THOSE MYSTIFYING AMERICANS
Publié le 07/02/2012
Extrait du document
People never really escape from their origins. So if you are about to visit the U.S.A., perhaps you should focus for a moment, not on the modern American, but on his ancestor, the seventeenth-century settler who, having survived the grim Atlantic crossing, found himself with his back to the sea facing a vast and hostile wildemess that had to be tamed and conquered if he was to survive. Many of the basic attitudes and characteristics formed in that struggle persist in Americans today. You may find sorne admirable, and others Jess so. The point is, they are there....
«
whether they set out to conquer polio or land a man on the
moon, Americans are convinced that initiative, inteUigent
planning
and hard work will bring about the desired conditions
sooner or later.
ARTHUR GORDON, Those mystifying Americans.
1.
Commentaire dirigé
1) Do you think the writer is fair or one-sided when he speaks
of the Americans?
2)
What were the problems surrounding "that earl y American"
settler? What were the qualities required of him to face
these problems?
3)
Do you think that the modern American bas kept and
improved the frontiersman 's qualities?
4)
In your opinion can initiative and hard work solve the
problems
of modern society?
2.
Version
Traquire depuis "ln sorne parts of the world" jusqu'à la fin
du texte .
.
1) Do you think that the writer is one-sided when he speaks
of the Americans?
The writer is definitely one-sided
when
he speaks of the Americans.
His considerations about the
"ancestors" and the pioneers are
only focused on the good points of
these people.
According to him,
their qualities
of courage and opti-
mism allowed them
to eonquer an
untamed territory, and to "civilize"
the wilderness.
Though this opinion bas been the
Si l'auteur a un parti
pris, vous devez essayer de le démolir en citant
tous les arguments
contraires..
»
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Liens utiles
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- Nemesis Greek Goddess of vengeance; personification of the wrath of the gods toward those who had hubris, a Greek word meaning exaggerated pride in one's achievements or good fortune.
- pantheon Greek and Roman In mythology, pantheon refers to all the gods of a people, particularly those considered to be the most prominent or most powerful.
- personal gods Roman The earliest Romans, those living on the hills that would eventually form the center of the great city and those living in nearby regions in the 700s and 600s b.