contributions, their

impact on the American society.

|. PRINCIPLES
1) Taylorism.
Taylor’s analysis in Shop Management (1903).
— Slack periods to be decreased.
— Productivity to be increased, thanks to timing, workers’
selection and to the help of a supervisory staff.
2) Fordism.
Ford’s applications of Taylor's theory.
— Factory organization and product creation.
— Consequences:
Working on the assembly line.
Mass consumption, Ford’s model T.

Il. CONSEQUENCES OF WORK RATIONALIZATION IN THE

U.S.A.
1) Causes and aspects.
— A lack of labor force: labor-saving devices.
— Industrial prosperity:
Abundance of raw materials and new sources of energy.
Inventiveness.
— The Machine Age.
2) Consequences.
Economic growth.
Rising living standards.
Birth of advertising.
Development of Capitalism.

CONCLUSION:
Taylorism and Fordism: with changes or additions, two valid
theories today.
— Yet a growing new awareness of work problems, returning to
pre-Taylorian concepts.
Rationalizing work means organizing work in such a way that it becomes
possible to get the best production at the lowest cost. The workers’ jobs
must be carefully studied, organized and controlled. Work organization
has been existing for ages but acquired scientific qualities at the
beginning of the twentieth century with Taylor’s contribution, then known
as Taylorism. His principles are still valid today and further studies only
modified them or brought fresher contribution to them. H. Ford enlarged
them and applied them to the whole structure of a factory, adding to them
his own ideas about mass production and mass consumption. Let us
analyse these principles in detail and draw up a summary statement of
the various aspects of work rationalization in the U.S.A. in the 20’s and of
its consequences for the American Society.

|. PRINCIPLES

1) Taylorism.
The principles which became known as Taylorism were defined by
F. Taylor (1856-1915) in his book Shop management published in 1903.
His postulate was the existence of slack periods in workshops, his aim
the decrease of such periods, and the increase in productivity (the old
saying “Time is money” was at the root of his analysis).
His theory was based on the following main points: Timing, the
workers’ selection and the introduction of a supervisory staff responsible
for the preparation of work.
As far as timing was concerned, it meant the division of labor;
useless efforts or movements had to be pinpointed so as to be eliminated.
It was also necessary to study how several good workers, each in
turn, carried out different operations in the making of a machine. The
amount of time that needed to be added to that allotted for a certain work,
in order to make up for inevitable delay, was to be measured; just as the
periods of rest and their frequency. According to Taylor, workers had to
conform strictly to a given method.
Supervisors, in charge of the workers with the best rate of
production on a certain job, had to make the others reach this optimum
output. The supervisors’ task was of extreme importance in so far as
such improvements could be made only if work operations had been
carefully planned in advance. So Taylorism meant further specialization
and a really scientific approach to work.

2) Fordism.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) applied Taylor’s ideas to the organization of the
whole factory, to the conception of a product and to the worker's life. He

113
moved up to the next stage and increased the division of labor. On the
assembly line, workers had to learn one task only and could learn it
quickly, so quickly that they just became interchangeable parts, as the
different parts of a car had already been made interchangeable and easy
to replace.
Craftsmen and highly skilled workers were no longer needed and
work became more tedious; but the profits rocketed (quick turnover,
lower costs...), all this led to a theory of mass consumption because
Ford had ideas about other things than production or the designing of
cars, he had ideas about sales.
At the time (1908 onwards) Ford was the largest automobile
manufacturer in the world. He paid high wages and by giving his worker
a cut in the profits, he was inducing them to stick to their jobs and
produce more. His ultimate goal was that they could save some money
and buy his “model T” or “Lizzie”. It worked.
Such an organination of production demands the following ele-
ments: high wages — high consumption — big markets — mass
production — better productivity. This is why it can be said that Fordism
is not just a plan concerning the industrial world but also the whole of
society.

ll. CONSEQUENCES OF WORK RATIONALIZATION IN THE UNITED

STATES

1) Causes and aspects.

At the beginning of the twentieth century and in the twenties, the United
States had. become past-master in work-rationalization, a possible
explanation is that the country lacked sufficient labor force, despite the
flow of immigrants. So manufacturers constantly looked for labor-saving
devices. Salaries were not bad for the work force but efficiency was the
key-word.
Industry was not only prosperous because of a wealth of raw
materials but also because new methods were adopted and spread very
rapidly (more than in Europe). Industrialization was greatly helped, too,
by new sources of energy such as oil and electricity. (A third of the
machines already worked on electricity in 1914.)
Mechanization was one of the most obvious aspects of rationaliza-
tion, it became the symbol of America. It was the machine age when
the “Machine song”, to quote Sherwood Anderson, could be heard all
over the country. Then came standardization, specialization and work on
the assembly line.
Such a revolution was to modify the face of American society.

114
2) Consequences.
More productivity, lower costs and prices, more consumption, all this
led to 4 real economic growth followed by a growth of service industries
(thanks to mechanization, the number of people working in industry was
not as high as it was in England at the same time for instance), it was the
sign of a more complex and advanced economy.
The standard of living was rising too, more people could have
easier access to modern facilities and enjoy more material comfort; but
nonetheless it did not necessarily mean that the man working on the
assembly line was all the happier for it (cf.: C. Chaplin's “Modern
Times”).
A new type of man appeared, in a new type of society. The worker
was to be distinguished from the individual, the producer from the
consumer. A new science would study their different needs and cater for
them, the reign of advertising was born.
All these aspects helped capitalism to develop, unhampered as it
was at the time by unions or social measures (which would be taken
much later.—cf.: “Roosevelt’s New Deal”—and would then put a brake
on wild capitalism and its “Robber Barons”).

CONCLUSION:
Taylorism and Fordism are worth analysing in so far as today, in the
U.S.A, and France alike, both theories are still valid. Additions were made
afterwards, for they both missed out the human element (the workshop
atmosphere needed improving and so did security, and work operations
had to be diversified). Yet nowadays a good many people are partly
reverting to pre-Taylorian concepts in work management and are aware
of the slave-like character of doing one task over and over again.

115
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 TEXTE A COMMENTER 9

Henry Ford
All across the continent merchants pressed the large round
keys of their registers. The value of the duplicate event was
everywhere perceived. Every town had its ice-cream soda fountain
of Belgian marble. Painless Parker the Dentist everywhere offered
to remove your toothache. At Highland Park, Michigan, the first
Model T automobile built on a moving assembly line lurched down
a ramp and came to rest in the grass under a clear sky. It was black
and ungainly and stood high off the ground. Its inventor regarded it
from a distance. His derby was tilted back on his head. He chewed
on a piece of straw. In his left hand he held a pocket watch. The
employer of many men, a good number of them foreign-born, he
had long believed that most human beings were too dumb to make
a good living. He’d conceived the idea of breaking down the work
operations in the assembly of an automobile to their simplest steps,
so that any fool could perform them. Instead of having one man
learn the hundreds of tasks in the building of one motorcar,
walking him hither and yon to pick out the parts from a general
inventory, why not stand him in his place, have him do just one
task over and over, and let the parts come past him on moving
belts. Thus the worker’s mental capacity would not be taxed. The
man who puts in a bolt does not put on the nut, the inventor said to
his associates. The man who puts on the nut does not tighten it.

He had a way with words. He had gotten his inspiration from

a visit to a beef-packing concern where the cows were swung
through the plant hanging in slings from overhead cables. With his
tongue he moved the straw from one comer of his mouth to the
other. He looked at his watch again. Part of his genius consisted of
seeming to his executives and competitors not as quick-witted as
they. He brushed the grass with the tip of his shoe. Exactly six
minutes after the car had rolled down the ramp an identical car
appeared at the top of the ramp, stood for a moment pointed at the
cold early morning sun, then rolled down and crashed into the rear
of the first one.

117
 Henry Ford had once been an ordinary automobile manufac-
turer. Now he experienced an ecstasy greater and more intense
than that vouchsafed to any American before him, not excepting
Thomas Jefferson. He had caused a machine to replicate itself
endlessly. His executives and managers and assistants crowded
around him to shake his hand. Tears were in their eyes. He allotted
sixty seconds on his pocket watch for a display of sentiment. Then
he sent everyone back to work. He knew there were refinements to
be made and he was right. By controlling the speed of the moving
belts he could control the workers’ rate of production. He did not
want a worker to stoop over or to take more than one step from his
work site. The worker must have every second necessary for his
job but not a single unnecessary second. From these principles
Ford established the final proposition of the theory of industrial
manufacture—not only that the parts of the finished products be
interchangeable, but the men who built the products be themselves
interchangeable parts. Soon he was producing three thousand cars
a month and selling them to the multitudes.
Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow,
© Macmillan London Ltd.

118
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. INTRODUCTION
This text shows the birth of Fordism which is itself an
application of Taylorism. At the beginning of the twen-
tieth century, Taylor published a book, The American
Plan, in which he deve.oped the idea that the standard-
ization of tools and equipment would lead to increased
production, which would enable the manufacturers to
lower the costs, to reduce the working hours and to raise
the wages. It was then thought that “the same ingenuity
that went into improving the machine could go into
improving the performance of the workmen producing
the machine”. (Dos Passos)

ll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS

1) A prosperous era.
The first five lines. Prosperity is generalin the U.S. at the
end of the Frontier Time: “all across the continent”;
“everywhere”; “every town”. The scene takes place in
1909 (end of Frontier Time officially announced in 1890).
This prosperity is characterized by:
a) bustling business: “merchants pressed the large
round keys of their registers”.
b) creation and satisfaction of new artificial needs
thanks to advertising: “ice cream soda fountain”.
c) technology is doing away with pain and effort:
“Painless Parker”.
d) new relationship sellers/customers: “the dentist
offered”.

2) New principles of production.

The scene which was general: a general description of
the Continent, now focuses on
— one place: “At Highland Park, Michigan”;
— one object: the Model T;
— one man: its inventor (who is not named).

119
 The scene is very clearly framed: from the appearance of
the first model T to the appearance of the second one;
time: six minutes.

a) The first model T here appears as a big insect:

“black, ungainly”, with long legs (“stood high off the
ground”) in the grass. Later, the Model T was named
The Spider.
suggestions b) The shaping of the new theory inside the inventor’s
(25) head: it's a kind of stream of consciousness, he is
speaking to himself: “why not”...
purpose (23) — the philosophy of it: contemptuous conception of his
fellow-men: “most human beings were too dumb to
make a good living”, “the workers’ mental capacity
would not be taxed”... “any fool could perform them”.
condition (7) — the principles of it:
break the work operations into very simple gestures:
“the man who puts the bolt does not put the nut”, etc.;
make the worker repeat this simple gesture over and
over again, so he need not be trained;
absence of stand the worker in his place;
obligation (2) bring the engines to the men instead of bringing the men
preference to the machines;
(21) so save time, hence produce more, hence sell more.
ability (1)
c) The second Model T: and six minutes later, the
second identical car appears and crashes into the back
of the first one, and we can imagine the long string of
identical cars appearing every six minutes and irresist-
ibly pushing the first one into the past.

3) Fordism.
a) Celebration of the Man: Ford is named for the first
time; he is Godlike:
— he has made himself (“once an ordinary manufac-
turer”);
— he has made the car: he had caused a machine to
replicate endlessly;
— he is greater than Jefferson, who made the U.S.A.;
— he has worshippers: an ecstasy “vouchsafed to no
other American”; they crowded around him, trying to
touch him; emotion: “tears were in their eyes”.

120
 b) Contrast with Ford, the boss: all the sentences begin
with “he”, “his”.
He wanted efficiency first.
— importance of control:
he controls his watch;
contrasts (8) he controls his executives and managers: “he allotted
them 60 seconds for a display of sentiment and sent
them back to work”;
he controls his workers, his slaves: “he did not want a
worker to stoop or to take more than one step from his
work site”. :
negative — importance of time, all along the text: “In his left
orders (15) hand he held a pocket watch”; “exactly six minutes
after”. “The worker must have every second necessary
for his job but not a single unnecessary second”.
c) The result; industrial manufacture; end of craftsman-
ship:
refusal (24) — parts interchangeable but also men, who become
condition (7) machines;
— mass production: goods at cheaper prices;
— selling cars to the “multitudes”, and especially to the
workers themselves. As Dos Passos said about Ford:
“He had ideas about other things than the designing of
motors; he had ideas about sales”.

lll. THE PORTRAIT OF A MAN

1) Physical attitude:
— standing in the grass with his watch in his hand, his
hat tilted back on his head, he appears as a very practical
man: he does not stay in his office, he wants to control
the making of the car on the spot.
— chewing a piece of straw, moving it from one corner
of his mouth to the other, and brushing the grass with the
tip of his shoe, he appears as a bull: obstinate, single-
minded and slow-witted.

2) Psychological portrait:
a) Contemptuous: he despises his fellow men, his
executives and managers and his competitors.
b) Cunning: he wants to appear as slow-witted so that
his competitors should not be afraid of him; but actually
he “has a way with words”.

121
refusal (24) c) Exacting with the men whom he turns into his slaves,
with his executives and managers whom he sends back
to work after sixty seconds of emotion.
d) Even domineering: he wants to control everything.

3) A myth.
He has become the Great American of his time:
“experiences an ecstasy”, he is worshipped like a God,
dominating over the “multitudes”.

IV. THE STYLE

Very efficient, same efficiency as the man it describes,
with very short effective sentences:

1) Most of them are simple statements.

“His derby was tilted back on his head”; “He chewed a
piece of straw”; etc.

2) There are a few sentences with a double rhythm:

— rising: it’s the birth of the idea in Ford’s head,
— falling sharply: the immediate application or conse-
quence of his idea:
“He conceived the idea of... the simplest steps” (rising)
“so that any fool could perform it” (falling).
The next sentence is built in the same way.

3) The only /yrical sentences are about the appear-

ance of the two cars at the beginning and the end of the
second part. The first one “lurched down a ramp and
came to rest in the grass under a clear sky”; the second
one at the top of the ramp, “stood for a moment pointed
at the cold early morning sun”.
Ford is moved by the beauty of HIS things, HIS
creation.

V. CONCLUSION
After the Civil War, wild capitalism developed quickly,
owing to:
— a steady immigration from Europe which provided
cheap labour,

122
 — the quick development of the railways,
— the natural resources of the country.
It was based on free enterprise and competition: to be
competitive, manuracturers had to sell as cheap as
possible. They could do it because of mechanization and
standardization (Taylorism and Fordism), because of
cheap, unorganized labour (sweated labour). Small
businesses had to merge into big corporations, which
gave rise to trusts and major companies.
This wild capitalism led to overproduction and the
financial crisis of 1929.

EXERCICES

|. Complétez les phrases suivantes a l’aide des tags qui con-

viennent.
1. By having the workers do one task again and again, he wouldn't tax
their mental capacity, ...... ?
2. H. Ford had once been a common car-maker, ...... ?
3. He said he didn’t care for his employees’ comfort but for their share in
the consumer society, ...... f
4. Today, we revert to pre-taylorian concepts in our organization of a
TACLON,, acdc a> ¥
5. Workers should have rebelled and refused such a degradation of their
working conditions, ....... ?

ll. Choisissez dans les phrases suivantes le verbe qui convient (to
make/to have) et mettez-le au temps voulu.
THO somes the parts brought to the workers on a conveying belt.
2. Men will thus be ...... to work in a more tedious way.
3: FOF WON tee oes the machine repaired by the worker, a specialist
will do it.
4. Such a fantastic vision, that of his own creation, ...... him cry.
5. Ford's followers will ...... his system adapted to the whole structure
of a factory.

123
 8. ROOSEVELT’S NEW DEAL
1929: The Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt: “God's gift
to the U.S.A.”. The Savior of a country and of a system.
|. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, A NEW-STYLE PRESIDENT
1) Roosevelt versus Hoover.
— Hoover’s misinterpretations: “the business of the country is
on asound and prosperous basis”. “Nobody is actually starving”.
— Roosevelt’s message of hope: “| pledge myself to a new deal
for the American people”, to “a new order of competence and
order” for the “forgotten man”.
The Hundred days: “This country asks for action and action
now .

2) The president’s men.

— The “Brain Trust”: making pioneering experiments with new
men. “Take a method and try it”.
3) A psychological campaign.
— The 1929 crisis: a crisis of confidence.
— The “fireside chats”: the use of the radio.

ll. WHAT HE WAS FACED WITH

1) The jobless.
— Dire poverty: the hobos, the job seekers, employment
bureaux, soup and bread lines, the flophouses, Hoovervilles, the
farmers’s plight in the “Dust Bowl”.
2) The problem of charity.
— Work versus shameful charity, a puritan dilemma.
— Roosevelt's decision: Federal aid to the unemployed.

Ill. WHAT HE DID

1) Federal action on unemployment.
— The C.W.A., Civil Works Administration.
— H. Ickes’s P.W.A., Public Works Administration.
2) Social security and labor unions.
— 1935: The Social Security Act. The National Labor relations
Act.

CONCLUSION:
Out of the depression: the New Deal or W.W.I|? — Roosevelt's
legacy: end of total individualism, birth of a welfare state.

124
The Great Depression of 29 was one of the greatest crises ever known in
the United States. F. D. Roosevelt, “God’s gift to the U.S.A.”, as was
written on a letter sent to the White House, appeared and still appears as
a savior of a country and a system, of both capitalism and democracy.
How could he restore so much hope?

1. FRANKLIN. D. ROOSEVELT, A NEW-STYLE PRESIDENT

1) Roosevelt versus Hoover.

The word “new deal” was first uttered by Roosevelt in a speech he
made in Chicago before the democratic convention, accepting his
nomination to run for Presidency. “| pledge myself to a new deal for the
American people”. The message was one of hope at a time when a
whole country seemed to have fallen into despair.
Since the great stockmarket crash of 1929, national income had
decreased terribly; unemployment had soared to 4 million in 1930, 8 in
1931 and 12 million in 1932. Roosevelt promised his nation “a new order
of competence and courage”, talked about “the forgotten man” (who
should no longer be forgotten), and so could be but elected; especially
since his opponent was Hoover who, in the midst of the greatest crisis
the country had known, kept on speaking supposedly soothing words!
Right after Black Thursday, he said “the fundamental business of the
country is on a sound and prosperous basis” but not only Wall Street was
affected, the whole American economy was. With production falling, farm
income dropping and more firms going bankrupt, he still thought it was a
temporary problem, even saying in 1930 “The Depression is over” or
“Nobody is actually starving; the Hobos, for example, are better fed than
they have ever been”.

Roosevelt, even if at the beginning he did not really have a fixed

series of measures or ready made remedies, was speaking a different
language, he was giving the people a new spirit of assurance “the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Since the crash, there had been three
years of hesitation and evasiveness, things had to be done: “this nation
asks for action and action now” this was to be the spirit of the “Hundred
days” (from March to June 1933).

2) The president’s men.

Roosevelt's ability was to know how to recruit men to help him. He
did not look for his advisers among the usual politicians and financiers,
but in universities. These men would become known as the “Brain
Trust”, among them, Raymond Moley. With them, he would make

125
pioneering experiments, trying “any thing” which could work to help the
country out of the crisis and reduce unemployment. “Take a method and
try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try
something”. The newcomers in Washington had diverging ideas for
which Roosevelt encouraged them to fight.

3) A psychological campaign.
Very important also in his way of exercising leadership was his
psychological campaign. He understood that his task was also to try
and cure what had become a crisis in confidence. In his “fireside
chats”, he used the radio as a means to get in touch with people and
unite them. These “chats” always began with “my friends...”. In the
Hoover era, the White House mail room received less than 800 letters a
day; after “fireside chats” during Roosevelt's first year, there were more
than 50.000 letters. With him as a president, people felt they could put
their trust in presidency again.

ll. WHAT HE WAS FACED WITH

1) The jobless.
The depression suddenly brought millions of Americans face to face
with ruin and dire poverty. People lost their jobs, lost their savings (in
the early years of the depression, small depositors queued outside
ruined banks, waiting in vain), lost their homes (penniless, they could no
longer pay the mortgage). More than a million of the jobless were on the
road, as hobos. Millions of Americans had no regular income at all, living
from hand to mouth, trying anything to make both ends meet (the
unemployed tried to sell apples on street corners). In Employment
bureaux, job seekers would wait endlessly in a painful silent suspense as
almost no jobs were available and only very few would get one (a few
hours’work, worth a few cents).
Jobless could get some food in soup kitchens, breadlines stretched
for blocks in big cities. In flophouses (from the verb “to flop” = to fall on
a bed to sleep) the homeless could get some food and some sleep.
Shanties called Hoovervilles were built in Central Park. All the same,
people starved and even died. Children were suffering from malnutri-
tion (27% of Pennsylvania's school children in 1932). Among the
farmers, the crisis was even worse, especially in the Southwest plagued
by dust storms and known as “the Dust bowl”. Tens of thousands of
farmers were thus driven on the road, packing their families in old
jalopies and headed to what they thought would be the promised land,
California (cf. our study of Grapes of wrath).

126
2) The problem of charity.
An unemployed worker's sign, as he was pleading for help, could
read “work is what | want, and not charity, who will help me get a job...?”
Moulded by Puritan ethics (Financial success is a sign of God’s
favour!), many Americans thought that taking charity was shameful,
unemployment was shameful and that a man who could no longer
keep his family was hardly a man at all. Federal aid to the unemployed,
Hoover said, would weaken their “moral fiber” but, even at the cost of
violating established rules, something had to be done by the Govern-
ment. Harry L. Hopkins and Harold Ickes were the two men who, with
Roosevelt's go ahead, did most in this respect.

lil. WHAT HE DID

Many aspects of Roosevelt's creations are not dealt with here (The
Tennessee Valley Authority, the Securities Exchange Act, the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corp...) as we have chosen to concentrate on social
matters rather than on strictly economic or financial ones.

1) Federal Action on Unemployment.

Hopkins suggested that the Government should be a general
employer of labour, hiring the unemployed for all kinds of jobs that
needed doing. Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration
which, within two months, provided four million jobs. Roads and
schools... were redone by C.W.A. workers who sometimes were hired
and paid for odd jobs, known as “Boondoggle” (Pioneers and cowboys
used the term for their habit of braiding together scraps of leather when
they had nothing else to do). H. Ickes operating the Public Works
Administration and refusing “to hire grown men to chase tumbleweeds
on windy days”, created bridges, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Chicago
sewage system... Hopkins went on with his own methods, the Works
Progress Administration became the nation’s biggest employer
(among its creations, la Guardia Airport in New York). The W.P.A. wanted
to put people to work at their own trade and was ready to try anything.

2) Social Security and Labor Unions.

The Roosevelt era saw the birth of social security, still a great
social conquest of today, which Americans take for granted. (This is why
they do not appreciate when President Reagan talks about cuts!) Before
1933, only eight states provided modest pensions for the needy. In 1935,
the Social Security Act provided old age pensions and unemployment
insurance. With the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the

127
Wagner Act) of 1935, the workers were guaranteed the right to form
unions without intimidation or employer's influence and the right of
collective bargaining. Order was brought to the old sweating system:
minimum wages, maximum hours, a ban on child labour. The American
Federation of Labor grouped qualified workers, the C.!.0. or Congress
of Industrial Organizations was opened to all workers. Their membership
increased and their power grew immensely. In 1941 there were still six
million unemployed.

CONCLUSION:
It is now recognized that the New Deal did not help the country out of the
Depression: Federal action achieved “Pump-priming”. The war, acting
as a stimulus to production and providing a market for it, ended
unemployment as the W.P.A. never had. But Roosevelt's imprint on
American life was tremendous and long lasting: above all, total
individualism was given up, the greater part of the nation accepted the
idea that the State was answerable for the welfare of its members. It was
the birth of a welfare state which would at last take notice of the
Constitution’s pledge to “Promote the general welfare” and see to the
distribution of what Roosevelt called simply “the good things of life”.

128
 “THE GRAPES OF WRATH”

TEXTE A COMMENTER 10

I. Tractored out

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great
crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of
insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling
on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood
idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a
droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking
their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country,
through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight
lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds.
They ignored hills and gulches, water-courses, fences, houses.
The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man:
a
gloved, goggled, rubber dust-mask over nose and mouth, he was
part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the
cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air
and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic
vibration. The driver could not control it—straight across country it
went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at
the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver's hands could not
twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that
into
sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands,
his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him—goggled
his
his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled
not see the land as it was, he could not smell the
protest. He could
the
land as it smelled: his feet did not stamp the clods or feel
warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped
e
on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourag
the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer
or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or
it
trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate,
If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or
was nothing.
the
drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to
tractor.
129
 He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He
could admire the tractor—its machined surfaces, its surge of power,
the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor.
Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with
blades—not ploughing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the
right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left;
slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And pulled behind
the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little
clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the
long seeders—twelve curbed iron penes erected in the foundry,
orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion.
The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines
he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud
of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and
was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and
let the earth sift past his finger-tips. No man had touched the seed,
or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no
connexion with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under
iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers
or curses,

II. A heartless job

On the land being ploughed by the tractor stands an old-time
farm. The farmer has refused to move from his house and fields,
bought by a big banking concem, as he does not know where to go
or what to do. So the tractor is now going to ignore him and plough
across his land and home.
“And that reminds me,” the driver said, “you better get out
soon. I’m going through the door-yard after dinner.”
“You filled in the well this morning.”
“I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I’m going through
the door-yard after dinner. Got to keep the lines straight.
And—well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so I’ll tell you this. I
got orders wherever there’s a family not moved out—if I have an
accident—you know, get too close and cave the house in a
little—well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid
never had no shoes yet.”

130
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 “T built it with my hands. It’s mine. | built it. You bump it
down—I’ll be in the window with a rifle. You even come too close
and I'll pot you like a rabbit.”
“It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t
do it. And look—suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but
long before you’re hung there’ll be another guy on the tractor, and
he’ll bump the house down. You’re not killing the right guy.”
“That's so,” the tenant said. “Who gave you orders? I'll go
after him. He’s the one to kill.”
“You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank
told him: Clear those people out or it’s your job.
“Well, there’s a president of the bank. There’s a board of
directors. I’ll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank.”
The driver said: ‘Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders
from the east. The orders were: Make the land show profit or we’ll
close you up.”
“But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to
starve to death before | kill the man that’s starving me.”
“T don’t know. Maybe there’s nobody to shoot. Maybe the
thing isn’t men at all. Maybe, like you said, the property’s doing it.
Anyway, I told you my orders.”
“T got to figure,” the tenant said. “We all got to figure. There’s
some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve
got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can
change.” The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered
his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows
combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground.
Across the door-yard the tractor cut, and the hard, footbeaten
ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the
uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard
bit into the house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the
little house from its foundation so that it fell sideways, crushed like
a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his
nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and
the ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it,
his rifle in his hand. His wife was beside him, and the quiet children
behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck,
© 1939, 1967 by John Steinbeck, Mc Intosh and Otis, Inc.

132
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

|. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In the early xxth century, farming was revolutionized by:

comparison — rapid western expansion;
(6) — the help of science: new fertilizers, new methods
which led to intensive production of wheat, corn or
cotton in “belts”;
obligation (16) — the improvement of machinery: first Mc Cormick
ability (1) reaper in 1831.
But modern farming calls for capital: farmers had to
borrow money from the banks to buy new machinery
(they depended on the banks and the industrial world i.e.
the East).
In the late 20's, farmers knew hard times:

difference (9) a) They had to sell their products cheap in a competitive

market and to buy manufactured goods dear from trusts
protected by high tariffs.

change past/ b) The extensive production of one crop (instead of

present (17) rotating crops) impoverished the land which did not yield
so much as it used to do.

c) In some places (Oklahoma) the topsoil turned into

dust because of long periods of severe droughts and
wind storms blew the soil away (the dust bowl).
obligation (16) So, farmers got poor and could not pay back the money
purpose (23) they had borrowed. The banks took over the land and the
mortgaged farms. Millions of small farmers were driven
out of their mortgaged farms and flocked to the nearest
town where they became unskilled workers or drove to
California to hire themselves as fruit or cotton pickers
during the season, while a wealthy “aristocracy estab-
lished on the ruins of a once free America.”
receive
information That's the story told by J. Steinbeck in the Grapes of
(13) Wrath.

133
 ll. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE
MAIN IDEAS

First passage:

a) The tractors compared to:

helplessness — insects: small, always in motion, humming, going
(11) everywhere;
— snub-nosed monsters: strong coming from another
world, strange-looking.
There is no resisting them: use of prepositions, enu-
meration of places.

b) The man on the tractor is soon reduced to his

function: the driver.
He is no longer a man, is one with the machine:
— no physical perceptions: he is gloved, goggled,
muzzled but his perceptions are also muzzled: “he
ability (1) could not see the land”, “smell” it, stamp the clods, feel
the warmth...
— no feelings: “he loved the land no more than...”; “no
man had lusted for the growth...”; “it was not loved or
hated”.
obligation (16) — no will: he could not twitch or swerve the caterpillars,
he could not protest, speak; he had to draw straight
lines; he could not control the power...
He is no more than a robot, a part of the iron monster
(iron seat, iron pedals). He had to obey.

change past/ c) The work: farming used to be an act of love: love

present (17) between the farmer and his land (here personified as the
absence of woman), the crop was the result, the child, the fruit of the
obligation (2)
womb: notice the words “touch, lust, love”.
Now the land bears “under iron”: the birth is difficult, is
the result of a surgical operation: the man on the tractor
is like a surgeon: “gloved”; “masked”...; notice the
words “surgery”; and the cutting instruments: harrows,
shining disks, blades.
Love is killed (only negative sentences: “NO man...”)
and replaced by violence: the physical contact between
the land and the machines (plowing discs, harrows and
seeders) is compared to a methodical rape, which
results in the earth's death.

134
 Second passage:
a) Man versus Man: two men are facing each other: |
refusal (24) versus |. And we realize that the driver, under his mask,
contrasts (8) is very much like the tenant: he has a family, he is poor,
he does not make profit... these two men could get along
together.
b) Who is responsible? the farmer slowly realizes that
persuasion/ the driver is not responsible for the destruction of his
dissuasion farm; if he were, they could come to an agreement.
(19) “We've got something made by man, that’s something
advice (3) we can change.” The problem is: who is responsible?
difference (9) He, the Bank, The East, the Property? Finally the farmer
understands that it means NOBODY.
c) The defeat of the tenant: Evil; fatality can only come
from God, that is to say the Weather: floods, winds,
droughts...
He believes in Man and in relationship; but Property,
that’s Nobody, and the driver (who is no_ longer
mentioned but with his machine) is no longer a man. The
Machine is Man’s new God and nothing can be done.
helplessness In the last three lines, the farmer and his family are very
(11) small and powerless in front of the Machine (the word
“thunder” reminds us that it is the same kind of God).
We think of Adam and Eve in front of God, driven out of
the Garden of Eden.

lil. ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF A

MECHANIZED SOCIETY
purpose (23) Steinbeck was against a mechanized society. In his
preference books, he wants to show that:
(21) — it destroys the relationship between Man and Nature:
the tractor driver has no more contact with the land, no
more love for it, and the land gradually dies;
— it destroys the relationship between Men: the farmer
and the driver are the same kind of people; they should
have understood each other, but they can’t because the
driver is part of the mechanized society; he is a slave, a
robot;
ability (1) — it destroys Man himself: no one has any responsibil-
ity; each individual is eaten up by the tentacular monster.
| is merged into They. Society, money, machines are the

135
 new gods that crush Man down, leaving him hopeless in
an unhuman, standardized world.
No more initiative, no imagination, Man is left alone, lost
(cf. The assembly line).
BUT, our mechanized society has its good sides all the
same: easier life, higher wages, less tiring jobs, etc.
comparison And, what about the computerized society? For or
(6) against man?

EXERCICES

|. Traduisez les phrases suivantes.

1. Les banques firent détruire les maisons des Okies par les tracteurs.
2. Les petits fermiers avaient toujours fait pousser les mémes récoltes
sur leur terre.
3. Pendant la crise des années 30, les employés des flophouses
faisaient nettoyer les haillons des hobos avant qu’ils ne repartent errer
dans les rues.
4. Les employés des bureaux faisaient attendre les chdmeurs des
heures durant.
5. Autrefois, les pionniers avaient fait construire le Pacific Railway et
l’avaient fait courir contre le temps, aujourd’hui leur réve s’écroule et les
voila de nouveau sur la route.

ll. Posez les questions qui correspondent aux mots en italiques.

1, The banks ordered the companies to make the land show profit.
2. Once, the farmer had lusted for his land.
3. Hundreds of people were tractored out and had to flock to the cities.
4. The driver was proud of his tractor though he did not own it.
5. Neither the banks nor the companies were responsible for what
happened to the farmers.
—_—_— ee ee

136
 9. THE MAFIA, MYTH AND REALITY

Imagining the Mafia:

— Sicily and the U.S.A.;
— a world of violence;
— influence of the American screen.
The real Mafia: origins and role in American society.

1. ORIGINS
1) The old mythical Mafia spirit.
— The Mafia spirit and the middle ages: myth of the rebel.
— The modern Mafia and the old characteristics of the outlaw
type.

2) The new Mafia.

— 1838, Sicily: the Mafia was known as a dangerous secret
society.
— 1900-1920, the modern Mafia: a structured organization,
more criminal, more political influence.

ll. HOW COULD THE MAFIA DEVELOP IN THE U.S.A.?

1) The immigrants’ contribution.
— 1890-1910: important immigration from Sicily.
— The immigrants’ contribution: the need to be protected,
respect for the strong men of the Mafia.
— The Mafia: the defender of the Sicilian community.

2) The Mafia and the American mentality.

— The Mafia and the Frontier world: a common violence.
— A common mentality: pragmatism, craving for wealth and
comfort, sense of competition.

3) The Black Hand.

— Sicilians in Little Italies: the first to be exploited.
— Acting out of the community: the beginning of repression.

137
 lll. THE MAFIA IN THE AMERICAN SOCIETY TODAY
1) From the Black Hand to the Cosa Nostra.
— 1919-1933: the prohibition era, “dry” and “wet” states.
The heydays of the Mafia with its “bootleggers”.
— 1930-1931: internal strife.
— The Cosa Nostra: losing the Italian element.
A highly bureaucratic criminal system, profit coming first.

2) Structure and activities.

— Organized crime: America’s biggest business (estimations),
taking over legal trades and labor unions, corrupting public
Officials.
— Activities: rackets, drugs, gambling, prostitution.
— Structure: 24 clans (boss or “padrone”, buttons or “sol-
dati”), oath-taking, kangaroo courts.

CONCLUSION:
— Today, the Cosa Nostra is less heard of.
— But its undermining process, “theft of the nation”, is
continuing.

138
In our imagination, the Mafia is associated with two places: Sicily and the
United States (particularly big cities like New York or Chicago...) with
scenes of violence (murders, gangland killings, policeman chasing
sinister-looking gangsters...) and we think of rackets, illicit traffics,
corruption... In a word, a whole vision triggered off by all the American
crime-thrillers shown on T.V. or on the big screen, usually hits at the box-
office with an audience both repelled and attracted by that kind of
universe (nasty people but rich and powerful, driving sports cars, going
out with beautiful girls...). What is the real Mafia? What was the old Mafia
spirit which the immigrants from Sicily brought along, what part does it
play and how does it work in American society today?

1. ORIGINS
1) The old mythical Mafia spirit.
The Mafia has existed for a very long time and has not always had
the derogatory meaning it has today. In medieval Sicily, the Mafia spirit
meant it was not wrong, if need be, to infringe on the law so as to impose
oneself in society. In a rigid system such as the feudal one, it allowed the
people who lived by the Mafia spirit to rise in the social scale. This was
how the myth of the poor bandit or knight fighting against injustice,
the rich, the tyrants or the oppressors from other countries, was born.
So at the beginning, this did not always imply violence and crimes
but, as above all the spirit was one of extreme individualism, it could
lead to sheer criminality (as the saying goes “the end justifies the
means”). From this original image of a rebel, the Mafia will keep certain
traits typical of out-law types: a code of honour, a sense of the family
with a great respect for the mother. The oath of allegiance should be
always kept, laws of hospitality respected...

2) The new Mafia.

It was only in 1838 in Sicily that the word “Mafia” appeared for the
first time in a report, to designate a dangerous secret society ready to
use any means to reach its goals. The Mafia spirit gave way to the
modern Mafia, a highly structured organization which, at the beginning
of the xxth century and especially after W.W.I., became greedier and
more criminal. When universal suffrage was adopted, its influence also
became political; to be protected by this Mafia, some people had to pay
they tribute. The big bosses who could be arrested had cover activities
and took on a supposedly respectable face. Silence was obtained by an
intricate web of contradictory notions: fear, honor and interest.

139
ll. HOW COULD THE MAFIA DEVELOP IN THE UNITED STATES?
1) The immigrants’ contribution.
Immigration from Sicily was very important at the turn of the century.
Poor immigrants would gather in cities where, left alone, they had to fend
for themselves. In these urban jungles, because of the problems of
assimilation and mutation they had to face, they felt even poorer, weaker
and more isolated.
They needed to be protected by strong men they could respect, the
very men who long ago in Sicily used to answer to the environment’s
aggressivity with even more aggressivity. So the Mafia would play its old
part as a defender of the Sicilian community. A ciannish spirit
prevailed.

2) The Mafia and the American mentality.

It would be very unfair to say Sicilians brought crime and violence to
America. The frontier was not an idyllic world at all. People were fighting
for land and power, many had guns and easily pulled the trigger to take
the law into their own hands. Westerns give us an image of this violence
which was part and parcel of the life on the frontier. In many ways, the
Mafia could fit quite well into a certain mentality which already prevailed
in America (basic pragmatism, a craving for wealth and material comfort
and an acute sense of competition) and thus thrive.

3) The Black Hand.

Many Sicilians knew nothing about the changes undergone by the
Mafia back in Sicily and thought they could rely on the spirit of the old
Mafia, made of solidarity and respect for certain laws.
In fact, they were the first to be exploited by the Black Hand, also a
criminal organization. As the police did not really interfere with what
could happen in the “Little Italies”, the Mafia could have the upperhand.
Rival groups were then fighting to get the control of certain trades
(fruits, oil, ...). When the mafiosi started acting out of their ethnic
community, repression began.

lll. THE MAFIA IN THE AMERICAN SOCIETY TODAY

1) From the Black Hand to the Cosa Nostra.
By 1930, the Mafia had taken under its control all the small criminal
gangs existing in the Italian communities. From 1919, with the 18th
Amendment to the Constitution, to 1933 with the 21st one proposed by

140
Roosevelt and repealing it entirely, it was the time of prohibition. This
ban on alcohol had been enforced by the traditional puritan groups of
the nation in an attempt at proving their primacy; in fact not only had the
country been cut into two parts: “dry” states versus “wet” ones but it
also showed the existing gap between social classes, the worker did
drink less after ginshops on street corners had been closed down, but
bourgeois people went on drinking the same amount, helped by the
traffickers known as bootleggers.
For the crime syndicates, the prohibition era meant huge profits
and saw the growth of criminality (those were the days American
gangster films made familiar to us with “famous” men like Al Capone,
Lucky Luciano...).
So more Americanized, the Mafia specialized in lucrative crime. |n
1930-1931 internal battles between the old and the young of the Mafia
were raging. The Mafia lost its Sicilian traits and became the Cosa
Nostra. The Italian element was no longer so predominant and, more
than ever, profit came first. Since 1950, this trend has become more
pronounced; people even speak of a highly bureaucratic criminal system.

2) Structure and activities.

The Kefauver commission—1950—concluded that a crime syndi-
cate known as the Mafia existed in the whole nation and the Ratzenback
commission—1967—went as far as saying that this well structured, well
organized society even infiltrated legitimate business. From what
could be gathered (Valachi being the first person to somewhat unmask
the Cosa Nostra whose members are bound by a blood oath of allegiance
and silence, veiling it in secrecy—see the the extract from the Valachi
papers—), the Cosa Nostra would gross more than $40 Billion a year.
Organized crime is America’s biggest business. Such statistics may be
overrated but, all the same, profits are enormous. While the Cosa Nostra
does not cover all organized crime, it is a dominant force; some say it is
a state within a state, taking over legal trades and labor unions (some
social conflicts are said to be settled by its interventions). It corrupts
numerous public officials at all levels, enjoying some support from
political groups and even from the police. Appearances of respectability
then matter tremendously. It was perhaps involved in J. F. Kennedy’s
murder (the latter had announced he would launch a campaign against
the Mafia).
Rackets, drugs, gambling and prostitution are among its most
lucrative businesses. It is thought to be composed of 24 clans, at the
head of each clan a boss or “padrone” assisted by an underboss. The
“soldati” or “buttons” are under the supervision of “lieutenants”. A

141
very ritualized oath-taking, which sounds like an initiation, binds them all
together just as blood and violence do too! Fear of betrayal is constant,
they have their own irregular courts known as Kangaroo courts, the
judiciary branch so to speak. Retaliation can be dreadful. Their weapons
are blackmail, intimidation and, it goes without saying, sheer elimination.

CONCLUSION:
Apparently the cosa nostra is less heard of than it used to be during the
heyday of Prohibition for instance, but nevertheless it continues its
undermining process (its “theft of the nation”), the unofficial replica of a
system which, to establish law and order and make big money, can also
use a certain form of violence.

142
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 11

The blood oath of allegiance

I was led to the other end of the table past them, and the other
guy with me said, “Joe, meet Don Salvatore Maranzano. He is
going to be the boss for all of us throughout the whole trouble we
are having”. This was the first time I ever saw him. Gee, he looked
just like a banker. You’d never guess in a million years that he was
a racketeer.

Now Mr. Maranzano said to everybody around the table,

“This is Joe Cago”. Then he tells me to sit down in an empty chair
on his right. When I sit down so does the whole table. Someone
puts a gun and a knife on the table in front of me. |remember the
gun was a 38 and the knife was what you would call a dagger. After
that, Maranzano motions us up again, and we all holds hands and
he says some words in Italian. Then we sit down, and he turns to
me, still in Italian, and talks about the gun and the knife. “This
represents that you live by the gun and the knife”, he says, “and
you die by the gun and the knife”. Next he asked me, “Which
finger do you shoot with?”

I said, “this one”, and I hold up my right forefinger. I was still

wondering what he meant by this when he told me to make a cup
out of my hands. Then he put a piece of paper in them and lit it
with a match and told me to say after him, as | was moving the
paper back and forth, “This is the way I will burn if I betray the
secret of this Cosa Nostra”. All of this was in Italian. In English
Cosa Nostra would mean “this thing of ours”. It comes before
everything—our blood family, our religion, our country. (...)

Mr. Maranzano then says, “Everybody up. Throw a finger

from zero to five.” So all the guys around the table threw out their
right hand at the same time. Some of them had no fingers out,
some had two or three, the limit, naturally, being five. When all the
fingers are out, he starts adding them up. I forget what it was. Let’s

143
say they came to forty-eight. So Mr. Maranzano starts with the first
man on his left and keeps counting around the table, and when he
got to forty-eight, it fell on Joe Bonnano, also known as Joe
Bananas. When Mr. Maranzano saw where the number fell, he
started to laugh and said to me, “Well, Joe; that’s your gombak”,
meaning he was kind of my godfather and was responsible for me.

So Joe Bananas laughs too, and comes to me and says, “Give

me that finger you shoot with.” I hand him the finger, and he pricks
the end of it with a pin and squeezes until the blood comes out.
When that happens, Mr. Maranzano says, “This blood means that
we are now one family.”

From The Valachi Papers, or The Canary that sang, by Peter Maas
© Granada Publishing Ltd.

144
 SSOd SHL

SHL NNS GNV SHL ASIN

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DSNISOOHO
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145
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

1. A PASSAGE FROM “THE VALACHI PAPERS”

Valachi had been a Mafioso for 40 years when he
suddenly broke the Mafia’s silence in the U.S. peniten-
tiary in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was a convicted
trafficker in heroin and where another prisoner, also a
contrasts (8) Mafioso, accused him of “ratting” to the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics. After weeks of terror-filled existence, he
killed his fellow inmate.
In his “memoires”, The Valachi Papers, he speaks
about the Cosa Nostra (the Mafia) and relates his own
oath of allegiance.

ll. THE STYLE

Valachi was a little-educated, unexceptional man. The
style is very simple.

a) It is the style of an oral relation: “| said”; “he says”,

“he asked me...”,
— always hesitating between the present and the
preterite: “/ said”, “This one” and “/ hold up”, ...
— with colloquial phrases: “you’d never guess in a
million years”...

b) It relates facts that speak by themselves: he just

writes down what happened without commenting on
them.

c) There are a few personal remarks:

— to explain: “In English Cosa Nostra would mean ‘this
thing of ours’”,
— to show how formal and impressive it was, and
perhaps for self-justification: no wonder you are faithful
when you have gone through such a ceremony,
— to give the view he has now: “I remember the gun
was a 38”, a more objective view now that he knows
what lies behind the myth.

146
 Ill. THE USUAL PORTRAIT OF A MAFIOSO
The cinema and the novel show the ethic of a mythical
Mafia: reading this report of the blood oath of allegiance
written by a Mafioso, we can easily understand how this
myth was created.
a) The mafioso have often been portrayed as the
“gentleman type”: a congenial, popular, good-man-
nered aristocrat. Here, we see Don Maranzano speak-
ing with much civility; he looks like “a banker”. The
whole ceremony is very formal: people sit down or stand
when they are motioned to, etc.
b) The mafioso has often been described as a rebe/ who
fights against the law and injustice (the romantic type of
bandit) governed by a Code of Honour.
Here the ceremony is full of romantic symbols:
— The gun and the knife: you must be devoted to the
Cosa Nostra till you die;
to persuade / — The piece of paper burning in your hands: if you
to dissuade betray, you will be burnt;
(19) — The drop of blood to sign: the Cosa Nostra is above
obligation (16)
everything.
c) The mafioso is shown to be governed by an acute
sense of the family: Valachi is given a godfather who is
responsible for him. The conclusion of the oath: this
blood means that we are now one family.
So the whole ritual is quite in keeping with the image
many Hollywood films have given of the Mafia.

IV. THE REALITY OF THE MAFIA

We can also find this reality in the ceremony and the way
it is related:
a) In fact, the Mafia is a business organisation:
alternative (4) — Don Salvatore Maranzano “is going to be the boss
to persuade / for all of us throughout the whole trouble”;
to dissuade — He looked like a banker but in fact he “was a
(19) racketeer”. The mafioso’s goals are money and success;
— The Mafia is a gigantic machine which functions like a
state within the state with its own police corps and
judiciary branch.

147
probability b) This business organisation is in the service of crime:
(22) — The gun and knife may be symbols but Valachi notes
“the gun was a 38” and “the knife... a dagger”;
— The boss is a racketeer. After the very formal
sentences of the oath: “this represents that you will live
intensity (14) by the gun and the knife”... we come down to the rough
reality: “Which finger do you shoot with?”

V. WHY HOLLYWOOD HAS KEPT FLOODING THE

MARKET WITH THE IMAGE OF THE CRUEL
GENTLEMAN TYPE
a) Because authors and producers know that they will
sell this kind of mafioso;
b) But also because the mafioso produced by Holly-
wood obviously meet the requirements of the public:
Through him and by proxy, the public can at last
experience a number of emotions which society has
denied the individual—Movies and books staging the
Mafia allow the public to experience by proxy such
emotions as fear, pride, rebellion, anger...; such situ-
ations as going to chic restaurants, driving fast cars,
beating cops and the system.
In other words, the Hollywoodian mafioso meets the
public needs for violence and brotherhood (contradictory
needs); for refinement and brutality, for a world with
beautiful girls and for a world reserved to men.
In conclusion, one might say that the Hollywoodian
Mafioso panders to the modern individual's desire (a
more or less conscious desire) for being successful in
the system and successful out of the system at the same
time.

Vi. CONCLUSION
Resorting to all that an official state will resort to:
violence, hierarchy, blackmail, the Mafia is run as a
business or a military corps.
Thus, the Mafia’s ethic has rapidly assumed the ethical
colours of the society in which it has been thriving from
1920.
In a way it can be said that the Mafia is just the unofficial
replica of a very official system of violence and business.

148
 EXERCICES

|. Introduisez dans les phrases suivantes les groupes de mots

entre parenthéses et faites les transformations nécessaires.
1. They must have been killed by the Mafia since they betrayed its
secret. (/ expect ...... )
2. You could go to Sicily and study the origins of the Mafia. (Why not

3. It was important for him never to say a word about this ritual. (He’d
better)
4. They had all been threatened into submission by the big boss. (They
might)
5. He didn’t understand the point of Maranzano’s question. (He
wondered)

Il. Construisez une phrase ayant le méme sens que la phrase

donnée en utilisant une expression synonyme. (Reportez-vous, si
nécessaire, au tableau des notions.)
1. He preferred to belong to the Mafia rather than be in a smaller gang.
2. By litting a piece of paper in the new mafioso’s cupped hands, the
boss intended to scare him.
3. The Mafia would make it possible for him to do greater things.
4. He was obliged to repeat the words of the oath.
5. Very few shopkeepers refused to be protected by the powerful Mafia.

149
 10. THE FIFTIES

Mc-Carthyism

— A man and a period: Joseph R. Mc Carthy (1908-1957),

leader of an inquiry commission at the time of the Cold War
(1946-1963).
— A spirit: deeply rooted in the American mentality and past.

|. ORIGINS AND RELATED EVENTS

1) The Puritan spirit and its dangers:

— The Puritan spirit: the diktat of an established model.
— lts dangers: intolerance. 18th, New England, a theocratic
order and religious tyranny.
— The use of denunciation: a parallel with the 1917 American
Protection League.
— The “witch hunt”: Puritan persecutions and Mc Carthy’s.

2) The “Nativists” and the “foreigners scare”:

— The “foreigners scare”: fear and rejection of difference.
— The “Nativists”: preserving the purity of the WASPS.
— 1798: vote of the Alien Law.
— The “Know Nothings”, later the American Native Party: an
active minority, against further immigration.

3) The “Un-American scare”:

— New devils: “Un-American” people — the Blacks, the Irish,
the Jews...; Un-American activities —> opposition against
oppression and exploitation; The Un-American ideology —>
marxism (atheism, criticism of capitalism).

4) A few important landmarks.

1916: “The Law and Order Committee” of San Francisco.
1917: Vote of the Espionage Act.
1916-1920: persecutions of the “Wobblies”.
1920: The Sacco and Vanzetti Case, paving the way to a
second “miscarriage of justice”, the Rosenberg case, 1951.

150
Il. Mc-CARTHYISM

1) The Cold War:

— The U.S.A. versus the U.S.S.R.: growing importance of the
Soviet Union, the “lron Curtain” (1946).
— Local crises: American intervention in Greece, Turkey;
containment war in South Korea, against communist North Korea.

2) Mc Carthy’s witch hunt and its dangers:

— The “Red scare”: Reds everywhere.
— The “H. Bomb scare”: fear of destruction.
— The Alger Hiss case: before Mc Carthy’s heydays, Nixon's
hunt.
— Mc Carthy’s witch hunt: hunting for communist traitors,
accusing official experts on China.
— 1951: The Rosenberg case, hatred and hysteria, “Fry them”.
— Inquisition “back into town”: Public hearings for top civil
servants; Hoover and the F.B.I., the “Surreptitious entry”
clause; spying: wiretapping and bugging; 1973: the Watergate
scandal.

CONCLUSION:
Mc-Carthyism: a modern expression of an old spirit; Law and
Order versus a plurality of living conditions and opinions.

151
 The Beat Generation

— A New York based movement, with the contribution of three

famous to-be artists: J. Kerouac, A. Ginsberg, Burroughs.
— Meanings of the word “Beat”: from the xixth century hobo to
the “philosophy” of a generation.

|. KEROUAC’S “ON THE ROAD”

— Neal Cassady: a real life character.
— On The Road: Neal's own epic to the west, adapted by
Kerouac into a book of America; discovering their own country.

ll. A WORK ON LANGUAGE

— Poetry enriched by the rythm of Jazz.
— Poetry spoken with the body: Gunsberg’s How/ (San
Francisco, 1955).

lll. THE BEAT GENERATION’S IMPACT ON THE AMERICAN

SOCIETY
The “Beat” label: a misleading one; Beat writers and Beatniks,
linked but different.

— Thanks to the Beat Generation:

— Americans discovered the West Coast.

— Reconsidered the past history of the nation.

— It paved the way for the protest movements of the 70’s.

152
Mc-CARTHYISM

This term derives from the Republican Senator’s name: Joseph R. Mc

Carthy (1908-1957) who, from 1950 to 1954 when he was publicly
disavowed by the Senate, led an inquiry commission charged to find out
all the supposedly communist civil servants in office in the American
government; which made him a famous public figure. Mc-Carthyism
happened at the time of the Cold War which opposed the two ex-allies of
the Second World War: the U.S.A. versus the U.S.S.R. Such a
phenomenon was undoubtedly linked with this historical problem of the
post-war period (which won't be discussed here at large, but as such, it
goes far beyond this time span (1946-1963) and is deeply rooted in the
American mentality and past). This is why it is interesting to trace the
origins of such a spirit, and then comment on its manifestations in the
country.

I. ORIGINS AND RELATED EVENTS

1) The Puritan spirit and its dangers.

It would be erroneous to isolate Mc-Carthyism in history, it must be
put into perspective, because it is a modern manifestation of an old spirit
which has long been part of the history of the country, namely the
Puritan spirit. Such a spirit does not only deal with manners and morals,
it advocates a totalitarian rule which is all-embracing and covers all
aspects of life. Thoughts and action should be under control, and its final
dream would be to achieve a perfectly homogeneous type of society in
which everyone should conform to an established model. Those who
do not abide by the law and differ from the norm are rejected,
intolerance being an important component of the Puritan spirit.
Such a spirit was miles away from the democratic spirit often
attributed to all those fleeing European monarchies. In the xvith century,
the Puritans set up a theocratic order and imposed religious tyranny.
They persecuted the more humanitarian Quakers who even received
corporal punishment. They asked citizens to denounce all their
neighbours if they were suspect of bad actions. (They would beat the so-
called suspects into admitting facts.)
Later on, in 1917, when the Bureau of Investigation had only 400
agents to control over a million “ennemy” residents, the same kind of
appeal was made to ordinary citizens to hunt for “spies”! The American
Protection League rapidly got numerous memberships, its 250.000
volunteers controlled and denounced all those people deemed to be

153
suspects. With such subjective practices, old personal accounts were
settled! President Wilson eventually had to react and warn the American
population against the dangers of taking justice into their own hands. That
period foreshadowed Mc-Carthyism.
Persecutions were raging in 1647-1663 and 1688-1693. The phrase
“witch hunt”, which also significantly describes Mc Carthy’s per-
secutions, was originally used for the Salem events (in 1692, under false
accusations of witchery, innocent people were persecuted and died.
Arthur Miller, a contemporary playwright who was himself one of
Mc Carthy’s victims drew his inspiration from these events to write a play
entitled the Salem witches.)

2) The Nativists and the “foreigners scare”.

This dream of a society into which everyone would blend led to a
fear and rejection of difference. Foreigners, obviously, were the first
target of such a rejection. The Nativists wanted to preserve the purity of
the white race and especially of the White Anglo Saxon Protestants.
After the Revolution, those very people had the Alien Law voted
(1798): before the American citizenship could be granted, immigrants
had to live 14 years in the country. Supposedly dangerous people, like
the Irish, because of their political creeds, could be expelled from
America, if need be.

The “Know Nothings” were first a secret group which manceuvred

to have the “right” people elected; they were particularly influential in
New England. In 1835, extremists went as far as to advocate a ban on the
right of vote, not only for immigrants but also for their offspring. Later, the
“Know Nothings” turned into a political party: the American Native
party. When, for economic reasons, massive immigration no longer
became a must, those people’s voices were predominantly heard, and
even if they were a minority, they were extremely active. It was under
their demands that the Quotas were voted (cf. Immigration). America
was protecting herself against mass arrival of supposedly “subversive”
people.

3) The “Un-American scare”.

Law and Order had to be preserved. The strange-mannered
newcomers seemed really dangerous: “they were Un-American”. This
old phrase, used in the xviith century for the first time, will prove a
successful catch-phrase. J. Mac Carthy, in his own days, did all he
could to denounce Un-American activities. The Melting Pot did not work
as was first planned. A good many different people did not fit into it:
Blacks obviously, but not only; also Irishmen who were white but poor

154
and catholic (the Ku Klux Klan was not only anti-black but also anti-jew
and anti-catholic), Italians who were catholic and had a bad command of
the language...
All those “undesirable” citizens would have been tolerated had they
remained passive, but they did protest. As socialists and anarchists, they
embodied a new devil. What was a sound and just opposition against
oppression and exploitation was rejected by reactionary people as “Un-
American”.
After the 1917 revolution, marxism was brandished as a scarecrow
to maintain Law and Order anyhow. Because of its distorted image, given
by the media, marxism could represent all the phobias inherent in the
Nativist tradition. More than any other ideology, it was “Un-American”. It
was an atheist philosophy, miles away from the Puritan tradition for
which material success and divine approval were one and the same
thing. On top of that, it criticized American capitalism, and the people
who were attracted by it were the very foreigners who already differed
from the norm. So, they were doubly foreigners, first in their looks and
behaviour, then in their ideologies. Moreover, they were active.

4) A few important landmarks.

1916: the “Law and Order Committee” of the San Francisco Chamber
of Commerce was ready “to show the sons of bitches (i.e. “Un-American
immigrants”) where to get off.”
1917: Vote of the Espionage Act, which made further repression
possible.
1916-1920: Persecutions of the “Industrial workers of the world” or
Wobblies (socialist unions).
1920: The Sacco and Vanzetti case.
With this case, antidemocratic fever reached its peak. It began with
the arrest and murder of an Italian printer Andrea Salsedo, after two
months of clandestine imprisonment. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti, two of Salsedo’s friends, were arrested as they were handing
out tracts calling for a protest meeting after Salsedo’s death was made
public. They were accused of a murder they had not committed, and
despite their innocence, found guilty and sentenced to death. In the
words of a judge, they “were morally guilty” since they were the enemies
of existing institutions.
Just like the Rosenberg case in 1951, this “miscarriage of justice”,
to quote F. Frankfurter (a liberal Supreme Court judge), could only have
happened in an atmosphere of fear and racism, created among the
population. Even if the whole population was not fooled, a minority was
active and the majority remained passive, letting things happen.

155
Il. Mc-CARTHYISM
1) The Cold War.
After the liberal Rooseveltian era, the U.S.A. entered another period
of staunch conservatism and repression, marked mainly by an
anticommunist hysteria. The Cold War opposed the U.S.A. and the
U.S.S.R., but also affected other countries. It began right after W.W.II.
Mc-Carthyism was only an American phenomenon, a consequence
at home of problems abroad. It started in 1950. The relations between the
U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. deteriorated quickly after the war. The U.S.S.R.
was weakened by the war and Stalin feared some kind of intervention
from western powers. America was threatened by the growing import-
ance of the Soviet Union, as it increased and strengthened its bases in
Eastern Europe, setting up pro-russian regimes in previously occupied
and liberated countries, making in the words of Churchill (1946, Fulton
speech.) an “iron curtain” fall across Europe.
In both camps, the Cold War was accompanied by a renewed effort
on armament, a series of local crises (the U.S.A. intervened in Greece,
Turkey and waged a real “containment” war in Korea to defend South
Korea against communist North Korea.), diplomatic clashes and an
everlasting fight between diverging propagandas. The U.S.A. had
entered its “containment” era; John Foster Dulles became its champion.
Despite many efforts, communism enlarged its domination; the thesis of
an international plot weaved by communist powers to overthrow the
American government got more and more supporters.

2) Mc Carthy’s witch hunt and its dangers.

In such a context of world crisis, Americans were frightened.
Ideologically, it was the “red scare” which even became something
ludicrous: people saw reds under the beds! They were also physically
afraid: the H bomb, the secret of which had been stolen by spies (who
came from the cold!), could destroy parts of the country. Such a scare
was kept up by the media and by officials like Foster Dulles and
Mc Carthy who were very active, revealing to America who the traitors
were. The plot theory was widely accepted, at all levels of the
government.
Already in 1947, when Nixon was campaigning for the House of the
Representatives, he accused his competitor of being “pink”, meaning he
was undoubtedly in the hands of the reds! No one yet had heard of
Mc Carthy, but it was quite interesting that R. Nixon should have begun
his career likewise and also by having Alger Hiss condemned (a State
Department expert, he was said to have pushed President Roosevelt to

156
leave Eastern Europe to Moscow at the 1945 Yalta Conference.). This
case, preceding Mc Carthy’s heydays, proved how Mc-Carthyism was a
modern expression of an old frame of mind (a craving for Law and
Order shared by a large part of the American population; running for
presidency in 1968, Nixon promised: “we are going to restore order and
respect for law in this country”).

With the victory of communism in China, the plot theory seemed

confirmed. Top civil servants, experts on China, became Mc Carthy’s
target: in 1950, John Stewart Service was accused of being a
communist traitor, a homosexual and of having an illegitimate child, which
proved he could’t be a good citizen and a virtuous patriot. All this
smacked of Puritan obsessions. He was eventually fired, and so were
other experts on China, like J. Carter Vincent and J. Patton Davis. A well
known nuclear scientist, R. Oppenheimer, had to quit for the same
reasons.

Anti-communist politicians had become so blind that they could no

longer perceive who was responsible for the communist take-over in
China. Blinded by passions, they abandonned all intellectual fair-
mindedness. Such loss unfortunately led to the Rosenberg case. Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg were accused of having betrayed their country and
given the Russians the H. bomb secret. In 1951, collective hatred and
hysteria had reached such a climax that ordinary people walked the
streets with signs reading: “Fry them!”. No serious proof could be given
and the main witness of the accusation was a fishy character; but the
Rosenbergs were guilty of being Jews and leftists, and were executed. It
was as if the whole country, to strengthen its unity, needed scapegoats.

Me-Carthyism saw the heydays of the Inquisition again. Top civil

servants were questionned during public “hearings”, and had to answer
officials who were prying into their private lives. Spying became an
accepted method, from 1952 to 1973, when the Watergate scandal
broke. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, “the best police in the
world”, became past-master in this field. With its boss E. Hoover who
remained at its head for 40 years, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. (Central
Intelligence Agency) got so much importance that they almost became a
state within the state, sometimes more powerful than the official govern-
ment as, on some occasions, they had their way and went on with their
illegal activities.

157
 Hoover even tried to have the “surreptitious entry” clause
legalized by the General Attorney (the clause was, for instance, the
possibility to break into militant groups’ offices to get some information);
but he failed. Nevertheless, the main opponents to the system remained
under his spying, from M. Luther King to J. Fonda and the anti-war
movement. Wiretapping (spying on someone’s conversation on the
phone) and bugging (breaking into someone’s house to put micro-
phones) were comon spying techniques. Such a system endangered the
very existence of individual liberties. The Watergate scandal revealed this
threat to Americans.

CONCLUSION:
This survey, which goes beyond Mc Carthy’s heydays (1950-1954), is
worth being done, in so far as it helps seeing that, far from being limited
to a few years, Mc-Carthyism drew its root from the Puritan spirit, and
from a series of events which all partook of the same mentality and of the
same desire, that of maintaining Law and Order at the expense of those
who, with different living conditions and diverging opinions, tried to be
heard.

158
THE BEAT GENERATION

This is the phrase used to describe the works and activities of the three
men who contributed to creating this new genre: J. Kerouac, A. Gins-
berg, Burroughs. As such, the movement was New York based: the three
men met in New York in 1943-1944, where they lived on the fringe,
experiencing the life of New York by night with its drug-addicts and drop-
outs but also with jazz in Harlem.

The origin of the word “beat” is twofold: in the xixth century, it meant a
hobo, someone who travelled clandestinely across the country on
wagons. For the xxth century jazzmen, it meant being exhausted: “Man,
I’m beat!”. Much of the slang used by the Beat Generation writers was
borrowed from the jazzmen’s. Also jazz was a music in which the “beat”
was terribly important. But “beat” came to be accepted in a wider sense:
it suggested a certain way of life, a certain feeling about the world, a
sense of being played-out; after the Lost Generation, the Beat Gener-
ation. The term then applied to a whole generation of people who felt the
same.

I. KEROUAC’S “ON THE ROAD”

Neal Cassady, the hero of On the road, was a real-life character
whom Kerouac met in New York, in 1946. Neal was coming from
Colorado, the son of poor Whites, (“Okies” from Oklahoma) who had to
migrate to California (cf. The Grapes of Wrath). For Kerouac and
Ginsberg, Neal and his life-style, “wild” and unfettered, were very
appealing. As Kerouac put it, Neal brought along with him “the west, the
west wind”. Together, they embarked on wild journeys across the
continent, driving madly from coast to coast. For Kerouac, it was a
means to get to know his country, the West Coast and San Francisco.
Neal, the frontier cowboy made him discover the American landscape,
the America of the Migrants and of the Poor Whites.

The book verges on lyricism, as the huge landmass of the continent

lying ahead triggered off a certain exhilaration, to which speed also
contributed (cf. On the road, texte n° 4). With Neal’s influence, Kerouac
revived the tradition of the hobo, something which made the Beat
Generation be part and parcel of a typical American trend. It was also
typical of the fifties, a period when America was very inward-looking.

159
ll. A WORK ON LANGUAGE
The Beat Generation writers tried to give to their poetry the rhythm,
the beat they liked in jazz. They experienced automatic writing and
always tried to impart their texts with a sense of quick rhythm (cf. the
description of the car race. Speed is conveyed through style). They also
thought that poetry must be spoken with the body and its breath. This is
what A. Ginsberg did with Howl, “howled” in San Francisco, in 1955, his
body punctuating the poem.

Ill. THE BEAT GENERATION’S IMPACT ON THE AMERICAN

SOCIETY
When the Beat Generation started gaining recognition in the late
fifties, a journalist coined the word “beatnik”, which served to designate
a certain bohemian life led by drop-outs of all sorts. This “Rebel
without a cause” phenomenon was linked with the Beat Generation
whose heroes had a brief and violent life. J. Dean was one of them.
But the Beatniks and the Beat Generation writers were not the same
thing, and many writers insisted on not being pinned down as Beat...
putting forward the fact that the “Beat” label was misleading.

Nevertheless, thanks to Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, Ameri-

cans discovered San Francisco and its cultural activities. Compared
with the East, and its Puritan background, the West Coast suggested
more freedom and more modernity. Also, the whole continent was
perceived differently, people considered what their ancestors did to the
Indians in a different light for instance. This could lead to a reappraisal of
the whole American society and of its values. It paved the way for the
protest movements of the 70’s.

160
 TEXTE A COMMENTER 12

An idol of the screen: James Dean

James Dean the motion picture actor was no relation to

William Frishe Dean the general. About all the two had in common
was that they both came from the Middle West. They represented
different generations. Very.
There is nothing much deader than a dead motion picture
actor, and yet, even after James Dean had been some years dead,
when they filed out of the close darkness and the breathed out air
of the second and third and fourth run motion picture theatres
where they’d been seeing James Dean’s old films, they still lined.
The boys in the jackboots and the leather jackets, the boys in the
skintight jeans, the boys in broad motorcycle belts,
before the mirrors in the restroom
to look at themselves
and see
James Dean;
the resentful hair,
the deep eyes floating in lonesomeness,
the bitter beat look,
the scorn of the lip.
Their pocket combs were out; they tousled up their hair and patted
it down just so;
made big eyes at their eyes in the mirror
pouted their lips in a sneer,
the lost cats in love with themselves,
just like James Dean.
The press agents told us James Dean lacked parental love,
that he was an orphan, a farmboy who couldn't get along at school,
a poor mixed up kid from the blacksoil belt of Indiana. (He never
could quite get rid of that Hoosier twang.)
His father went to work as a dental technician in L.A. After
young Dean graduated he went out to stay with his father and
stepmother. Farmwork was not his idea. A boy with talent is too
sensitive to work on the farm.

161
 When a fellow he knew started to study acting with a retired
motion picture performer, James Dean tagged along; he panicked
the class acting the part of a pine tree in a storm. Now he knew he
wanted to be an actor.
He hung around L.A., broke most of the time, working as an
usher in movie theatres, getting an occasional part as an extra on
the lots, or a bit on T.V.,
dreaming and yearning and hungry, eating
eating cold spaghetti out of the can.
Dirty shirt, never a haircut, needed a shave, the grubbiest guy
in town. Sometimes he got a job parking cars in a parking lot to
earn the two bits he needed for a hamburger and a cup of coffee...
The teenagers found it hard to believe that James Dean was
dead. There he was right on the screen when they saw his old
pictures. The promoters had been struggling hard to blow up the
story that millions wouldn’t believe he was dead, but when they
released a picture on his life nobody went to see it. James Dean
was dead sure enough.
Midcentury, by Dos Passos, © Mrs John Dos Passos.

162
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PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

Il. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

This biography is taken from Midcentury, the last book of
Dos Passos’s District of Columbia trilogy (Chosen
Country, The Great Days and Midcentury).
Midcentury deals with the fifties: a difficult period for the
U.S.A.:; the Korean war; Mc Carthy’s witch hunt; econ-
omic crisis (cf. Thémes).
This period gave birth to the “beat generation”: violent,
self-loving, the first to reject the American society after
the second World War.

I. GIVE A TITLE TO EACH PART AND SUM UP THE

MAIN IDEAS

1) James Dean’s second life:

a) contrast between:
— James Dean and the General William F. Dean.
personal Nothing in common; the generation gap between those
opinion (18) who had fought the second World War and the new
generation;
— the death of the actor and his new life in his fans’
minds who keep seeing J. Dean's old films and try to
look like him.
portrait (20) b) James Dean's portrait:
— the way he was dressed: we are not shown James
Dean himself but his reflection in his fans who dressed
purpose (23) like him: jackboots, leather jackets, skintight jeans and
broad motorcycle belts;
— his features: here again we are not given James
alternative (4) Dean’s own portrait but the reflection in mirrors of the
features of his fans who were themselves reflections of
J. Dean. This mirror effect is partly meant to show that
the fans “just like J. Dean” are in love with themselves.
His features are not described in themselves: we don't
know whether he was blue- or brown-eyed, etc., but
each feature is qualified by a psychological adjective: his
hair is “resentful”; his eyes are “lonesome”; his lips are
“scornful”, “pouting in a sneer”.
Thus it’s more a psychological portrait than a physical
one.

164
 2) James Dean’s childhood and teenage.
Once again we are not told of James Dean’s childhood
and teenage but about what the press agents said about
J. Dean; his childhood and his teenage.
a) His chilhood: difficult; a motherless child, living with
portrait (20) his re-married father. Not very brilliant at school. But
very sensitive.
b) His decision to become an actor: not a personal
decision at first: he followed one of his friends.
He decided to become an actor almost as a provocation:
contrasts (8) because he had frightened the class.
comparisons His decision is a firm one: the very short, dry sentence:
(6) “Now he knew he wanted to be an actor” shows that his
decision is made once for all. He will stick to it through
all the difficulties.
c) Hard times:
ability (1) — financial difficulties: broke most of the time... hungry;
— psychological difficulties: he was not supported by
obligation (16) his family, lonely, hanging around L.A.; the grabbiest boy
in town.

3) The conclusion recalls the very beginning of the

text:
“There is nothing much deader than a dead motion
tastes / picture actor.”
distates (26) The fans made J. Dean live in their memories when they
refusal (24) went to see his old films but when they refused to go and
information see a film about J. Dean's life, when they forgot the
(13) man, just to keep the image, they killed him and J. Dean
condition (7) died a second time. Notice the brevity of the last
sentence, like Death's scythe cutting the thread of
J. Dean’s life.

lll. STEREOTYPE OF THE ROMANTIC HERO

— difficult chilhood: a sensitive boy whose sensitive-
ness was exacerbeted by lack of affection (motherless
child);
— hard and humble beginnings: occasional parts on the
lots, eating cold spaghettis out of a can...;
— sudden fame: he became famous with his first film;

165
 — rebelliousness: resentful hair, bitter look, scorn of
the lip. Film: Rebels without a cause;
— passion for speed and danger: passion (imposed by
his producers) for racing cars;
— death at an early age: in a car accident, at the top of
his fame;
— creation of a myth: his fans dressing like him, looking
like him.

IV. DOS PASSOS: AN IMPRESSIONIST WRITER?

a) The technique of impressionist painters: they paint
with little touches; here Dos Passos uses very short
lines irregularly broken: “to look at themselves” “and
see” “James Dean” “the resentful hair...”
b) In their painting, the impressionists wanted to convey
an “impression”, a “feeling”, not the objective reality,
not the atmosphere but what they felt when they looked
at a landscape or at a person; here Dos Passos couples
a physical detail with an adjective which tries to convey
the feeling which is aroused in those who look at him:
his hair is not black or brown but resentful, which means
that the people who look at his hair think that he is a
resentful boy. His lips convey a feeling of contempt, etc.
c) We are never made to see J. Dean himself or to
wishes / know his life; we see him through the reflections of his
regrets (27) fans in a mirror, we know his life through his press
agents. This technique is meant to point out that a
motion picture actor is someone who has no personal
life, no reality but on the screen. The technique used by
information Dos Passos shows that the “impression” James Dean
(13) makes on us is more important than his life, than his real
self. And thus, when this impression wears out, it is the
actor's second death which is more real than his actual
death.

Vv. CONCLUSION
In this text Dos Passos suggests that an actor such as
James Dean was actually made by others. His stereo-
typed image of the romantic hero was created by the
filmmakers in Hollywood and the press agents, and the
movie star actually lived in his fans’ memories more than
in reality.

166
 EXERCICES

1. Complétez les phrases suivantes a l’aide des prépositions ou

postpositions qui conviennent.
1. Before arriving ...... Salinas, he had already been given a ticket
Seat ret overspeeding.
2. Even nowadays when a James Dean filmis ...... , teenagers will line

3. His white Porsche-Spider was very dear ...... him.

4. When he was chosen to study at the Actor’s Studio, the place was
much too famous to turn the offer .......
5. To look like their idol, youngsters would tousle ...... their hair or pat
pts. eyed

ll. Remettez les mots dans l’ordre afin d’obtenir une phrase qui ait
un sens.
1. J. Dean / hard / was / found / people / believe / it / dead / to.
2. contemplated / farm / all along / never / to / wanted / he / and /
known / had / actor / be / an / on / he / a/ working / had.
3. promise / made / producers / race / picture / not / was / film / him /
a / before / finished / the / sign / to.
4. famous / would / things / before / movie / when / get / he / all /
lacked / the / star / had / he / was / a/ he.
5. hired / ill-at-ease / parts / often / he / of / play / to / was / adolescents /
the.

167
 11. HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood: a symbol, created by a nation, in turn creating it.

1. THE BIRTH OF HOLLYWOOD

1) The origin.
xixth C: an Indian hamlet, near Los Angeles.
1900-1903: a small artistic town, “Hollywood”.
1908: creation of the Motion Picture Patent Company.
1915: creation of Universal city.
Hollywood: ideal to shoot films.

2) A quick growth.
— W.W.I.: a factor of expansion.
— 1918: 841 films, growing importance of “Paramount”.
— The 1920's: influence of the “Moguls”, big productions;
beginning of the “Star System”.
— 1922: The “Decency code”, Hollywood's bad reputation.
— The “United Artists”: a famous trio (Chaplin, Pickford and
Fairbanks).

ll. THE HEYDAYS OF HOLLYWOOD

1) New genres.
— 1927: Sound movies and new genres (musicals, cartoons,
comedies).
— The 1930’s: The Great crash, movie attendance decreased:
new themes (realistic films, heydays of western films).

2) A great vitality.
— The “Star System”: a proof of Hollywood's glory.
— Two symbols: 1939, Gone with the wind; 1940, Citizen Kane.

168
lll. CRISES AND MUTATIONS
1) Crises and competition.
— Crises: the “anti-trust” Laws of 1946; television; Mc-
Carthyism and the Anti-American Activity Commission; shooting
places abroad.
— An epitome of Hollywood's decadence: Sunset Boulevard.

2) The need to move with the times.

— The 60’s: questioning the whole system (financial difficulties,
the last Tycoons).
— The new Moguls: banking concerns and businessmen.
— New partners: the Independent Cinema Producers of the
East Coast; a new generation of directors.
— New trends: questioning the American Society itself, or the
gap between dream and reality; the Underground cinema; live
films.

CONCLUSION:
— Hollywood's production today:
— big budget superproductions, with special effects;
— small budget productions, criticizing the Establishment,
relying on a good cast.
— Hollywood: no longer n° 1 (harsh competition), yet pros-
perous.

169
Everyone knows about Hollywood and if people just know a few things
about the history of Hollywood, they all know what it represents, they
know about Stars, about a country and a culture made familiar through
films. America created this symbol which in turn created a certain image
of the country for Americans and created our view of America.

|. THE BIRTH OF HOLLYWOOD

1) The origin.
In the xixth century, it was a tiny hamlet, near Los Angeles, peopled
by Cahuega, and Cherokee Indians. A painter of French origin started a
social and artistic life at the very beginning of the xxth century; in 1903
Mrs Wilcox gave the place its name: Hollywood (thus chosen because of
the lucky charm powers of the word holy). 1908: creation of the Motion
picture Patent Company. Rival companies settled there too. People
discovered the place was ideal to shoot films (blue skies, and a wide
range of scenery within a few hundred miles). Moreover it was possible
there to infringe the New York laws on patent monopoly.
1915: creation of Universal City.

2) A quick growth.
The studios grew very rapidly. The first World War which
slackened the pace of film production in Europe was a factor of
expansion for Hollywood. Famous actors and directors emigrated to
Hollywood, Greta Garbo, Von Stroheim, Lubitsch, Murnau to name a
few of those who brought fresh blood to Hollywood.
In 1918, 841 films were released. One studio, Paramount,
controlled all the major actors and produced 200 films. A few men, the
rich Moguls, had the power. It was the time of big productions,
paradoxically commercial films and masterpieces altogether. They
were Hollywood glory. For the building of enormous sets like those used
by Griffith, extra hands were needed and made good money for the
days’standards (up to two dollars a day).
It was also the beginning of the Star System (R. Valentino,
D. Fairbanks, G. Swanson...). A star was just advertised like a new
product launched on the market. There again, it was a matter of money,
business. In the twenties and still long after, it attracted many youths in
search of stardom. Few could make it and then the rise to fame could be
just as quick as short-lived. Hollywood’s reputation was bad, a place
where sin and perversion had the upperhand. Associations to censor
movies were created; in 1922, the “decency code” was established.

170
 A new company was set up by artists who wanted more freedom in
the studios. Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks
formed the United Artists, to be producers, directors and actors at
the same time.

ll. THE HEYDAYS OF HOLLYWOOD

1) New genres.
With the creation of sound movies in 1927, some adaptation was
necessary. New genres appeared: the musicals (with people like Fred
Astaire, Ginger Rogers) which would definitely have the Hollywood
touch; animated cartoons with Disney, fantastic films, comic ones
(burlesque comedy with W. C. Field, the Marx Brothers).
Movie attendance was affected by the great crash of 1929 but by the
30's, Hollywood had recovered. With the crisis, new themes appeared,
there were more films in the realistic or romantic tradition, more
detective films portraying gangsters. Those days were also the heydays
of westerns, films which gave America its self-image, showed the epic of
the Frontier and built up a real myth.

2) A great vitality.
Hollywood’s success is proved by the Star System, then at its peak.
A star could then receive up to 35 000 letters from her or his fans in a
week, and made very good money. M. Dietrich, G. Cooper, C. Gable,
H. Bogart, J. Harlow were among the best known actors.
Five big studios, Warner, M.G.M. 20th century, Fox, Loew’s and
R.K.O. controlled everything. Hollywood was bustling with 33000
employees. European directors went on coming, Hitchcock and Lang, or
French directors like R. Clair, Renoir, M. Ophils who shot films in
Hollywood during W.W.II.
In 1939, “Gone with the wind”, adapted from M. Mitchell's novel
and starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable, was considered as a landmark,
the big typical production of Hollywood's heydays, an American epic
seen through American eyes. In 1941, “Citizen Kane” by O. Welles
also appeared as a symbol but as that of a new style.

ill. CRISES AND MUTATIONS

1) Crises and competition.
Hollywood underwent a series of crises after W.W.II. The anti-trust
laws of 1946 came as a hard blow on Hollywood; the Major Companies

se,
could no longer make, produce and distribute films and had to dissolve
their holdings.
A serious competition appeared with the advent of television. More
than 4.000 movie theaters had to close down between 1946 and 1955.
In an atmosphere of constant suspicion and witch hunt (cf. the 50’s,
Mc-Carthyism) the Anti-American activity Commission made an
attack on the Hollywood set and forced many directors to exile (among
them J. Losey, J. Dassin).
An attempt by Fox at making 35 films proved a failure. Other places
like Italy, Spain, were used to shoot films and Hollywood was no longer
the “Cinema Mecca” as Blaise Cendrars had called it. (2001, space
Odyssey by Kubrick and a great American film of the 60’s would be
entirely shot in London.) Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder, a
veteran of Hollywood was an epitome of Hollywood’s decadence, the
death of the old star who lived in a huge mansion, on Sunset Boulevard,
a posh area of Hollywood, was also the death of the Star System and of a
certain vision of Hollywood.

2) The need to move with the times.

The 60’s marked a new stage in the history of Hollywood. The last
tycoons had disappeared with a decrease in attendance (80 million
spectators in 1946 versus 17.5 million in 1971) and some financial
failures in big productions, Hollywood had to face serious money
problems. The traditional family public had swopped to television. The
necessity to attract new movie-goers and widen the audience by making
films which would touch different kinds of people in different social
groups, became everyday more apparent. (60% of all movie goers today
are less than 30). The whole system had to be questioned.
As the old studio system was cracking, new capital was used to
finance production. The major companies were bought by banking
concerns for which cinema was not the only activity. Moguls and
showmen were replaced by businessmen who cared more about big
money than about glamour. Howard Hughes (he bought United Artists
in 1952) and Charles Allen (a Wall Street man who purchased different
companies and resold them later at a great profit) were the new-style
Hollywood “bosses”.
The major companies could no longer work alone and had to count
with new partners, with the independent cinema producers of the
East Coast who offered a “package Deal” (a kind of general contract
bearing on all the necessary elements for the making of a film. Their
responsibilities are both financial and artistic) and with a new gener-
ation of directors (more independent too, trained in cinema schools

NWA
such as the cinema departments in U.C.L.A. and U.S.C., Los Angeles, or
the American Film Institute in New York, under the influence of the
French new wave and interested by new special effects). So people like
J. Nicholson, Jane and Peter Fonda (the Directors’company) and like
F. Coppola and G. Lucas (the American Zoetrope Film Company) even
managed to set up their own companies to produce their own films with
more independence.
All this led to new trends in films and themes. A certain uneasiness
towards a society in contradiction with its ideals was growing and chosen
as the subject of many interesting new films which showed the existing
gap between the American dream and a nightmarish reality (see the
commentary of Moving with the times for further details).
Hollywood's ability was to understand the teaching of the indepen-
dent cinema quickly and to get back those rising directors who would
bring in a distinct modern look with new themes and methods. An
underground cinema also exists (New York, Chicago), Andy Warhol
being one of the best known directors.
Live film is another trend. Harlan County was one of the best movies
produced in this vein. Both currents offer something different and are no
serious match for Hollywood.

CONCLUSION:
Hollywood today? Its production has become a mixture of two different
things: on the one hand, big-budget super productions with special
effects to be appreciated only on the big screen (a heavy investment is
necessary but profits can be huge: Star wars, a super hit beating Jaws
and probably beaten by Spielberg's E. T. Catastrophe movies and their
sequels: Amityville Il, The Exorcist ll... also pay off. Coppola's Apoca-
lypse Now with a cost of 30 million dollars became nevertheless a
financial success) and on the other hand, small-budget productions
criticizing the establishment but with the help of a good cast (names like
J. Nicholson, De niro, A. Pacino, D. Hoffman... are sufficient to make a
financial success out of a film). Despite harsh competition (television,
video cassettes) and the fact that it is no longer the n° 1 entertainment
industry, Hollywood along with its past glory, is far from dying, be it at
home or abroad: suffice it to quote the number of American films, old or
recent, on in Paris.

173
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 TEXTE A COMMENTER 13.

Moving with the times

“Any attempt in America to make a film a work of art must be

hailed. Usually in the same breath, it must be farewelled.” John
Simon’s damning statement about the inability of American cinema
to produce quality films may have been apt 20 years ago, but is it
true now?

In the early 60’s, the outlook for Hollywood was bleak.

European cinema produced masterpieces like Fellini’s La Strada
(1954) and Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). In comparison,
Hollywood had little to show. Attendance at cinemas fell lower and
lower. What was wrong? The success of a curious British film
offered a clue. Although its directors and actors were virtually
unknown in the U.S., Morgan! A suitable case for Treatment made
a huge impact. Its radical yet ambiguous approach to psychological
and political issues caught the imagination of young audiences who
were rejecting old ideas and attitudes. Hollywood was challenged
to come up with something of its own to attract this potential new
audience, and it did it.

In 1967, The Graduate, a film which took a humorous yet

critical look at modern American society, was an enormous
success. But it was with Easy Rider, in 1969, that the tide really
turned. The film, about two cocaine dealers who ride motorbikes
across the States, captured the imagination of young audiences
who identified with the cyclers’ rootlessness and alienation from
American society. The film cost only $400,000 to produce, and
earned 25 times that amount. It also caused a revolution in
American cinema. Hollywood was forced to re-evaluate some basic
concepts.

“It has no boundary—it is a ribbon of dream” is how Orson

Welles described cinema. And for years, Hollywood, the myth-
maker had reflected the public need for the biggest myth of them

175
all—The American Dream: America, the country “where the rich
can come from nowhere, where hard work and the will to make
good can still succeed”. In a society dominated by White Anglo-
Saxon Protestant values, it was the hard-working and the clean-
living who got on. For years, Hollywood producers had respected
prevalent social attitudes by censoring films and viciously control-
ing their actors’ private lives and political convictions. (Many film
artists were blacklisted by their studios during the Mc Carthy witch
hunts in the 50’s). The Moguls were always sensitive to public
opinion, because approval meant box-office success, and disap-
proval, failure.

But suddenly the public had changed. The image of America

as the land of opportunity, the land of the free, was cracking. The
very basis of American history was questioned in non-classic
Westerns such as Little Big Man and Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the
Indians or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, which gave another
interpretation of how the West was won. More recent history has
done nothing to help America’s self-image. A post-Watergate, post-
Vietnam public was more than ready to respond to films like All the
President’s Men, Taxi driver and Mean Streets, which showed the
nightmare as the other side of the dream.

In the social upheaval and questioning of old values, the

underprivileged all over the country were finding their voice, and
were saying: “America is the Land of opportunity for some, but at
what expense for the others?” The success of the independent
documentary Harlan County about a coal miners’ strike influenced
Hollywood to deal with the union theme in Blue Collar and Norma
Rae.

As one French commentator said: “The freedom of American

Hollywood director is not measured by what he can openly do
within the system, but rather by what he can imply about American
society in general.” With young directors like Scorcese, Bogdano-
vich and Coppola now working within the Hollywood framework,
it would seem, at least for the moment, that this freedom is growing.
Speakeasy, ed. Nathan, April 1980.

176
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

This text begins with a severe criticism passed on

Hollywood stating that it is unable to produce a work of
art.
Was it true in the past, is it still true today?
The article is the answer to these questions.

|. THE FACTS
1) Before 1967.
wishes/ a) Hollywood's bad image: “the outlook was bleak”,
regrets (27) fewer and fewer people went to the cinema; thousands
of movie theaters closed down.

b) Contrast with Europe: European cinema flourishing,

producing works of art:
— ltaly: Fellini's la Strada;
— Sweden: Bergman's The Seventh Seal;
— England: Morgan a suitable case for Treatment was a
huge success specially among the young.

2) A Revolution.
probability Hollywood accepted the challenge and produced The
(22) Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969).
absence of — Anew way of producing films: a low-cost production
obligation (2) of $400,000.
— A new subject: the two heroes were two cocaine
dealers and questioned American consuming society.
— A new public: it caught the imagination of young
people.

ll. THE CAUSES

1) Hollywood used to be the mythmaker of the
American dream.
change Past Hollywood's production was dominated by the WASP’s
Present (17) moral values:

177
 a) Respect for hard work and money: Money is power
and it ought to be in the hands of good people according
to the Bible in which God promises prosperity to the
righteous man.
Big budgets were at stake and disapproval by the
prevalent social classes meant failure and heavy losses
of money.
b) Strict sexual puritanism (what is called “clean living”):
the films were strictly censored; no bed scenes; no love
making; happy endings compulsory.
c) Political self-righteousness: America is God's
country and has received the mission of being the
World’s Gendarme: the actors’ private lives were con-
trolled and in the 50’s during Mc Carthy’s witch hunt,
many actors were on a black list and could not be
engaged in Hollywood films because of their political
opinions.

2) America’s self-image has changed.

alternative (4) If Hollywood wanted to be approved by the young public
purpose (23) it had to change its production (and to be approved
means “box-office” success).
a) With the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal the
American dream seems to have turned into a nightmare:
All the President's Men; Apocalyse Now; Taxi driver...
personal b) With the questioning of the American History, a new
opinion (18) view of the Conquest of the West and the Indian
genocide: more critical westerns (Little Big Man; Buffalo
Bill and the Indians...).
c) With the rising of minorities, the WASP’s are no
longer the only voice of America: the image of the self-
made man is questioned: Some may have become rich
but what about the others? Harlan County; Norma Rae;
Blue Collar.

3) Young directors have come to Hollywood:

Scorcese; Bogdanovitch; Coppola.
They don’t openly criticize the system but their films
imply a new way of looking at the American society.
So freedom of expression seems to be growing in slow-
moving Hollywood.

178
 CONCLUSION
absence of Despite this new trend in the Hollywoodian cinema, and
obligation (2) all those low-budget films, Hollywood has not given up
the big productions.
Instead of appealing to the Americans’ sense of pride for
the building of their nation, they now appeal to people’s
anxiety in front of the technological future (Jaws, the
Infernal Tower). (Cf. “Theme” at the beginning of the
chapter).
It must also be said that the American cinema is not only
“Hollywood” (cf. Underground cinema; “Theme” at the
beginning of the chapter).

EXERCICES

|. Assemblez les phrases suivantes a l’aide des mots de liaison qui

conviennent.
1. The 50’s were the heydays of Mc Carthy’s witch hunt. Many film
directors and actors were blacklisted.
2. The image of America was that of a land of opportunity. In the 60's, the
image was cracking.
3. By showing the American Dream only, Hollywood could no longer
reflect the need of a post-Wartergate and post-Vietnam public. By
showing the other side of the dream too, it could.
4. Hollywood realized a turning point had come. Changes were brought
about.
5. The 1929 crisis had affected production and movie attendance. By the
30's Hollywood was thriving again.

ll. Traduisez les phrases suivantes.

1. Dans les années soixante, Hollywood n’aurait pas dO négliger les
jeunes, sa production aurait été bien meilleure.
2. Les acteurs et les metteurs en scéne devaient souvent accepter les
exigences des Moguls et ne pouvaient pas toujours suivre leurs idées.
3. Une star pouvait autrefois recevoir jusqu'a 5 000 lettres par jour.
4. Si les Major-Companies n’avaient pas été rachetées par des
financiers de |’Est, Hollywood aurait peut-étre été totalement ruiné.
5. Depuis ces derniéres années, le cinéma en direct peut nous faire voir
l'autre visage de l’Amérique.

179
 IMAGES A COMMENTER

CITIZEN KANE
Picture n° 1. “Love nest” scandal

180
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

A FEW DIRECTIONS
1) Locate the film sequence to be commented, giving an outline of what
preceded, which will help understand the scene.
2) Describe the picture itself and comment on the problems raised by
the picture.
3) Conclude by saying why this picture is significant.

1. INTRODUCTION
A picture from Citizen Kane, a film written by Mankiewicz and directed by
Orson Welles, himself starring as Kane, released with great difficulties in
1941.
The main plot is based on the life of Randolph Hearst, one of the most
important Press tycoon in America and even in the world.

ll. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF PRECEDING EVENTS

1) Humble beginnings:
a) Money: Charles Forster Kane owed his immense fortune to a
supposedly worked-out mine his mother, a modest boarding-house
keeper, received in payment. This legendary origin is in keeping with the
rags-to-riches stories which are part and parcel of the American myth and
kept popular people dreaming, full of wonder and admiration for the big
bosses who had made it.

b) Press: Kane started as the chief of a small daily “the Inquirer” which
he radically transformed and whose circulation he increased. He had
modern ideas about how to run a daily and set up a new-style journalism
“News go on for 24 hours”. His philosophy lay in such simple aphorisms
as: “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.”

2) As his power grew, his ambitions grew too and so did the number of
his enemies.

181
ill. THE PICTURE
1) Location of the scene.
The film starts with a newsreel “News on the March”, summing up the
main events of Kane’s life. Kane died recently, and this newsreel is
watched by a team of reporters investigating in the mystery of his death.
This image of “The Chronicle’s Front Page” is taken from “News on the
March”.
The love nest scandal: Kane was running for Governor of New York,
hoping to defeat Boss Jim Gettys whom he accused of being a crooked
politician and wanted to have arrested.
In his campaign, Kane presented himself as the protector of the
underprivileged, of the decent, ordinary citizens cheated by Boss Jim
Gettys. (Hearst made the same promises, also showing off a dedication
to the cause of the common people.)
Success seemed within reach, when Kane was trapped by B. J. Gettys,
who feeling really in danger played his last card and won. This was the
love nest scandal.
Love nest: Kane was married to a president's niece, Emily, but he had a
love affair with a singer Susan Alexander. This was revealed to his wife
through Boss Jim Gettys. The four characters met in a dramatic
encounter at Susan’s place. Kane was summoned to resign or the whole
thing would hit the headlines the following morning. Out of pride and
stubborness (“There’s only one person in the world to decide what I’m
going to do and that’s me.”), Kane refused to be blackmailed and the
scandal broke. “The Chronicle”, a rival daily Kane had crushed down and
which once outsold the Inquirer by featuring crime and sex, took
advantage of this to wreek its revenge on Kane. This was the end of
Kane’s hopes and political career.

2) Description of the picture.

It's the front page of the Daily Chronicle. The headline is huge so as to
attract the readers. Kane is a public figure. The verb “caught” is definite:
no more hope for Kane whose fault is exposed to millions of Americans.
Adultery is, to be condemned in a Puritan society, all the more so since
Kane pretented to be a highly moral man (cf. smaller headlines in the
front page article). Ordinary citizens may be pleased to witness the fall of
such a powerful man and to think that what happens is a lesson to him.
The picture shown is that of Susan’s house and of the front door building:
Kane’s love nest. The pictures of the “guilty ones” are framed in hearts,
the ridiculed symbol of love!

182
Both the catchy phrase “love nest” and the heart pictures are typical of
cheap popular journalism, an attack on R. Hearst’s new-style journalism
(a colourful one dealing with crime, sex, disasters...). Paradoxically, Kane
falls the prey of this journalism he had once advocated to increase the
circulation of the Inquirer, shocking his old editor, Carter. He cared for
scoops, he himself was one. Hearst was also the victim of a system he
had benefited from extensively. Hearst lived a “double life” with an
actress Marion Davies. The same catchy words were used by the Los
Angeles Time in a dispute with one of Hearst's papers. Hearst’s political
career was also broken by a politician who had resented so much a
cartoon of him in prison stripes that he completely upset the elections
(this fact is mentioned in Citizen Kane in the fight between Kane and
Gettys).
For the audiences back in 1941, the joke was to recognize things about
Hearst in Citizen Kane.

IV. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS SEQUENCE

1) This picture is interesting in so far as what it reveals is a turning point

for Kane. His wife will leave him. Decided to stand up to the world, Kane
will marry Susan and try to make her become a famous opera singer. He
will have a opera house built for her but money can’t buy everything and
success won't come.
This scandal also paves the way for Kane’s defeat: his marriage will —
break, his business won’t be prosperous always and in his palace
Xanadu, his life will be lonely to the end despite guests and his art
treasures.
Such an empty conclusion is in the vein of popular drama for which the
rich have money but don’t know love. Much of the popular melodrama
convention was present in this rise and fall pattern of a man’s life.

2) The Chronicle’s front page is also interesting because of the

problems raised about journalism. Kane’s death meant the end of the
newspaper business as Hearst knew it. The Rawlston organization with
Thompson, the investigator, represented a new generation of reporters,
ready to supplant the last tycoon.

3) Up to that point, Kane had been a “tyrant” but had remained

sympathetic to the audience: his forcefulness and dynamism were
praised by Americans who did value success (financial success above
all). He was the talented young man people could admire.

183
Yet from this turning point to the end, the other side of this ambivalent
character will predominate: the autocratic ruler who binds people to his
will. Having his second wife sing when she just has no talent for it, is an
example of certain flaws in his character. The audience moves from
attraction to criticism and from admiration to pity.

Picture n° 2. “Rosebud”
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

A FEW DIRECTIONS
This image is much simpler than that of the “love nest” (fewer
details need to be described) but Rosebud, structurally speaking, is more
important than Kane’s scandalous affair. So, the picture will be a starting
point to comment on the value of the Rosebud enigma: a structural
one and a psychological one.
A summary of previous events need not be made here: since this
shot, the faded word “Rosebud” on Kane’s old sled with its stylized
rosebud, appears only at the very end of the film, it would be too long and
sometimes irrelevant to sum up the whole film.
For a short introduction (film title, script writer, director...) see picture
hie

|. THE PROLOGUE
Citizen Kane starts with a Prologue: shots of Kane’s castle and then
of Kane himself on his death bed followed by a snow scene with big
flakes falling on a house. This is inside a glass ball. Kane is holding in
his hand. There is a close up of Kane’s mouth, his lips move, he utters
his last dying word: “Rosebud”. The glass ball falls and breaks. The
nurse’s entrance is reflected in the glass. She goes to the bed, sees
Kane is dead and covers up his face. This prologue is immediately
followed by News On The March.

ll. THOMPSON’S SEARCH

End of News On The March (a film within the film device), reporters
in a projection room: this is the Rawlston team. Rawlston reckons
Thompson has done a rather good work on Kane with this newsreel but
thinks it lacks something more: “All we need is an angle”. Showing what
a man did is one thing, it is quite another to show who he was: “you've
got to tell us who he was”. Rawlston’s idea is to investigate Kane’s
mysterious dying word: “Rosebud”. “Maybe he told us all about himself
on his deathbed”. So, Thompson must find it out (“Rosebud dead or
alive”) and interview Kane’s close acquaintances. Thompson’s
meetings with Leland, Bernstein, S. Alexander..., with flashbacks
showing slices of Kane's life, is what we see all through to the end, when
Thompson discovers something about Rosebud. The film structure is
both circular and linear: the same motif crops up at the very beginning
and at the very end; and it is the vital lead of Thompson's search.

185
Il. RAYMOND’S INDICATION
Goaded by Susan’s advice, Thompson goes to Xanadu to ask
Kane’s butler, Raymond, about Kane. Raymond gives a further
In a
indication about Rosebud and its extreme importance for Kane.
rage,
flashback, Kane is shown after the parting scene with his wife. In a
the
Kane breaks everything in Susan’s room, except the glass ball with
snow scene. He says “Rosebud”, taking it in his hand; with tears in his
eyes, he puts it in his pocket and leaves the room. This is a further
indication of how important “Rosebud” was, but it does not solve the
mystery of the word itself.

IV. UNRESOLVED MYSTERY

To a reporter saying: “if you could have found out what Rosebud
meant, | bet that would’ve explained everything.” Thompson wisely
answers: “No, | don’t think so. Mr Kane was a man who got everything
he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't
get or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything. |
don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, | guess Rosebud is just
a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, a missing piece.” Thompson is right: a
whole man’s life, with all its ambiguities, cannot be reduced to a single
word. Incidentally, the image of the jigsaw puzzle is a consistent one. An
investigation consists in “playing with a jigsaw puzzle”, putting bits and
pieces of information together to try and obtain a coherent view.
Besides, Susan Alexander was fond of puzzles and so was her real-life
counterpart, Marion Davies, another allusion proving to the audience that
the two women were one and the same person.

V. AN AUDIENCE IN THE KNOW

After Thompson's interview of Raymond, the reporters leave the
place and we are shown the huge hall packed with statues and boxes,
and men throwing things in a furnace. They are ordered to throw some
“junk” (belongings of Kane’s mother). A man throws a sled, the camera
moves up to the furnace showing the sled burning. A word on it reads:
“Rosebud”. This is our shot.
So, the audience alone can read this word and understand or try and
interpret the meaning of it. We then remember Charlie Kane as a child.
When his mother came into some money, thanks to the Colorado mine,
she decided to have the property administered by a bank in trust of her
son until he came of age and to have her son brought up by a guardian,

186
Thatcher. When the latter came to take young Kane east, snow was
falling and Kane was playing with a sled. He did not want to leave his
mother. His father was not much of a father-figure and Mrs Kane did not
want him to be able to “get at” Charles. Parting with his mother was
traumatic for him.
Right after this sequence, we are shown Kane, older, receiving his
sled on a christmas day. So, as a critic put it, Rosebud meant the “lost
maternal bliss”. It conjured up recollections of childhood, happiness as
a child, Kane’s love for his mother, a world of true feelings he may not
have been able to feel again. This, also, can be viewed as cheap
melodramatic convention (everything material, nothing human) as is the
belief in the predestination of character from an original childhood
trauma: real emotion could be felt in the parting scene, Kane became an
orphan whom sudden wealth had torn away from his mother and who,
ever after, hoped to recover the simple pleasures of his childhood.

Vi. ROSEBUD UNDER ATTACK

The Rosebud enigma was what was most frequently criticized in
the movie. Orson Welles himself said: “The Rosebud gimmick is what |
like least about the movie. It’s a gimmick really, and rather dollar-book
Freud.” (i.e., a simple kind of Freudianism) The “mystery”, in Citizen
Kane, is somewhat fake: actually, Kane was alone in his room when he
said “Rosebud”. No one could have heard him. It is surprising Raymond
should say at the end that he had heard him say so!
Even if Thompson concludes by saying Rosebud does not explain
anything, the film structure is such, with its “quest” pattern, that it makes
Rosebud appear as the key to Kane’s life. The audience responds to it
dramatically and such a response obviously invites psychological
explanations. Strangely enough, Mankiewicz had a sled, we do not know
its name but we know that he did not dramatically abandon it. Yet, he did
have a bike he loved, which was stolen and for this he was never
consoled. So, the emphasis laid on Rosebud, if we are to believe in
biographical details at all, may come from Mankiewicz’s own memory
and emotions. (Welles, directing the film, brought slight changes but
mostly followed Mankiewicz’s script. To see the differences between the
two, compare the shooting script with the cutting continuity.)

CONCLUSION
The “Rosebud” picture is interesting for all the questions which
must be considered, ranging from the film structure to the righteousness
of psychological interpretations and melodramatic conventions.

187
 Picture n° 3. Xanadu

188
PLAN DE COMMENTAIRE

A FEW DIRECTIONS
A film picture is always a starting point, which must allow you to
define and comment upon the main themes of the film. (The “love nest”
picture enabled us to deal with the Press world and its techniques, with
Kane’s ambivalent personality and the rise and fall pattern of his life. With
the “Rosebud” picture, questions of structure and of psychological
interpretations could be tackled.) With this picture of the castle, it is now
possible to analyse the use of a Gothic atmosphere in a “Gothic”
thriller and the relations of American millionaires to art. Thus, the
three pictures cover up some of the main aspects of the film. The
different topics to be discussed must obviously be always in relation to
the scene depicted by the picture itself and the need to qualify the film
itself must be kept in mind too.

|. A GOTHIC SCENE
This picture of Kane’s castle, Xanadu, is to be found at the very end
of the film. It is the closing shot. It is a dark scene. In the background,
the castle is silhouetted against the sky. Its outline is vague: it is a big
dark bulk on a hill with towers. Smoke is coming from a chimney. In the
foreground, the initial K above the gate is prominent.
If we knew nothing about this letter and this castle, what would it
evoke?
Because of the darkness and the medieval-like aspect of the castle,
the place seems very mysterious, death or a terrible threat is looming; it
is as if it was doomed. It is easy to guess K stands for the owner’s name
and is, as is the whole domain too, the emblem of his power.
For the spectators in the know, this shot is the last vision of Kane’s
world. He died not long ago; with his past belongings, his sled
especially, being burnt, his death is re-enacted a second time. The loop
is looped, so to speak (again, a circular pattern). The first shots of Citizen
Kane showed us Kane's real death, the physical one. The last ones show
us his “spiritual” one, also the end of a certain suspense as for the
spectators, the “Rosebud” enigma is solved then.
Citizen Kane is like a Gothic thriller, because of its search pattern
and its atmosphere, at times. Gothic novels (1750-1850, roughly
speaking) were based on the following devices: simple plots, stock
characters (villains persecuting noble-hearted heroines), some sus-
pense, dark atmosphere, medieval settings, ominous Nature... H. Wal-

189
pole, A. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis and C. Reeve were pastmasters of this
genre. Some of these elements also crop up in the film: a certain
suspense (what did “Rosebud” mean?), Kane seen as defeated villain
but not really as a stock one (his character is ambivalent, both attractive
and repellent—selfishness, indomitable will...), a dark atmosphere with
the shots of the fairy-tale Xanadu. Citizen Kane is a very visual,
expressionist film.

I. ART AND THE AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE

Kane had his palace built for Susan Alexander who left before it was
finished. So, the building did not eventually live up to its master’s
expectations. Yet, it stands as the emblem of Kane’s will and power:
when Kane bought the place, it was marshland. He had an artificial
moutain built, and on top of it, the castle would dominate the scene,
somehow just as Kane himself, a tall powerful man dominated the world.
The palace was as legendary as the man. Its name came from a poem by
Coleridge (xixth century English poet), entitled Kubla Khan, an oriental
prince living in the stately palace of Xanadu. W. R. Hearst’s Xanadu was
San Simeon where he entertained his guests. In the film, the stress is
laid on the incredible cost of the place which cannot be estimated.
Outside, a zoo; inside, a real museum, art treasures from all over the
world, “the loot” of the world. American millionaires acquiring art was
almost a cliché. America was a young nation, and for the happy few who
had money, Europe was a place where old masterpieces could be
bought. Hearst did it, but so did Mellon and Kresge, J. P. Morgan,
Carnegie and Guggenheim. America, today, has some of the finest
museums in the world. Kane’s passion for collecting works of art was in
keeping with the millionaire stereotype. From the start of the movie
history, the convention was that the rich were vulgarly acquisitive, this
convention is present in Citizen Kane too. Xanadu symbolises Kane’s
imperial status and it helps to stress the irony of the film title: “Citizen
Kane”. He was not an ordinary American citizen, he was more of a king in
his palace, with all his guests paying court to him.
CONCLUSION
This concluding shot well expresses Kane’s loneliness, when he
died and even before. Despite all the treasures heaped up in Xanadu, the
castle is soulless, it looks like a big, dark, empty prison, behind the huge
gate. The place is gigantic, Kane himself was a giant (immense
economic, social power) but eventually all this is illusion, castles in the
air. Despite this disproportionate power of his, Kane was just a mortal, a
lonely man, and it is this final paradox which this picture, with its
expressionistic qualities, reveals.

190
 NOTIONS

1. HOW TO EXPRESS ABILITY

|. Can / manage to / succeed in (gerund)

— The Mississippi can be considered as one of the characters in
Mark Twain’s novel. (Down the Mississippi)

ll. Past: could / was able to / managed to / succeeded in (gerund).

— Dean could manage to pass half a dozen cars at a time and
_ leave them behind in a cloud of dust. (On the road)
— Thanks to the assembly line, Ford succeeded in producing a
car every six minutes. (Henry Ford)
— Kennedy wanted to show that the U.S. was able to compete with
the Communist world. (The New Frontier)

lll. Enable s.o. to

— The car enabled rich middle class people to leave the inner
cities and live in the suburbs. (American myth and reality)

IV. Make it possible for s.o. to

— Now, the college-educated Navajos come back to the reservation
and make it possible for the Navajos people to improve their living
conditions. (Indians now-Navajo Power)

V. Take advantage of... to

— Huck took advantage of the night to slip into cornfields and
steal watermelons and other things. (Down the Mississippi)

Vi. Can afford / can’t afford

— At the beginning; James Dean could not afford a real meal
everyday, and often had to be content with eating cold spaghettis out of a
can. (An idol of the screen)

2. HOW TO EXPRESS ABSENCE OF OBLIGATION

|. Don’t have to / haven’t got to

— Ford’s workers didn’t have to move about from one car to the
other, the cars were to move to them on moving belts. (Henry Ford)

191
ll. Present: needn’t + incomplete infinitive
Preterit :didn’t need to
— Independent cinema needn’t spend as much money on settings
and stars as the big productions. (Moving with the times)
— When Anzia came out of the boss’s office, she didn’t need to
say anything; her emotion was visible enough. (Hungry Hearts II)

Ill. Past: needn’t have + past participle

— The tenant needn’t have built his house and grown his land so
passionately since he now had to leave them destroyed by the tractors.
(Tractored out)

3. HOW TO EXPRESS ADVICE

|. Present and future: should

Past: should have + past participle
— The American rednecks, who live away from the big centers,
mostly think that the U.S. shouldn’t have changed (American myth and
reality)
— Kennedy told the new generations that they should be ready to
challenge the Communist world. (The New Frontier)
— Ford thought that the workers should not lose a single
unnecessary second. (Henry Ford)

Il. Ought to
— The Americans ought to be willing to sacrifice the present for
the future. (The New Frontier)
— J. Dean ought to have gone to Salinas by the train: he would
not have died. (An idol of the screen)

lll. Had better + incomplete infinitive

— Huck and Jim thought they had better leave Jackson Island and
travel by night. (Down the Mississippi)
— The Navajos had better not rely on the Whites to improve their
own situation. (Navajo Power)

4. HOW TO EXPRESS ALTERNATIVE

|. On the one hand... on the other hand

— On the one hand the middle class left the inner city and on the
other hand the poor flocked to the cities where they could find jobs more
easily. (American myth and reality) <

192
 — On the one hand, America was changing so rapidly that
Kennedy could speak of “revolutions”; on the other hand, the old
generation of leaders were not up to the mark and proved unable to cope
with the new problems. (The New Frontier)
— On the one hand, the Mafia is shown as a mythical, aristocratic
organization, but on the other hand it is known as a business
organization in the service of crime. (The blood oath of allegiance)

ll. Either... or
— Either America was able to meet the challenge and the nation
could endure, or the future was sacrificed in, order to enjoy the present
and the U.S. could not compete with the Communist world. (The New
Frontier)
— Either Hollywood changed its production to move the young
public or the attendance at cinemas was sure to fall lower and lower.
(Moving with the times)

ill. Neither... nor

— Actually, we are shown neither James Dean nor his fans but
their reflections in the mirrors. (An idol of the screen)

IV. Whether... or
— Whether he was taking the curvy corndales of lowa at eighty or
making his usual 110 in the long straightaway, Dean was driving
dangerously and risked his life at any moment. (On the road)

5. HOW TO EXPRESS APPEARANCE

I. Look / sound / taste / smell / feel + adj.

— The boss sounded terribly cruel to the poor hands who often
had a family to support. (Hungry Hearts)

Il. Look / sound / taste / smell / feel + like (noun)

— The car looked like a big white bird and Dean was like the Angel
of Terror. (On the road)

Ill. Look / sound / taste / smell / feel + as if (clause)

— It looks as if the Americans have lost the courage and the will
that pushed their forefathers to build a new world. (The New Frontier)
— Some people in America look as if they are confusing the
actuality with the Promise and comfort with Happiness. (American myth
and reality)

193
IV. Seem / Appear to be
— At the wheel, Dean seems to be Ahad chasing Moby Dick, the
white Whale. (On the road)

6. HOW TO DRAW COMPARISONS

L+..t/—..—-/+..—-/—..+
The more..., the more...
The adj. + er..., the adj. + er...
The less..., the less...
— The more numerous the country slaves flocked into the cities,
the worse the living conditions were getting. (Black Problem)
— The bigger the production, the cheaper the tin lizzies would be.
(Henry Ford)

the more... F
Il. All ae adj. + er... } as / since

— Huck and Jim found it all the more necessary to steal as they
had to survive. (Down the Mississippi)
— The hands were all the more disappointed as they had dreamt
of a brilliant future when they had left their countries to come to America.
(Hungry Hearts)
— Life in Bordeaux seemed all the more pleasant and business
was all the better as people knew that soldiers were dying in the
trenches of northern France. (U.S. at war)

7. HOW TO EXPRESS CONDITION

I. If + present... main clause: future / present

If + preterite... main clause: conditional
If + pluperfect... main clause: past conditional
— If you don’t respect the blood oath of allegiance, you are bound
to be killed by the Mafia. (The blood oath of allegiance)
— There wouldn’t be so much violence in the housing projects if
they were not so monotonous and depressing to live in. (American myth
and reality)
— If the immigrants had not expected so much, they would have
been less disappointed by their living and working conditions. (Hungry
Hearts)

194
ll. If... not = unless
— In the past, prospectors did not pay unless metal was dis-
covered. (Navajo Power)

Ill. On condition that / provided (that) / so long as / in so far as// in

as much as
— Things can improve on the reservation on condition that evils
such as drug addiction and alcoholism are removed. (Navajo Power)
— The workers at Ford’s were well paid provided they worked like
slaves on the assembly line. (Henry Ford)
— So long as the workers had to repeat the same simple gesture
over and over again, they didn’t have to be trained. (Henry Ford)
— James Dean was not dead so long as his fans kept seeing his
films. (An idol of the screen)
— The Blacks were invisible in so far as they strove to lose their
own identity and to become as “white” as they could. (Invisible Man)

8. HOW TO EXPRESS CONTRASTS

|. Although / though / even if / ... though

— Although the immigrants had thought they would find plentiness
in America, they were now starving. (Hungry Hearts)
— Even if the rich taxpayers have left the cities for the suburbs the
local authorities have to meet the requirements of increased social
services. (American myth and reality)
— After their emancipation, the Blacks were not always happy, they
were free, though. (Black Problem)

ll. And yet / however / nonetheless / nevertheless

— The hero is invisible and yet he is no science fiction freak.
(Invisible Man)
— The Navajo demonstrations were peaceful and nonetheless
many Indians were arrested after the clash with the sheriff's rodeo
parade. (Navajo Power)

Ill. Despite / in spite of / for all (noun)

— Despite his anger, the tenant could not do anything and stood
staring after the tractor. (A heartless monster)
— In spite of the oath he had taken, Valachi wrote about the Mafia.
(The blood oath of allegiance)
— For all her courage and her determination to help the others, she

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had to leave the workshop without a word of encouragement. (Hungry
Hearts)

IV. However + adj. / adv ... (may)

— However proud and moved Ford may have been when the
second Model T appeared, he didn’t let his executives congratulate him
more than 60 seconds. (Henry Ford)

V. No matter how / when / what ... (may)

— No matter how broke and unhappy James Dean may have
been, he stuck to it and achieved his dream of becoming an actor. (An
idol of the screen)

Vi. Adj. adv. + though ... (may)

— Brave though the stewards may have been, they were glad to
be out of the war. (U.S. at war)

9. HOW TO EXPRESS DIFFERENCE AND LIKENESS

DIFFERENCE
|. Contradictory tag
— The tenant loved his land, the driver didn’t. (Tractored out)
— In Bordeaux people do not die for their country, the soldiers up
north do. (U.S. at war)

ll. Unlike
— Unlike the other factory girls who were scared and didn’t dare to
complain, Anzia went to the boss and faced him. (Hungry Hearts)

lll. Differ from ... in that / be different from ... in that

— The new leaders such as Kennedy differ from the old generation
in that they believe in the ability of the American people to push the
frontier of poverty and ignorance and build a new world of justice. (The
New Frontier)
— Bordeaux is quite different from the North of France in that
people still crowd in the good restaurants and are thriving. (U.S. at war)

IV. Whereas
— Whereas he used to be ashamed of his grandparents having
been slaves, he now accepts his past. (Invisible Man)

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LIKENESS
I. Like
— Like the old pioneers, the Americans must be ready to sacrifice
their safety and their comfort to build a new world. (The New Frontier)

il. Both
— Dean and the mad guy in the Buick were both celebrating life
and friendship in their own ways. By risking their lives for the fun of it,
they both showed that they valued and relished it. (On the road)

Ill. As ... as
— The mad guy in the Buick was just as crazy as Dean. (On the
road)

IV. .... SO + modal + subject

— Everything was red and grey in Bordeaux: the sunrise, the
vineyards, Autumn, wine, etc., so was it in the North of France where
soldiers were dying in the muddy trenches. (U.S. at war)

V. ..., nor / neither + modal + subject

— Balah Rifkin could not live on such low wages with three hungry
mouths to feed, nor could Jennie Feist who had four young brothers
and sisters to support. (Hungry Hearts)

10. HOW TO EXPRESS DISAPPROVAL

|. Reproach / charge / disagree + with (gerund)

— Margaret Atwood reproaches the Americans with being too
materialistic. (American myth and reality)

ll. Disapprove / accuse + of (gerund)

— They Indians accused the Americans of driving them out of
their lands and parking them into reservations. (Navajo Power)
— She had to go to the boss's to tell him that she disapproved of
his treating the new immigrants so badly. (Hungry Hearts)

lll. Blame / criticize / fault + for (gerund)

— Ralph Ellison faults the advocates of accommodation for
leading the Blacks astray. (/nvisible Man) :
— Indians blame the Whites for having cheated them into treaties
which were never respected. They criticize the Americans for trying to
force them out of their own religion into Christianity. (Navajo Power)

1S
IV. Protest against / denounce (gerund)
— The tenant protests against having to leave the land his
ancestors had died on. (A heartless monster)
— The Indians denounced the Whites’prejudice that often led to
murder. (Navajo Power)

11. HOW TO EXPRESS HELPLESSNESS AND RESIGNATION

|. How am | to
— Anzia doesn’t know how she is to convince the boss that the
hands can’t accept his dreadful conditions. (Hungry Hearts)
— “How am Ito live?”, the tenant thought while staring at the ruins
of his house. (A heartless monster)

Il. There is no (gerund)

— There was no convincing Dean, so Sal jumped in the back of
the car and tried to sleep. (On the road)

lll. It’s no use / no good (gerund)

— Most Blacks and Puerto Ricans living in sordid ghettos think it’s
no use trying to improve their environment and that they can do nothing
but accept their bad lot. (Black Problem)

IV. There is no point in (gerund)

— Was there any point in shooting the driver since another guy
would soon come and do the dirty job? (A heartless monster)
— The landlords think there is no point in keeping the buildings in
good repair as they are bound to be destroyed sooner or later. (American
myth and reality)

V. How can ... be expected to ...?

— How could these girls be expected to support Anzia as they
were powerless and unorganized? (Hungry Hearts)

Vi. What does it matter after all whether ...?

— What did it matter to the driver after all whether the Okies
had to leave their own land since he got a couple of dollars for each
house he caved in? (A heartless monster)

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 12. HOW TO SEEK INFORMATION:
PERSONNAL REACTIONS AND INQUIRIES

|. Wonder why / whether / when, etc.

— We can wonder whether the American Dream hasn’t eventually
turned into a nightmare. (American myth and reality)

ll. What could / should + be done / have been done

— We can try to understand what should have been done to
prevent the inner cities from turning into ghettos. (American myth and
reality)

lll. Whose fault was it?

— Whose fault was it if the tenants and their families were
starving? (Tractored out)

IV. What is meant by ...

— What is meant by the image of the Hilton Hotel with a coke
fountain in it? (American myth and reality)

13. HOW TO RECEIVE INFORMATION

|. To be told / to be shown
— We are told that actors die again when their films are forgotten.
(An idol of the screen)
— We are told that every nation has a symbol at its core.
(American myth and reality)
— We are shown the boat sailing into the mouth of the Gironde
with a French torpedo boat circling around and preceded by a patrol-boat
to keep her off the minefield. (U.S. at war)

ll. To be made to
— We are never made to see J. Dean himself, because an actor's
real self is less important than the impression he produces on the public.
(An idol of the screen)

14. HOW TO EXPRESS INTENSITY

+ adj.
1. So ie adv." that

— The Mafiosi were so frightened that they did not dare to betray

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the organisation: the whole organisation is built on fear. (The blood oath
of allegiance)

ll. So + adj. + A + noun — Such (A) + nominal group

— Dean was so good a driver (such a good driver) that he could
pass other cars at a tremendous speed and always make it by a hair. (On
the road)

Ill. How + adj. / adv. — What (A) + nominal group

— How solemn the night was when Huck and Jim drifted down the
Mississippi! They were so impressed that they durst neither laugh nor
talk. (Down the Mississippi)

IV. The most + adj. / adv. ... ever

— When the immigrants were getting near New York, they were so
enthusiastic that they had to dance, to embrace or to fall on their knees.
It was the most extraordinary day they had ever lived. (Hungry Hearts
1B)

V. Awfully / terribly / extremely / incredibly / most / amazingly /

tremendously
— The family was awfully shocked by the grandfather's last words.
(Invisible Man)

15. HOW TO GIVE NEGATIVE ORDERS

I. Mustn’t
— The boss said she mustn’t be smart and fired her out. (Hungry
Hearts)

ll. Had better not

— The boss said she had better not rebel. (Hungry Hearts)
— The hero had better not accept such contradictory answers if he
wanted to discover his real self. (/nvisible Man)

ill. If | were ... | shouldn’t / wouldn’t

— Huck’s father said they shouldn’t let a chicken go if they had
the chance to take it. (Down the Mississippi)

IV. Aren’t to / aren’t going to

— Ford’s workers weren’t to take one step away from the work
site; they were like slaves fastened to their machines. (Henry Ford)

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V. Advise s.o. not to
— Ford advised his executives and managers not to waste their
time and urged them to see to the few improvements that remained to be
done. (Henry Ford)

VI. Don’t ever dare to

— The boss said the hands: “Don’t you ever dare to complain. |’ll
give you the sack.” The girls couldn’t protest as they were unorganized
and unprotected. (Hungry Hearts)

16. HOW TO EXPRESS OBLIGATION

|. Must (only in the present)

— Most Americans think that their country must promote human
right and support the cause of individual freedom throughout the world.
(American myth and reality)
— BEWARE! REPORTED SPEECH: The boss said they must work
at night. (Hungry Hearts)

ll. Have to
— In order to survive, Huck had to steal whatever he could lay his
hand on. (Down the Mississippi)

Ill. Compelled / obliged / forced ... to

— James Dean was compelled to work as an extra on parking lots
or as an usher in movie theatres to get the few dollars he needed to keep
alive. (An idol of the screen)
— On the boat, people were obliged to screen all the decklights
and to clamp covers on the portholes. (U.S. at war)

IV. Be made to
— The new Mafioso was made to repeat the words of the oath:
“This is the way | will burn if | betray the secret of this Cosa Nostra”. (The
blood oath of allegiance)

V. Be to
— Although motorists were not to exceed 90 m/p.h., on
highways, Dean made his usual 110 whenever he could hit a long
straightaway. (On the road)

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Vi. Urge / goad / induce... to
— Her vision of America as she had dreamt it to be urged her to go
to the boss and speak out for herself and her working mates. (Hungry
Hearts |!)

17. HOW TO EXPRESS CHANGE PAST / PRESENT

|. May have + past participle... but now

— The small farmers may have been very successful is the past
but now they knew hard times because of the dust-storms. (Tractored
out)

ll. Used to
— The pioneers used to give up their safety and comfort to go west
and build a new country. (The New Frontier)
— They used to think they would be free to express their thoughts
but actually they were frightened and unable to react in front of the boss.
(Hungry Hearts)

Ill. No longer / not... any longer

— The inner cities are no longer inhabited by the middle class
families who have now moved to quiet, wealthy suburbs. (American myth
and reality)

IV. Formerly / once / in the old days / once upon a time / before
— Formerly the land had yielded good crops but now it was
getting poorer and poorer. (Tractored out)
— In the old days, Hollywood films used to reflect the myth of the
American dream and to respect the WASP’s values. (Moving with the
times)

18. HOW TO EXPRESS PERSONAL OPINION

|. | find it normal / natural / absurd / abnormal... that... + should

— Margaret Atwood finds it unbelievable that there should be
such a gap between the American reality and the American dream.
(American myth and reality)
— Ford found it normal and profitable that his workers should
not be allowed to move from their working site and should endlessly
repeat the same gesture. (Henry Ford)

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il. | think / 1 don’t think / it is hard to imagine... that
— The puritan widow thinks it is unforgivable that a decent person
should steal. (Down the Mississippi)
— Itis hard to imagine that a dying man could whisper so fiercely.
He must have been terribly angry. (Invisible Man)

Ill. 1 think it’s normal / abnormal / unbelievable... for s.o. to

— Dos Passos thinks it’s abnormal for Bordeaux to be living so
comfortably while people are dying in the North of France. (U.S. at war)
— The tenant finds it totally abnormal to be tractored out of his
land without being able to do anything against it. (A heartless monster)

IV. Approve of / disapprove of / agree with / disagree with

— The American new generation did not agree with the myth of
the American dream as it was reflected in Hollywood's big productions.
(Moving with the times)

V. As far as | am concerned / as for me / according to me / in my

opinion / to my opinion...
— As far as they were concerned, the new generations were
more ready to respond to films such as Taxi driver or Easy Rider than to
Hollywood's big productions. According to them the nightmare was the
other side of the American dream. (Moving with the times)
— As for them, they did not quite see the point of showing
westerns that glorified the conquest of the West and the genocide of the
Indians. (Moving with the times)

19. HOW TO PERSUADE / TO DISSUADE

TO PERSUADE
|. Verb of persuasion
Talk / threaten / coax
\ + into (gerund)
Bribe / starve / beat...
— Kennedy tried to goad the American people into believing they
had a bright future lying in front of them. (The New Frontier)
— The Indians were starved into submission and cheated into
treaties that were never respected. (Navajo Power)
— Many shopkeepers were racketed by the Mafia and threatened
into joining the Organization. (The blood oath of allegiance)

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 — The boss tried to seare the girls into accepting lower wages.
(Hungry Hearts) ;

ll. To get / tell s.o. to

— The boss wanted to get the girls to work more for lower wages.
(Hungry Hearts)
— Valachi’s new godfather got him to make a cup out of his hands,
put a burning piece of paper in them and told him to repeat the oath after
him. (The blood oath of allegiance)

TO DISSUADE

I. Verb of dissuasion
Talk / laugh / threaten
Beat / bribe / starve... \ + out of (gerund)
— Sal wanted to talk his friend out of driving too dangerously. (On
the road)
— The Indians were beaten out of their own culture and religion.
(Navajo Power)

ll. Keep/Stop s.o. from (gerund)

— The blood oath is meant to keep the mafiosi from betraying the
crime organization. (The blood oath of allegiance)

20. HOW TO DRAW A PORTRAIT

|. Compound adjectives
A) A blue - eyed boy. Noun + ed.
— The strict-minded, right-thinking Protestants who first landed in
America wanted to establish a “City upon the Hill”, with just and equal
laws. (American myth and reality)
— The hard-working worked all day long for their tight-fisted,
cruel-hearted boss. (Hungry Hearts /I)

B) A sky - blue dress: adj.

— Like James Dean, his fans wore skin-tight jeans. (An idol of the
screen)
— Colonel and Mrs. Knowlton of the American Red Cross were so
frightened that they wore waterproof, coldproof, submarineproof
suits. (U.S. at war)

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C) A horse - drawn cart: passive verb = past participle
— The old continent the immigrants wanted to leave was often war-
ravaged, tyranny-ridden. (American myth and reality)

D) A fast - running car: active verb = present participle

— This is the heart-rending story of hard-working hands who
worked all day long in a sweatshop. (Hungry Hearts I/)

ll. “Value” adjectives

— A boy who is 5 years old is a five-year-old boy.
— A lorry of 5 tons is a five-ton lorry.
— A journey that lasts 60 days is a seventy-days journey (U.K.),
or a seventy-day journey (U.S.).
— The 14-year-old kid left Indiana and went to live with his father in
Los Angeles. (An idol of the screen)

Il. That fool of a man

— Anzia, that wee bit of a woman, dared to face the boss and
protest against the nightwork he wanted to impose on the hands. (Hungry
Hearts II)

21. HOW TO EXPRESS PREFERENCE

|. Prefer to... rather than + incomplete infinitive

— Anzia prefers to be fired rather than accept the boss’s
conditions without protesting. (Hungry Hearts)
— The Navajos would prefer to control their own economy rather
than depend on the surrounding towns. (Navajo Power)

ll. Prefer + gerund... to + gerund

— Ford prefered paying his workers high wages to having social
troubles in his factories. (Henry Ford)

lll. Would rather + incomplete infinitive... than + incomplete

infinitive
— Benjamin Franklin would rather see the American as a
conqueror of the earth than as a Pilgrim seeking his way to Heaven.
(American myth and reality)

IV. Like + gerund... better than + gerund

— Dean likes putting his life on the line at every second better
than having a comfortable, easy, uneventful like. (On the road)

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 22. HOW TO EXPRESS PROBABILITY AND CERTAINTY
|. | think / believe / presume / guess / suppose
— From afar in the dark, Huck guessed it might be a steamboat that
had crushed against a rock. (Down the Mississippi)

ll. May / might

— Hollywood may be producing some low budget films, they still
make money on commercial cinema with catastrophe movies such as
Jaws or The Infernal Tower. (Moving with the times)

lll. Past: May have + past participle /might have + past participle
— Had Huck stayed with the Puritan widow, he might have
become a decent little fellow. (Down the Mississippi)
— Dos Passos tells us that James Dean came from the black soil of
Indiana and might have been a farmer, had he not been so sensitive.
(An idol of the screen)

IV. Near certainty. Present: must

— Someone joining the Mafia must be terribly impressed by the
blood oath of allegiance. (The blood oath of allegiance)

V. Near certainty. Past: must have + past participle

— The Vietnam war must have been aterrible humiliation and
disappointment for those Americans who still think they have a special
mission as “gendarmes of the World”. (American myth and reality)

Vi. Likely to / sure to / bound to

— lf Hollywood had not produced films such as Easy Rider, the
attendance at cinemas would have been likely to fall lower and lower.
(Moving with the times)
— In the cities, the country negroes had flocked to, smallpox and
tuberculosis were bound to break out. (Black Problem)

23. HOW TO EXPRESS PURPOSE

|. To / in order to / so as to
— When James Dean’s fans filed out of the cinema, they went to
the restroom in order to look at themselves in the mirrors and see their
idol again living in their own images. (An idol of the screen)

206
 — In this passage, Kerouac used a lot of short verbs of action (shot,
flash...) So as to convey a feeling of speed. (On the road)

ll. So that... may / might / can / could / should

— The young militants ask for strict enforcement of the laws against
selling alcohol to the obviously intoxicated so that the drunken Navajos
should not be given alcohol too easily. (Navajo Power)

lll. Intend / mean / want / plan... to + infinitive

— Huck’s father said that you could “borrow” things if you meant
to give them back. (Down the Mississippi)
— In the same way as Ford wanted all the parts to be inter-
changeable, he also wanted the men to be interchangeable and easily
controlled. (Henry Ford)
— The Navajos plan to build a new town in the reservation and
intend to buy the trading posts from the Whites so as to control their
own economy. (Navajo Power)

IV. Aim / drive at (gerund)

— The first immigrants aimed at creating a perfect human society
in which everyone could have the same rights. (American myth and
reality) ;

V. In the intention of (gerund)

— Hollywood changed its production in the intention of being
approved by the young public who now questioned the American society.
(Moving with the times)

VI. Goal / purpose / aim

— The young fans had only one goal, which was to look like their
idol. (An idol of the screen)
— The main purpose of this passage is to define the ambiguity of
accommodation. (Invisible Man)

24. HOW TO EXPRESS REFUSAL

I. Refuse / don’t accept/ isn’t going + to

— The Pilgrim Fathers refused to be persecuted on account of
their religious beliefs. (American myth and reality)
— The boss isn’t going to impose his law over the hands without
their protesting. (Hungry Hearts)
— James Dean didn’t accept to work on a farm in Indiana. (An ido/
of the screen)

207
ll. Won't
— Anzia won’t be scared into submission by a boss who was
himself a former immigrant. (Hungry Hearts)

Ill. Won’t let (s.o.) + incomplete infinitive

— Anzia won’t let her dream be crushed by a sordid reality.
(Hungry Hearts)

IV. Won’t allow (s.o.) + infinitive

— The Navajos won’t allow the oil companies to drill in the
reservation without paying for the right of prospecting. (Navajo Power)
— Ford didn’t allow the managers more than sixty seconds to
display their emotion. (Henry Ford)

V. There is no reason why / | don’t see any reason why... + should

— The tractor driver doesn’t see any reason why he should be
starving since he can get a few dollars whenever he destroys a house
with his tractor. (A heartless monster)

Vi. Resent / object to (gerund)

— Many workers resented working on the assembly line and Ford
found it difficult to keep the men on the job. (Henry Ford)
— J. Dean objected to becoming a dental technician like his
father. (An idol of the screen)
— The Navajos resent spending their money in trading posts
owned by the Whites. (Navajo Power)

Vil. Doesn’t want (s.o.) to

— Kennedy doesn’t want the Americans to be outraced by the
Russians. (The New Frontier)

25. HOW TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS

I. Why not / let’s / can’t we / shall we / why don’t we + incomplete
infinitive
— Ford had ideas about production: Why not bring the parts to the
workers? Let’s divide the work into very simple gestures. (Henry Ford)
— Why doesn’t he ask himself questions instead of asking others
questions they couldn’t answer? (/nvisible Man)

208
Il. It might be a good idea (infinitive)
— Ford thought it might be a good idea to control the speed of
the moving belt. (Henry Ford)

Ill. How about / what about (gerund)

— When a friend of his started to study acting, James Dean thought:
“How about becoming an actor myself?” (An idol of the screen)

IV. Why / suggest + should / might

— Huck suggested that they should go and visit the wreck. Jim
said it might be a good idea to cross out one or two things from the list,
he suggested that it might set their consciences at ease. (Down the
Mississippi)
— “Why shouldn’t every worker stand in his place?” Henry Ford
thought. (Henry Ford)

26. HOW TO EXPRESS TASTES AND DISTASTES

I. Tastes: Distastes
Enjoy / like /love Resent / dislike / hate
Adore / relish Loathe / detest
Be fond of (gerund) Object to (gerund)
Be keen on | can’t stand / bear / face
— Many Americans enjoy having a comfortable press button life in
the suburbs and would hate living downtown. (American myth and
reality)
— The young Americans loved seeing James Dean’s old films but
they resented seeing a film about their idol’s life and death. (An idol of
the screen)
— The tenant objected to having to leave and couldn’t stand
looking at the tractor destroying his house. (A heartless monster)

ll. Willing / unwilling to

— The American soldiers came to Europe quite willing to get into
the war. (U.S. at war)

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 27. HOW TO EXPRESS WISHES AND REGRETS

+ incomplete infinitive... than (1 pers.)

|. Had rather \
+ preterite / pluperfect (2 pers.)
— The Navajos had rather own their own trading posts than spend
their money out of their community. (Navajo Power)
— Sal had rather Dean didn’t drive so fast but he was so excited
by the race that he wasn’t even frightened. (On the road)
— The town authorities had rather the rich middle class taxpayers
hadn’t moved from the cities. (American myth and reality)

Il. Wish + could / would / preterite

past: wish + could have / would have / pluperfect
— The tenant wishes he didn’t have to leave his land. (A heartless
job)
— At first, he wished his grandfather hadn’t talked that way as his
words were a disquieting puzzle. (/nvisible Man)
— Some slaves were so miserable that they wished they had
never been born. (Black Problem)
— Many people wish J. Dean had not died so young and had
given more films like “Rebels without a cause”. (An idol of the screen)

lll. If only / it’s a pity (should)

— If only Hollywood had understood earlier that the young
generations were changing, they would have produced quality films in the
early 60'S. (Moving with the times)
— It’s a pity stars should have lost the glamour of old days.
(Moving with the times)

IV. Wishes for the future: wish to / want to / would like to

— Many college-educated Navajos
reservation and help promote the Indian
— The American soldiers wished
possible. They were eager to fight and
(U.S. at war)
now wish to come back to the
culture. (Navajo Power)
to get into the war as soon as
use their brand-new weapons.

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 USEFUL PHRASES FOR YOUR COMMENTARY

|. HOW TO EXPRESS CERTAINTY

lam sure, (certain / positive) that = Je suis sOr(e) que

| am dead sure (certain) / quite Je suis tout a fait (absolument)

sure (certain) that sdr(e) (certain(e)) que

lam convinced that Je suis convaincu(e) que .......

= Je suis entiérement (absolument

LT abe crea oat heuer sh een siete / tout
afait) convaincu(e) que... .

What is sure is that / What | am > Ce qui est sur ... c’est que / Ce
sure (certain) of is that dont je suis sdr(e) (certain(e)),
c’est que

| do (truly / firmly) believe that Je crois vraiment (tout a fait /

fermement / assurément) que

Itis my belief (My beliefis) that .. Je suis convaincu(e) que / Ce

dont je suis persuadé(e) c’est que

| have no doubt about (not the Je n’ai aucun doute quant a (pas
slightest
doubt that) le moindre doute que)

Therecanbenodoubtthat...... Celane faitaucun doute que ....

| think (believe) we must (should) Je pense (crois) que nous de-

realize (notice) that / ... take ... vons (devrions) comprendre que
into account (emphasize) (remarquer / prendre en compte /
insistersur/accentuer) ........

| think (believe) it is necessary Je pense (crois) qu’il est néces-

(terribly / tremendously impor- saire (extrémement important /
tant) to notice (realize / mention / trés) de remarquer (comprendre /
insist on) mentionner/ d'insister)
ll. HOW TO EXPRESS AGREEMENT
A) Your personal opinion.
| agree with the writer (author) on
this point (problem / question)
| quite (totally / completely) agree
with him / her
| have (share) the same opinion >
(viewpoint, standpoint) as he/she
| am of the same opinion (mind) —
as he/she
| am in full agreement with him / =>
her
| see eye to eye with him / her in >
this matter (on this subject)
B) Positive assessment of the author’s work.
He / she is right to say (point out
/ insist on) that
He/sherightlysays ...........
His / her judgment (analysis) is
sound (relevant / can be quite
WEI RO]) Mactan agorn aeata each aah
He / she thinks that ... | think it
too (so do |).
He / she gives us good (interest-
ing/ valuable) information about .
He / she very well makes us feel >
(see) the/that/why ...........
Thanks to his / her analysis (de- —
piction / treatment) of... we easily
understand (see) that /why / how
His / her rendering of the scene
(atmosphere) is good (excellent)
He/she admirably conveys.....
212
> Je partage l’avis de (Je suis
d’accord avec) /’auteur sur ce
point (probleme / question)
— Je suis tout a fait (entiérement /
totalement) d’accord avec lui /
elle.
Je partage son avis (suis du
ICME AV|S) axrarcss Seria ene
J’ai la méme opinion que lui
(qu'elle).
Je suis en accord total avec lui /
elle.
Je vois les choses du méme ceil
que lui (qu'elle).
> ll / elle a raison de dire (faire
remarquer/d’insistersur) ......
=> l!/elle ditajuste titre ...........
=> Son jugement (analyse) est juste
(pertinent(e) / peut étre tout a fait
valable Dour) ncennm ane nae ae
> ll / elle pense que ... moi aussi.
= ll / elle nous fournit des rensei-
gnements (intéressants / de va-
[OUL) SUR aS cociie Nase
ll / elle nous fait tres bien sentir
(comprendre) le /que / pourquoi
Grace a son étude (sa peinture /
son analyse) de... nous compre-
nons facilement que / pourquoi /
COMMON Meraae
Aathewn eee
—> La facon dont il / elle traite (rend)
la scéne (l'atmosphére) est bon-
ne (trés bonne).
=> Il / elle €voque (exprime) admi-
rablementDieny amu jeer eres
 HOW TO QUALIFY A JUDGMENT
A) Your personal opinion.
| agree with what the author says
but only up to a point, to a certain
extent
| agree with him / her when he / —
she says... but we differ (disag-
ree) in that (on / when he / she...)
| reckon (admit / agree) that... but
all the same (nevertheless / for all
that / despite that), | think (be-
lieve / prefer / don’t quite see—
understand—grasp his / her
meaning why, how / fail to see /
don’t think that)
| know (am aware / well aware) >
that... but (and yet) |think
B) Qualified assessment of the writer’s work.
He / she may say (well say / be —
right to say, entitled to say) but
(yet/ and yet) | think (believe) ...
His / her judgment (opinion / >
analysis) may wellbe...andyet ..
It can’t be denied that (his... can’t —>
be denied) ... and yet
His / her judgment (opinion) must =
(should) be qualified
The question is not whether..., —
but whether
This (this point / this aepaeli is >
interesting... but not so... as...
(as... aS...)
This, he / she analysed well, but ~~
he/she didn’t comment on
— Je suis d’accord avec |’auteur
mais jusqu’a un certain point.
Je partage son avis quand il / elle
dit... mais je ne pense pas que
(ne suis pas d’accord sur / ne
partage pas son avis quand)...
Je reconnais (j’'admets / je pense
aussi) que... mais néanmoins
(malgré tout(e) / en dépit de), je
pense (crois / préfére / ne com-
prends pas bien pourquoi, com-
ment / ne vois pas / ne pense
pas)
Je sais bien (j'ai parfaitement
conscience) ... pourtant (néan-
moins) je pense
// se peut qu’il / elle dise (ait
raison de dire / dise a juste titre)
. cependant (pourtant / néan-
moins) je pense (crois)
Son jugement (opinion / analyse)
a beau étre... cependant (néan-
moins)
On ne peut nier que (que son) ...
cependant
Son jugement (opinion) doit (de-
vrait) 6tre nuancé(e).
I faut (faudrait) nuancer
Le probléme n'est pas de savoir
si... Mais si
C’est un point (aspect) intéres-
sant / Il est intéressant de... mais
pas autant que... (que de...)
Il / elle a bien analysé... mais n’a
pas commenté (a oublié de parler
de)
For all (Despite) ... he / she fails —»
to see (say) / doesn’t quite make
her / his point clear (us see,
understand) why...how ........
His point (argument) is... except
that he.
IV. HOW TO EXPRESS DISAGREEMENT
A) Your personal opinion
| disagree with him / her on that —
point (differ on a point)
| totally (entirely / completely)
diSAGree Within ae eee eee
| am not / not at all (am far from =>
being) convincedby ...........
lam sorry (afraid) but |
— have a very different view of
the situation (question)
— am of a different opinion...
— think differently on / about...
— don’t share his / her view
(follow him / her on this point)...
— can’t accept what he / she
says (agree with...)
— must disagree on this point
(differ with... on / about / over)...
| don’t think (believe) it's true
(right / accurate / correct) to say
(maintaim)ithatepastes tah anor ae
| don’t see it (the problem) in the —>
same way (quite the same light)
214
Malgré tout (en dépit de)... il /
elle ne voit (dit) pas..., ne fait pas
bien ressortir son argument (ne
nous fait pas bien comprendre
pourquoi...comment ..........
Son argument (raisonnement)
est... 4 Ceci prés que.
La-dessus, je ne suis pas d’ac-
cord (je ne suis pas d’accord sur
un point / détail)
> Je suis en désaccord complet
avec (ne partage absolument pas
HaViS'GC) as ay ae ee ee
Je suis pas du tout convaincu(e)
(loin d’étre convaincu(e)) par... .
Je suis désolé(e) mais (crains de)
— j'ai une vue tout a fait diffé-
rente de la situation (question)
— je suis d’un avis différent...
— je pense différemment sur...
— je ne partage pas du tout son
avis (je ne le / la suis pas du tout
sur ce point)...
— je ne peux accepter ce que
(6tre d’accord avec ce que)...
— devoir porter un jugement dif-
férent (devoir étre en désaccord
QVeG.. |SUIAs):
Je ne pense (crois) pas qu’il soit
juste (précis / correct) de dire
(SOUTENIF) GUE sae ne ee
Je n’envisage pas cela (le pro-
bleme) de la méme fagon (tout a
faitsous le méme angle) ........
 B) Negative assessment of the writer’s work.
He / she doesn’t explain (say) —
why /how/
He / she fails to make (show) us
understand (see) why/how ....
He doesn’t (fails to) take... into
account (take into account the
fact that / take notice of)
He/she forgets to say (mention)
He / she ignores the problem
(question) of / that
He / she overlooks a major prob-
lem (aspect of the problem)
The main point (issue / problem)
is hardly commented on (touched
upon).
He / she evades (eludes) the
problem (question) of
What grounds has he / she (are
his / her grounds) for saying
(denying) that...?
There isn’t enough evidence for
him/her to say that
His / her arguments are worth-
less (no good / not very convinc-
ing / all the less convincing as /
prejudiced / biased / a bit thin
(Fam))
His / her argument (remark) is
not objective / fair-minded (one-
sided / partial / irrelevant) to the
subject (problem).
He / she doesn’t strike me as
being fair-minded.
// / elle ne dit (n’explique) pas
pourquoi/comment
— Il / elle née nous explique pas (fait
pas voir) pourquoi/comment ...
ll / elle ne prend pas en considé-
ration (ne tient pas compte du fait
que)
ll / elle oublie de dire (signaler /
parler de)
Il / elle ne tient pas compte du
probleme de (passe sous silence
le fait que)
ll 7 elle oublie une question im-
portante (néglige un aspect im-
portant du probleme).
Il 7 elle ne fait qu’effleurer le
probléme essentiel.
ll 7 elle évite de parler du pro-
bléme de... (élude la question de)
A quel titre, peut-il / elle dire
(nier) que...?
ll/ellen’apas assez de preuve ..
Ses arguments ne valent rien (ne
sont pas trés convaincants / sont
d’autant moins convaincants que
/ sont partiaux / sont un peu
MMNICCSA RAND) vz.etaraiom
auc otecae
Son argument (Sa_remarque)
n'est pas objectif(ve) (est par-
tial(e) / hors de propos / sans
rapport avec) le sujet (le pro-
bléme).
ll / elle ne me parait pas 6tre
(semble pas étre / fait pas |’effet
d’étre) objectif(ve).
215
TABLEAU DE MOTS ET EXPRESSIONS CHARNIERES

|. HOW TO INTRODUCE
A) Personal viewpoints
— First of all / to begin with / in the first place / fora start......
— Asan introduction ......
— | would like to say / to commenton......
— The point | would like to make is ......
— Inmy opinion (view) / according tome...... / to my mind / as far as
| am concerned ......
— My viewpoint / My view is that ...... / personally | feel (think) that

— First, it should be noted that ......

— It’s first interesting to notice that ......
— lt is first necessary (important / interesting) to say (consider / notice /
point out) who / when / how ...... (no inversion)

B)viternaes clauses
— It is commonly (usually / generally) said that ...... It has often (even
/ sometimes) been said (claimed) that ......
— Itis sometimes (often) suggested (argued) that ......
— It could (might) be said that ......

C) A few useful adverbs.

— Naturally ...... /ROWCOUISG sents
— Admittedly ......
— Generally (Broadly / Roughly / Strictly) speaking
— Strangely (Oddly / Curiously / Surprisingly / Paradoxically / lroni-
cally) enough ......
— Strange as (though) it may seem......
— Tosome extent...... / up to a certain point ......
— Somehow ...... JUINAaWWay. Ss oe: / in some (many) ways ......

216
Il. HOW TO LINK IDEAS ......
A) How to express consequence.
Useful adverbs
— Thus, hence, therefore, consequently, so
— Asa matter of fact, actually

Useful phrases
— lItis why / that’s why ......
— The result is that ......
— lItresultsin...... + ing form
— We can infer from it (this) that ......
— In that case / this beingso......
— This leads meto...... + ing form

B) How to clarify something, make one’s point clear.

Useful adverbs
— Yet / however / nevertheless / still ......

Useful phrases
— Saying this, | mean......
— What! mean is that ......
— The point | am driving (making) at ...... iSuth avert
— By this, | obviously do not mean / am not saying (suggesting /
inferring) that ......
— So, the real point is that ......
— The question is not whether ...... Deltaanime.

C) How to add up another point.

Useful adverbs
— Above all / moreover / besides / furthermore / on top of that / what’s
more
— Secondly / then / next
— Onthe onehand...... on the other ......
— Notonlyis...... but itis also .......
— In this respect ...... / as we have noticed ...... / \n addition to

217
Useful phrases
| would also like to
— Talking of (about) ...... On the subject of ......
say (add / point out) that ......
(add / say) that
— In support of this view, | would like to point out
ee SOMA MAE sehen , | would now like to ......
ects
— Something | haven't mentionned so LATRISHUNAU eres
— Similarly, it might (could) also be Said tales crece
point / the question
— This brings (leads) me to something else (another
of + ing form)
/ studying / paying
__ There remains one more point worth considering
attention to

Ill. HOW TO CONCLUDE

to say) that ......
— To conclude (As a conclusion), | think (would like
SON SUIMEUM: sareitaeen=
— We can finally (eventually) say .....-
— We are now apt to say ......
— Our final conclusion (last judgment) would be
— My last opinion is that ......
— A last thing we can say is that......
— A |ast point I'd like to make clear is that
— There now only remains to be said that
== ast butnotileashyys 10.
that) ......
ele Woes « Goone but | do think that (insist on finally saying
is) chiefly (mainly
— Despite (For) all...... It is (This text is / The writer
VTS Gas
eSc

218
 CORRIGES DES EXERCICES

American myth and reality

|. 1) have mistaken. 2) landed - intended. 3) go. 4) had been living.
5) had built.
ll. 1) Americans have always considered themselves as the champions
of freedom. 2) Atwood is one of the best-known writer in Canada today.
3) Not only did the Puritans bring along a new order, but they tried to
impose it as a model. 4) Many people aim at owning more than their
neighbours.

Down the Mississippi

|. 1) into. 2) down. 3) back. 4) back - along. 5) up.
ll. 1) Pap used to say that borrowing was not stealing provided you
intended to pay the people back. 2) Jim and Huck had been travelling on
the Mississippi for three days. 3) He found a watermelon last night. 4) If
they hadn’t stolen, they would have been starving. 5) When the night has
fallen, they will have to land.

The New Frontier

|. 1) What has the urban revolution led to? 2) How long has the U.S.A.
gone through the scientific revolution? 3) How often do the Americans
elect a new president? 4) What did Kennedy try to whip up the will and
enthusiasm of his country fellows for? 5) Since when hadn’t they heard
such a cheering up speech?
ll. 1) survival - ability. 2) awareness. 3) carelessness. 4) repeatedly.
5) appointment.

On the road
|. 1) As soon as. 2) provided that. 3) while. 4) in so far as. 5. for fear.
ll. 1) The boys were attended to with much kindness by the white-
haired lady. 2) Dean and his friends were given extra large portions of
potatoes. 3) She was seen to rush out of the car and smack the boy.
4) The car will be passed and left behind crawling along the road. 5) He
was reminded of the happy days when he hitch-hiked by the straightaway
in lowa.

212
Hungry Hearts
|. 1) must have been. 2) couldn’t. 3) shouldn’t have — stayed.
4) couldn’t. 5) might have found.
Il, 1) in - of - on - to - into - like. 2) to - for - without - of - over. 3) © -
over. 4) Unlike - © - of - in. 5) from - at - after.

lll. 1) had been suffering. 2) would have starved. 3) crying - sobbing -

had to. 4) had been living - lived. 5) will have been working.

Indians now - Navajo Power

|. 1) Wilbert Tsosie said than prejudice often led to more than insults.
to
2) The councilman said that the Indian demonstrators were just trying
drill
stir up trouble. 3) McDonald told them not to allow the companies to
on the reservation unless they paid for the right of prospecting. 4) The
posts,
tribal council said that after the Navajos had bought the trading
they would be able to direct their own economy. 5) The old man asked
when
whether the Whites would accept the Navajo’s new assertiveness
the Indians got their own financial independence.
ll. 1) The Navajos still have a very poor rural economy and yet they try
to improve their financial position and change into a structured industrial
the
society. 2) The young college-educated Indians won't return to
reservation unless the cultural and moral environment of the reservation
gives them brighter prospects. 3) The young Whites, dressed in old
cavalry costumes, marched along the streets while the Indians were
demonstrating against the murder of three young men. 4) Alcohol is
available in the taverns ringing the reservation though the law forbids to
sell alcohol to the obviously intoxicated. 5) Sympathetic Anglos happily
greet the Indians’new assertiveness whereas most Whites still consider
the inhabitants of the reservation as savages.

Invisible Man
|. 1) In spite of his being black, the young man wanted... 2) The family
must have felt surprised when the grandfather... 3) The young Blacks
could not make their way into society unless they rejected their own
identity. 4) No sooner had the hero heard the words than he felt... 5) He
felt all the more violent as he looked meek.
-
\l. 1) fighting - to better - to improve. 2) rejecting - trying. 3) to leave
to hear. 4) listen - find out. 5) to keep fighting.

220
U.S. at war
|. 1) The passengers wanted to know if they were nearing France.
2) The stewards were convinced the Germans wouldn't sink a civilian
boat. 3) The steamers had been following the little patrolboat since 2
o'clock. 4) He hadn’t been in Bordeaux for over a day and had already
had his belongings gone through by a spy. 5) As soon as the boat
steamed into the Gironde, the Knowltons would be able to relax.
ll. 1) bravery. 2) ruddiness. 3) wounds. 4) redden. 5) accurately.

Henry Ford
|. 1) would he? 2) hadn’t he? 3) didn’t he? 4) don’t we? 5) shouldn't
they?
lll. 1) had. 2) made. 3) have. 4) made. 5) have.

The Grapes of Wrath

|. 1) The banks had the Okies’ houses destroyed by the tractors. 2) The
small farmers had always grown the same crops on their lands. 3) During
the Depression of the 30’s, the flophouses employees had the hobos’
rags cleaned before they would resume their wanderings in the streets.
4) Clerks would make the jobless wait for hours. 5) Once, the pioneers
had the Pacific railroad built and made it race against time, now their
dream is falling apart and here they are on the road again.
\|. 1) What did the banks order the companies? 2) What had the farmer
lusted for, once? 3) How many people were tractored out and had to flock
to the cities? 4) What was the driver proud of? 5) Who was responsible
for what happened to the farmers?

The blood oath of allegiance

|. 1) | expect them to have been killed by the Mafia since they betrayed
its secret. 2) Why not go to Sicily and study the origins of the Mafia?
3) He’d better never say a word about this ritual. 4) They might have all
been threatened into submission by the big boss. 5) He wondered what
the point of Maranzano’s question was.
ll. 1) He would rather belong to the Mafia than be in a smaller gang.
2) By litting a piece of paper in the new Mafioso’s cupped hands, the
boss meant (wanted) to scare him. 3) The Mafia would enable him to do
greater things. 4) He was forced (compelled, made) to repeat the words
of the oath. 5) Very few shopkeepers didn’t accept (weren’t going) to be
protected by the powerful Mafia.

221
An idol of the screen
|. 1) in - for. 2) on - up. 3) to. 4) down. 5) up - down.
ll. 1) People found it hard to believe J. Dean was dead. 2) He had
never contemplated working on a farm and had all along known he
wanted to be an actor. 3) Film producers made him sign a promise not to
race before the film was finished. 4) When he was a famous movie star,
he would get all the things he had lacked before. 5) He was often hired
to play the parts of ill-at-ease adolescents.

Moving with the times

|. 1) In the 50’s, during the heydays of McCarthy's witch hunts, many
film. directors and actors were blacklisted. 2) In the 60's, the image of
America as a land of opportunity was cracking. 3) By showing the
American Dream only, Hollywood could no longer reflect the need of a
post-Watergate and post-Vietnam public whereas by showing the other
side of the dream too, it could. 4) As soon as Hollywood realized
a turning point had come, changes were brought about. 5) Even if
(Although) (Though) the 1929 crisis had affected production and movie
attendance, by the 30’s Hollywood was thriving again.

ll. 1) In the 60’s, Hollywood should have paid more attention to the
young, its production would have thus been far better. 2) Actors and film
directors alike often had to put up with the Moguls’ demands and couldn't
always have things their own way. 3) In the old days, a star could receive
up to 5 000 letters a day. 4) If the Major Companies hadn't been bought
up by businessmen from the East, Hollywood might have been totally
ruined. 5) Over the past few years, live cinema has been able to show us
the other side of America.

222
 TABLE DES MATIERES

(pa zoyelbGisVe nhc Ake WE SR am SLR AN nee ai ett ps my Sy isary re PRS

DREAM
eLNe ErOnterse eens cree ee ae rater eae eae eet avs Sie cece
Text 1: American myth and reality (M. Atwood) .............
Text 2: Down the Mississippi (M. Twain) ...............+++
Text 3: The New Frontier (J.-F. Kennedy) ..................

A MODIlity rita Rete e oiscce oes cincoe sary Daerah en ae homies ees

. Immigration and assimilation ..........................-.

Texto Hungry teanss |, Nneivegend rs nae chitinaseec
II. The facts (A. Yezierska) ............-

. REALITY
mlnagians; pastand presentyes-
Pw Gh eeomend sade srourds fk rales
Text 6: Indians now, Navajo Power (D. Devoss) ............

. Blacks in the U.S.A., past and present ....................

Lextysinvisible Mani(R: Ellison) > vjecccanswe=
tod tends oh ei

Fal AVlOriSM ane POLGISIN == ara en a i oe Flee nies

ilextO-benn Ford Es Doctorow) leer.
nace se ste one ec

PEROOSEUEIES NCW. Deal tat usae at eee iis eek a.e Seaeot
Text 10: The Grapes of wrath: I. Tractored out .............
II. A heartless job (J. Steinbeck)

9. TheiMatiajmyiaand xealityn eases cee eens «ee cece cine

Text 11: The blood oath of allegiance (P. Maas) ..........-.

10. The Fifties: Mc-Carthyism - The Beat Generation .........

Text 12: An idol of the screen: James Dean (Dos Passos) ....
11. Hollywood! acs 5s ator sth pane ce onaetna 168
Text 13: Moving with the times (Speakeasy) ..........----- 175
Citizen Kane: “Images 4 commenter” .........+.-+-2++505 180
aEPicture mci sl ove mest=SCONGGI © vs) ntn rie 180
==" Pictireiiere:) SROSEDUG. +Toe oe mieseen oe otoleMeseke ee once 184
teralste uencl/ane
Ee Pictire me Oo: NANG. eo ec icin testcrsstichavtoratete 188

OUTILS LINGUISTIQUES

Tableaux d’expressions notionnelles ............-.-.-++++++5 191

Useful phrases for your commentary .........-----+-++++++:- 211
Tableau de mots et expressions charniéres ..........--..----- 216
Corrigé des exercices .... ....
66sec eee tee..- eete 219

Ne d’éditeur P 45799 (D.c.VII) C - Imprimé en France - Juillet 1988

@ Imprimerie TARDY QUERCY S.A. BOURGES - Ne 14626
hy
ah i (
wy
 COLLECTION DIRIGEE PAR DENIS HUISMAN

¢ NOUVEL ABREGE ¢ LA BIOLOGIE

DE PHILOSOPHIE AU BACCALAUREAT D

¢ LA COMPOSITION ° PHYSIQUE
PHILOSOPHIQUE THERMINALES C E
Tome 1
¢ PETIT DICTIONNAIRE Tome2
DE LA PHILOSOPHIE ° PHYSIQUE
e LA PHILOSOPHIE TERMINALE D
EN 1500 CITATIONS ¢ CHIMIE
e LE COMMENTAIRE TERMINALES CE
PHILOSOPHIQUE ¢ CHIMIE
AU BACCALAUREAT TERMINALE D

e LECONOMIE EN e PROBLEMES RESOLUS

60LECONS | DE PHYSIQUE CE
AU BACCALAUREAT G Tome 1

* LA DISSERTATI ON lone ts ;
ECONOMIQU E, e PROBLEMES RESOLUS
AU BACCALAUREAT BETG DE PHYSIQUE D

e LES SCIENCES e MATHEMATIQUES

ECONOMIQUES ET TERMINALES Ai B

SOCIALES ¢ MATHEMATIQUES
AU BACCALAUREAT B TERMINALES A

¢ LEPREUVE DECOMPTABILITE ¢ ELEMENTS D’ALGEBRE

AU BACCALAUREAT G2 AU BACCALAUREAT C DE
‘ e ECONOMIE ET ORGANISATION Tome 1: Structures fondamentale
Tome 2: Algébre linéaire
DES ENTREPRISES
AU BACCALAUREAT G pean ae
e VHISTOIRE ¢ GEOMETRIE
AU BACCALAUREAT AU BACCALAUREAT C E
e LA GEOGRAPHIE
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AUBACCALAUREAT C

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