Commentaire sur un texte et une image (LLCE Anglais 2ème année)

Résumé du document

Our purpose is to compare and contrast a text and a painting, whose common theme is an unwillingly migration of farmers due to unbearable environmental or/and economic circumstances. The text is an excerpt of Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of the Wrath" (published in 1939), which deals with the farmers who moved from the Great Plains to California, driven by poverty due to the Dust Bowl during the "Dirty Thirties".

Extraits

[...] In chapter the tenant people go through their belongings and attempt to sale them to prepare for the journey west. As for the image, "The last of the clan" is an oil painting on canvas by Thomas Faed (1826-1900), who was a successful painter. Although he lived in England, his paintings often dealt with Scottish subjects. This work notably shows the heartbreaking departure of an emigrant ship from a Scottish village at the time of the Highland Clearances. How historical facts are converted into a deeply moving fiction or painting ? [...]

[...] They are giving up more than belongings. They are giving up a part of who they are. The tenant tells the buyer he is buying « REF12 » It becomes clear that he has definitely not just sold horses and a wagon, but very dear memories of his daughter, and most important of all, a part of himself. His past and his family's histories are nothing but erased : « REF13. » "The last of the Clan" : leaving one's historical place means losing one's identity Migrants leaving Scotland and heading for America must have certainly felt uprooted while sailing away from their homeland, with no hope of return: they were leaving the land that had been passed down for generations. [...]

[...] To them, California is like the promised land. In many ways the whole novel is allusive of the Exodus where the Hebrews left their hardships in Egypt and migrated to some promised land where they could be free and safe. The farmers are about to migrate to their promised land : California is where they would get rich and the fruits of their labor could grow. Could California turn out to be a disillusioned dream, like that time when "REF16"? [...]

[...] The farmers can not avoid this sorting out, which is like a rite of passage before they leave and change their lives. Broken homes : The ones who have to leave and those who are left behind in "The last of the Clan" While entire families left the Dust Bowl region, the Scottish emigration affected mainly young men. As a viewer of the painting, we are on the departing ship for the colonies, which means that Faed's painting focuses on those who are left behind, relatives and friends. [...]

[...] The loss of dignity is shown in the scene where the tenants sell their farming tools to the brokers who are not giving them fair payment for what they call "junk". The buyers fail to realize that what they consider to be "junk" constitutes somebody else's life. Buyers haggle over farmers' items because they know that the migrants are compelled by circumstances and have no other option: REF6 One man, for instance, does not want to sell his horses and a wagon for merely ten dollars. He would rather REF7 But then, what else can he do? [...]