Devoirs d'anglais du 06/05/08

Petite révision, si ça peut aider ! allez, courage ! (c'est comme la dernière fois : compréhension/invention/traduction, tout ça sur le dernier texte)

Commentaire de la 1ère partie (celle de la prof’)

The passage is taken from an autobiographical novel entitled My Place, written by Sally Morgan in 1987. The scene takes place in Australia, at Sally’s mother’s, on a Saturday afternoon. The main characters are the narrator, her mother, her grandmother and Curly, the mother’s dog. Paul, Sally’s brother is just mentioned. Curly is sleeping on the road and Sally is trying to call him.

While she’s visiting her mother, Sally is asked for help. The family dog refuses to move and disobeys everyone except Paul. As the latter isn’t at home, he can’t give her a hand. We only understand Curly is a dog on line 20. The author uses a stylistic device with the pronouns “he” and “him”, to deceive the readers. The Dog is personified; he’s always referred to a human being. It’s called the case of mistaken identify.

Commentaire de la 2ème partie (la mienne, puisque j’avais pas trop mal réussi…)

In the second part of the text, there is a misunderstanding between Sally and her grandmother, owing to Sally, who treats Curly but Nan doesn’t see the scene and thinks Sally treats a little aboriginal who lives near to Nan. As a result, Nan doesn’t understand the situation and there is an argument between them. The misunderstanding triggers off a painful memory for Nan.

Furthermore, Sally learns that her grandmother was treated by someone but she doesn’t know he is. The use of the passive voice shows that Nan undergoes the situation, her feelings and her past. She is a victim. For Nan, this episode represents everything she wants to forget but Sally makes her remind it.

As a conclusion, Sally has to know what really happened to her grandmother, what is probably reveals in the sequel of My Place.

Vocabulaire de base pour le texte

- to undergo : subir
- prejudices : des préjugés
- to be put aside = to be excluded
- to be treated as : être traité comme
- suffering : souffrance (plus fort que “pain”)
- alone : seul (physique)
- lonely : seul (moral)
- hurt = moved = vexed : très véxé
- crossed = furious : très en colère
- to scorn = to dispise : mépriser
- to hint at = to allude to : faire allusion à
- to underline : souligner
- all to no vail : en vain
- cantankerous : revêche (?)

Le souhait/regret

1) souhaiter : wish + preterit simple
2) regretter : wish + past perfect simple (pour le regret, on écrit le sens contraire du français

ex :

- Elle souhaite que sa mère change. (souhait, donc on ne change pas le sens de la phrase)
- She wishes her mother changed.

- La narratrice regrette que Paul ne soit pas là pour l’aider (regret, donc l’inverse du français en anglais, ici, c’est une phrase négative, donc en anglais elle sera positive et inversement !)
- The narrator wishes Paul had been there to help her.