Fiche de révision : The Grapes of Wrath et contestation

📋 Plan du Cours

1. La Grande Dépression et le Dust Bowl
2. Steinbeck et la genèse du roman
3. Le sens du titre du roman
4. Les techniques descriptives de Steinbeck
5. Dialogue et langage populaire
6. Figures de style et effets
7. Narration omnisciente et perspectives
8. Injustice sociale et solidarité

📖 1. La Grande Dépression et le Dust Bowl

★ À maîtriser

• By 1935, drought and poor farming practices in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas had caused topsoil erosion across the Great Plains, an affected region called the Dust Bowl.

• In the late 1930s, all-purpose tractors enabled large landowners to dispense with tenant farmers’ labor and evict many tenants from their homes.

• Displaced farmers moved toward California, where as many as 30,000 migrants competed for available jobs in the fertile farming valleys.

Compléments

• By the late 1930s, a majority of the approximately 1.8 million tenant farmers in the South had been evicted from their homes.

💡 Astuce mémo

Sécheresse et mauvaises pratiques → érosion → Dust Bowl

📖 2. Steinbeck et la genèse du roman

📝 Points essentiels

• John Steinbeck researched people who had moved from Arkansas and Oklahoma to California in 1936, then toured the Dust Bowl and travelled with migrants in 1937.

• In 1939, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, which won high praise, including the Pulitzer Prize, and drew harsh criticism for its language and sociopolitical implications.

💡 Astuce mémo

Recherche en 1936, voyage en 1937, publication en 1939

📖 3. Le sens du titre du roman

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Grapes of wrath : “Grapes of wrath” represents the oppression of the weak by the powerful and the growing anger of the oppressed.

★ À maîtriser

• The title The Grapes of Wrath draws on both the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the Bible’s Book of Revelation 14:19–20.

Compléments

• In both the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Revelation passage, a higher power is called upon to set right the wrongs done to the oppressed, though it is unclear whether Steinbeck invokes God or another force.

• The title places the novel’s themes of greed, oppression, suffering, and justice in the context of older religious and political texts.

💡 Astuce mémo

Des raisins qui fermentent figurent la colère croissante des opprimés

📖 4. Les techniques descriptives de Steinbeck

★ À maîtriser

• The many specific details in the Chapter 15 roadside café passage create the atmosphere of a particular place and make readers feel close to the Joads’ journey.

Compléments

• In the Chapter 1 wind passage, the wind is described as growing stronger, carrying debris across the fields, uprooting corn, and crying over the fallen crop.

📖 5. Dialogue et langage populaire

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Colloquial language : The informal linguistic style commonly used in ordinary conversation and familiar contexts.

📝 Points essentiels

• Steinbeck’s dialogue uses misspellings, broken language, and colloquialisms to evoke the speech and interactions of migrant workers with limited education and means.

• Jim Casy tells Al that Grampa died when he was taken away from the Oklahoma farm, because Grampa was bound to that place, rather than dying because he missed California.

💡 Astuce mémo

Une langue écrite irrégulière, mais fidèle à la parole des migrants

📖 6. Figures de style et effets

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Personification : Gives human characteristics or behavior to non-human entities.
• Simile : Compares two unlike things using “like” or “as”.
• Métaphore : A metaphor compares unlike things that share a point of similarity, without using “like” or “as”.
• Répétition : Repetition restates the same words or phrases to make an idea clearer and more memorable.
• Allitération : Alliteration occurs when two or more words in a phrase or line share the same initial consonant sound.
• Consonance : Consonance repeats consonant sounds for poetic effect.
• Métonymie : Metonymy names something through an associated entity; in the novel, “the Bank” or “the Company” refers collectively to the people who run it.

★ À maîtriser

• In “the Bank or the Company were a monster,” the comparison is a simile, while “needs,” “wants,” and “insists” personify the institution and “the Bank” is metonymy for its owners and managers.

Compléments

• In “the sun was as red as ripe new blood,” the simile compares the sun’s redness to blood to create a vivid image.

• In “the wheels screamed,” personification gives the car wheels a human action and creates a vivid image.

• In “tattered and scraggly as a molting chicken,” the simile compares a willow tree’s leaves to a chicken losing its feathers.

• In the used-car passage, the repetition of “towns” emphasizes the spread of economic hardship, while repeated “cars” evokes the pressure of sales pitches.

• In “nails as thick and ridged as little clam shells,” the simile makes the texture of the man’s nails vivid.

📖 7. Narration omnisciente et perspectives

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Narration omnisciente : Omniscient narration is third-person narration in which the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of every character.

★ À maîtriser

• In the Joad chapters, the omniscient narrator moves between characters’ thoughts and fears, while other chapters provide broader historical context and multiple perspectives.

Compléments

• The car-salesman passage presents an unnamed character’s inner monologue, exposing his dishonest effort to profit from poor families buying broken-down cars.

💡 Astuce mémo

Les pensées individuelles des Joads alternent avec le regard collectif du narrateur

📖 8. Injustice sociale et solidarité

★ À maîtriser

• The willow-tree passage presents the family’s possessions and land as parts of its identity and memories, making departure an emotional as well as economic sacrifice.

• In the narrator’s account, isolated workers recognize injustice in their individual losses, meet others facing the same conditions, and develop a shared awareness that can threaten the system sustaining inequality.

• The orange handbill promises abundant field work in California, but the Joads find fewer opportunities than expected because laborers outnumber available jobs.

• Because migrant workers are unorganized and divided, owners can dictate very low wages and workers may compete against one another for jobs.

Compléments

• In Casy’s sermon, people who do not know which way to turn need prayers more than Grampa, whose path and task were already clear to him.

• In the novel, “talkin’ red” is the label used by owners and police for workers’ conversations about communism and proletarian power.

💡 Astuce mémo

« I » devient « we » : l’isolement cède à la solidarité