LLCSE
1ère année
1ère année
A1MW001 - D - CREATIVE WRITING - Daydream vs Reality
Analyse linguistique de textes
Definition
ONOMATOPOEIA
Use of words representing sounds that refer to sense or meaning of the words
(ex: buzz, hiss, crash, boom, bang)
1/ JAMES THURBER
- Lifetime: 1894-1961
- Profession: Writer and cartoonist
- Style: Wit and recognizable cartoons (his failing eyesight got him drawing on huge papers that were reduced afterwards)
- Noticeable collaboration: The New Yorker literary magazine
- Books:
- Is Sex Necessary? (1929, with E.B.White) => A spoof on self-help manuals
- My Life and Hard Times (1933) => An "autobiography"
- The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) and The Thurber Carnival (1933) => Short story collections
- The Thirteen clocks (1950) => A children's book
- The Years With Ross (1959) => A memoir of his years with The New Yorker
2/ THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1939)... /Excerpt/
=> Walter Mitty is stuck in his boring and castrating reality. His only way to escape from his athorotarian wife and his meaningless existence is daydreaming. Imagining himself as someone else, way more important and exciting, he unpredictibally and suddenly jumps in new scenarios triggered by something from his reality.
3/ TRIGGERS FROM THE STUDIED EXCERPT
- Fast driving: Commander of a Navy hydroplane taking his crew through one of the worst storms in 20 years of Navy aviation successfully. (Brough back by his wife shouting at him because of speed.)
- Driving by a hospital + reminder of Dr. Renshaw + gloves: A respected and ressourceful doctor saving a millionaire bankers and President Roosevelt's friend's life. Fixes a faulty (defectueux) "anesthetizer" with a fountain pen (Brought back by
- The newsboy shouting about Waterbury trial : A sharp-shooter on trial for murder with astonishing firearms skills who gets the beauty and punches the District Attorney. (Brought back by his own thought wondering what he forgot of his wife's demands)
- Reading the Liberty newspaper about World War 2 and german bombing planes: A fearless bomber pilot saving occupied France taking German forces solo, but brandy comes first, of course. (Brought back by his wife shouting at him with surprise as she was looking for him for a while)
- He lighted a cigarette: Mitty is bravely facing the firing squad and refuses to be blind-foded
4/ VOCABULARY
- HENPECKED : Frightened and overpowered by women, especially the wife
- HUMDRUM: Absence of excitement, surprise in life
- BROW-BEATING: Forcing people to act against her will by threats or unfair persuasion
- EYESIGHT : Ability to see
- THOUGHT-PROVOKING : Something that makes you think a lot about a subject
- DOWNRIGHT : Extremely, greatly
- OVERBEARING SHREW : Overconfident, dictating others what to do in an unpleasant way, being irrelevant. (Shrew: small mouse)
- HEAVILY BRAIDED : Overdecorated (braids = broderies sur les uniformes)
- RAKISHLY : Carelessly, informally
- TURRET : An invented word that Mitty uses by misknowledge to discribe his Commander experience (SN202, Obstreosis,streptothricosis)
- REMOTE : Far away in distance or time
- OVERSHOES : Cover for your ordinary shoes in order to protect them, or keep the surfaces you walk on, clean.
- HASTILY: In a hurry
- AIMLESSLY: Without clean goal, direction or purpose.
- LURCH: To move in an unpredictable and unstable way (sudden hurry for instance can make us lurch)
There are many other words that can be problematic in this excerpt. The unilingual dictionnary is more than enough to understand them all.
A retenir :
It is possible to "make up" some brands, names and words in a story if it suits the plot. In Walter Mitty, the character is not the brightest, and he uses
words that "sound" appropriate and fitting to his character in his daydreams, and as he doesn't know any real brands or models for the devices he
imagines, he also makes them up.
A miserable cur: Old fashioned insult, that we can translaite to French as "malotru" or "mufle".
LLCSE
1ère année
1ère année
A1MW001 - D - CREATIVE WRITING - Daydream vs Reality
Analyse linguistique de textes
Definition
ONOMATOPOEIA
Use of words representing sounds that refer to sense or meaning of the words
(ex: buzz, hiss, crash, boom, bang)
1/ JAMES THURBER
- Lifetime: 1894-1961
- Profession: Writer and cartoonist
- Style: Wit and recognizable cartoons (his failing eyesight got him drawing on huge papers that were reduced afterwards)
- Noticeable collaboration: The New Yorker literary magazine
- Books:
- Is Sex Necessary? (1929, with E.B.White) => A spoof on self-help manuals
- My Life and Hard Times (1933) => An "autobiography"
- The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) and The Thurber Carnival (1933) => Short story collections
- The Thirteen clocks (1950) => A children's book
- The Years With Ross (1959) => A memoir of his years with The New Yorker
2/ THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1939)... /Excerpt/
=> Walter Mitty is stuck in his boring and castrating reality. His only way to escape from his athorotarian wife and his meaningless existence is daydreaming. Imagining himself as someone else, way more important and exciting, he unpredictibally and suddenly jumps in new scenarios triggered by something from his reality.
3/ TRIGGERS FROM THE STUDIED EXCERPT
- Fast driving: Commander of a Navy hydroplane taking his crew through one of the worst storms in 20 years of Navy aviation successfully. (Brough back by his wife shouting at him because of speed.)
- Driving by a hospital + reminder of Dr. Renshaw + gloves: A respected and ressourceful doctor saving a millionaire bankers and President Roosevelt's friend's life. Fixes a faulty (defectueux) "anesthetizer" with a fountain pen (Brought back by
- The newsboy shouting about Waterbury trial : A sharp-shooter on trial for murder with astonishing firearms skills who gets the beauty and punches the District Attorney. (Brought back by his own thought wondering what he forgot of his wife's demands)
- Reading the Liberty newspaper about World War 2 and german bombing planes: A fearless bomber pilot saving occupied France taking German forces solo, but brandy comes first, of course. (Brought back by his wife shouting at him with surprise as she was looking for him for a while)
- He lighted a cigarette: Mitty is bravely facing the firing squad and refuses to be blind-foded
4/ VOCABULARY
- HENPECKED : Frightened and overpowered by women, especially the wife
- HUMDRUM: Absence of excitement, surprise in life
- BROW-BEATING: Forcing people to act against her will by threats or unfair persuasion
- EYESIGHT : Ability to see
- THOUGHT-PROVOKING : Something that makes you think a lot about a subject
- DOWNRIGHT : Extremely, greatly
- OVERBEARING SHREW : Overconfident, dictating others what to do in an unpleasant way, being irrelevant. (Shrew: small mouse)
- HEAVILY BRAIDED : Overdecorated (braids = broderies sur les uniformes)
- RAKISHLY : Carelessly, informally
- TURRET : An invented word that Mitty uses by misknowledge to discribe his Commander experience (SN202, Obstreosis,streptothricosis)
- REMOTE : Far away in distance or time
- OVERSHOES : Cover for your ordinary shoes in order to protect them, or keep the surfaces you walk on, clean.
- HASTILY: In a hurry
- AIMLESSLY: Without clean goal, direction or purpose.
- LURCH: To move in an unpredictable and unstable way (sudden hurry for instance can make us lurch)
There are many other words that can be problematic in this excerpt. The unilingual dictionnary is more than enough to understand them all.
A retenir :
It is possible to "make up" some brands, names and words in a story if it suits the plot. In Walter Mitty, the character is not the brightest, and he uses
words that "sound" appropriate and fitting to his character in his daydreams, and as he doesn't know any real brands or models for the devices he
imagines, he also makes them up.
A miserable cur: Old fashioned insult, that we can translaite to French as "malotru" or "mufle".
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