Treasure Island is an adventure novel written by Robert Stevenson. The first book is appeared in 1881, but Stevenson had make many modifications to his text. The real book appeared in 1883.

Jim, the main character, is a young man like others. One day, an old man come in his parent’s house. Jim and this old man are firends. The old man said to Jim that an treasure island exist. But the old man dead, and Jim wants to find the treasure, with a plan, the old man’s plan. He goes to find this treasure with a both. It’s the real adventure.

This book is interisting, because he is about adventure, and we are many actions in this book. It’s like the Coral Island, but not with children. But it’s a fantastic book, and story.

 ( I really like this film, and after seen it in the classe, i wanted very much to                present it to here !! )

   The adventures of Huckleberry finn – Mark Twain :

biography of Mark Twain:

The real name of Mark Twain is Samuel langhorne Clemens. He was born in 30 November 1985 in Florida and he was dead in 21 April 1910 in Redding. It was a writerand also a humorist.

At first time he was in the army, and Then he was a printer and journalist. He will start by becommung famous with the roman The adventures of Tom Sauyer. This book was published in 1876. and this is a story of a little boys in United States and he has a lot of adventures. There is a element autobiographic because the sotry passed to the same place of life of Mark Twain. However he has a secondly sucess, this are the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , at first this book was published in 1884 in London, and then in New York. In 2007 this book is the fifth best book of the time.

          This is a story of little boys. He’s name is Huck. He lived in a widow, Douglas  because his father is dangerous. He is alcoholic and he is violent with his son. Huck find a little friend and withh them going in the forest to game with other friends. When he go home Mm Douglas is worry for him because he is dirty and he did’nt eat . One day after this same scene huck going at his bedroom and he discover his father. He is effrayed ! And his father resquet money because he see than Huck  has a lot of money, for this beautiful clothes. And now, the little bo was kidnapped by his father, the horrible man. There are many spat because the father is strict , but Huck succeed in escaping that this badly home. And he make believ in his father, he was dead with a blood in the wall.

He has an another friend, he is Jim, what he discovered when he made a walk in this island. With him, Huck to going with raft in the Mississipi River. And his friend he’s black and he would like find a state free because he is research. Huck would like away from his father. There is a eventful life in the Mississipi. River, isn’t rest. In the Mississipi they two friend meet a lot of peolpe, or boat… The goal of Jim is to going as far as Cairo but on the way he would like to sell the raft for them to take a steamboat. Jim wants to be free and he wants earn money fo his family. But Huck want to denouce Jim, because he is black and a slave. Huck hasn’t allowed, to have a slave with him. However Huck doesn’t do that because he is friend.

One day they two friends gather two gangster, LouisXVII and the other Duc of Bridgewater. The two gangster this make pass for brother and wants to take money of all peolpe.( it was the first of their adventures) . Then, Huck want again accused Jim, because he is a slace free. Huck go to writte one letter and he will send it to Miss Watson. After this Jim is stopped. But HUck isn’t better with him. Huck trie to save his friend from slavery.

When they two friens are free,what we can see them to other adventures? (for know this, watch the film ! )

On the road, Jack Kerouac, 1957

The author :

Jack Kerouac, born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, is a an american writer and a poet. He comes from a French-Canadian family.
Student in Colombia, sailor during the World War II, he meets in New York, in 1944, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, with whom he leads a bohemian life at Greenwich Village. Alcohols, drugs, sex, homosexuality, parties, jazz bop, he hangs out with his friends from New York to Mexico, via New-Orleans, Denver, San Francisco… His walk of life is totally the opposite of the « traditional », conformist american life. He dies in 1969, at the age of 47, ravaged by loneliness and alcohol.

The Beat Generation :

The Beat Generation is an artistic and literary movement born in the 50’s in the USA. The expression is used for the first time in 1948 by Jack Kerouac to discribe his circle of friends to John Clellon Holmes. There are many books depicting this movement : Howl, Allen Ginsberg (1956) ; Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs and obviously On the road by Jack Kerouac. Some members of the Beat Generation showed their homosexuality and it made a scandal in the puritan America. For example, Howl and Naked Lunch became the object of trials which allowed to develop the publishing world and the sexual liberation of the next generation. The three authors have influenced the youth walk of life of the 50’s – 60’s. The Beat Generation indirectly inspired May 68, the opposition to Vietnam war and Woodstock. It also illustrates the great commitment to big spaces, nature and spiritualities.

After his first book in 1950, The Town and the City, he develops a new write technique, very spontaneous that will lead the publication of On the road in 1957 : it was written in only three weeks. It is considered as the manifesto of the Beat Generation. It is an autobiographical novel where Sal (Salvador) Paradise, a student and a writer, is Jack Kerouac. Sal, the narrator, just got divorced, meets Dean Moriarty, released from prison, with who he travels accross the USA hitchhiking, by bus or car. Their trip begins to the west, passing by California, then the to east and to the South. Each step of their travel is made of new experiences : meetings, parties, various jobs and problems.

I have like read this book : the characters wander aimlessly, they lived without thinking about their future. On the road offers numerous meditation about life, death, love, friendship… We can also see it through Sal’s monologues. They live from hand to mouth, meeting people, questioning themselves, unending race to find money, food and a place to stay. This book reminds me of Into The Wild at some point (even if the main character is not really here to have fun). Besides, the fact that the road brings aventures, discoveries, meetings makes me want to travel accross a country.

«  Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road. 

Hi everyone!

As you probably noticed (thanks to the title of the article), I’m going to speak about a classic book of English literature written by William Golding and entitled Lord of the flies. It was published in the 20th century (more precisely in 1954).

The story is set on an uninhabited island and the leading characters are all young boys. In fact they are schoolboys but they are far from the civilization because of a plane crash. The pilot is dead so they have to learn how to leave together without any adult, any help from the outside.

At the beginning, all of them have a normal reaction for children: they are happy to be alone without their parents. They enjoy having no rules. But very fast there are a lot of tensions between some of the boys. Moreover these teenagers begin to be afraid. They think there is a monster in the jungle. Little by little life on the island become very hard and there is a violent atmosphere. The survivors of the crash don’t realize that they become savages. And they will not stay all alive …

I cannot say that I loved this book because it’s not a book you are joyful to read … I liked the author’s writing and the intrigue. It is definitively a striking book and it shows dark parts of humans. Indeed the main characters are only children but their acts are not innocent. Some of them will die and that will not still be accidents …

I know there is also a movie adapted from the book but I haven’t watched it yet. I don’t know if the movie shows well the beginning of the tensions and the savagery of the children but I hope so. If you saw the movie you can tell me if you liked it!

See you!

Into the Wild is a novel inspired by real facts written by Jon Krakauer in 1996. It is a biography, a travel notebook and an autobiography

In 1992 , a dead body of a young man was found in a dropped bus in Alaska, near the Mount McKinley. It was Chris McCandless‘ body. He was 19 when he decided to live off the beaten track. He was disgusted with human being, what kept him to be isolated. He loved Jack London’s and Leon Tolstoï’s books and took the same positions. He had furrowed the United States, subsiting by several works before it settled in Alaska, to live in harmony with nature. This travel will be fatal.

I loved reading this book, because it’s not only the story of an adventurous young man, it’s also the story of the author, and many others anecdotes about things I wouldn’t suspected. I’m fascinated by Chris McCandless. The author had live similar experiences and that’s why he looked more closely at his case. I respect and admire what they have done, they wished leave for adventure and followed through on their commitments. That time, it’s not often that people give up everything to live their dreams and to be self-dependent. I guess Chris McCandless’ project, which cost him his own life, has many benefits: he broadened his horizons, he also met authentic persons and he lived in communion with nature. Testimonies of his family and his new or old friends are touching. I congratulate Jon Krauker for achieving this long quest, and for researching necessary details to write this book. Into the Wild has an abondance of interesting things.

Hi ! For my first article, I want to talk about one of my favorite author, who is Jack Kerouac. More precisely, I’m going to talk about the Lonesome Traveler, published in 1960.
This book, I read one year ago, is pretty typical of the beat generation. Indeed, it deals about travelling, wandering and so on. It’s a collection of short stories, travels through the road of America and Europe. Here, we are following the life of Jack Kerouac, a railroder who lives on the fringes of society. He makes us discover the America of fifties, Mexico, New York, Paris, the UK, with his point of view, which may be ironical, accusing but always interesting.
In spite of the long sentences for the descriptions (it can extend over two pages) which could be boring from time to time, we are never tired of reading the beat generation’s master. A far as I am concerned, I particulary love his way to describe his life: on a train, as a cook on a ship, at the top of a mountain, in the New York of the deep beat generation. Moreover, he always got the right word to catch his readers’s interest and I that’s what makes a very good writer.
To conclude, I will end with one of my favortite phrase of the book “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream”.

We talked about this book in class when we studied « Lord of the flies ».
It was published in 1858. It’s quite important because it’s the first book of this type of story: the children’s literature. It’s the first using children as main characters leading to its success: we has never stopped to print it. It’s also a dystopian novel. Ballantyne is a Scottish author, his story is a « Robinsonade », a story inspired by Robinson Crusoe published in 1719.

The story takes place on a South Pacific island. Three boys are alone, the first part of the book concerns the way they manage to survive (how they find food, how they build a shelter…). In the second part, there is more action, there is the arrival of British pirates and they find Polynesians. They want to convince these men to become Christians, the painting of this culture is very violent, they talk about rape and cannibalism, I don’t know the real story of the Polynesian culture but I think it’s not so ugly the author shows….This book seems to be controversy today.
There’s also a reference to darwinism. His book: « The structure and distribution of Coral reefs » was published the year before. In « the Coral Island », Ballantyne supports the theory of evolution.

In 1861, the boys became adults in another book  » The Gorilla hunters ».

Hello !

I think I will present the theme « voyage and return stories » and I chose a novel for my third document: This novel is The Book Thief, written by an Australian author, Markus Zusak. It was published in 2005. I chose this novel because the story is unusual; for example, the main character’s life is narrated by Death, so details show more the dangers of the life. The scene takes place in Germany during the World War II. Liesel Meminger, (the main character) is sent in a family she doesn’t know because her mother can’t take care of her. Liesel discovers her new life with her new family, who loves her, even if Rosa Hubermann (her « new » mother) seems to be more distant. One day a man asks them to help him; he’s a Jewish (the story takes places in Nazi Germany) and his father was a friend of Liesel’s « new » father. So the family decides to hide him; he was staying at home every day so Liesel explains him what is the situation, and they become friends. But soon bombardments become more numerous and the family is not sure that Max can survive alone. So he decides to go out… I could say what happen after that but if you don’t know the story I prefer saying anything !

I think this story can be a good example for the notion, because Liesel discovers and understands what is the life during the war and she is not the same girl before and after Sam (his Jewish friend)… Are you agree or do you think I have to change my document?

There is also a film about this story, this is the trailer:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/92EBSmxinus[/youtube]

https://encyclopedieonline.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/captura-de-tela-2012-05-13-c3a0s-14-03-051.png?w=620

   Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher of the 17th century. Nowadays, he is especially known for his works on political philosophy. Indeed, he thought about a state of nature which shows the natural condition of mankind to understand human nature. I don’t know if it’s also your case, but, when I read Lord of the flies, written by Golding, I thought that it is a great illustration of the Hobbes’s idea, developed in the Leviathan, published in 1651. In this work, Hobbes asserts that humans are naturally equal but they wants to assert their power on the other humans. Thus, in this state, there is “a war of all against all.” For Hobbes, this state is unlivable: there is an permanent insecurity.  Well, when it became too much to bear, humans accede to a social contract. They give their powers to one person in exchange for their security. For Hobbes, it’s the way chose civil society was established.

   In Lord of the flies, written by Golding and published in 1954, some children were obliged to live in a deserted island where they must pull through by themselves and return to the “natural condition of mankind”.  At the beginning, they managed to stay civilized. Then, the things go wrong and they have a war, which result in two deaths. In this story, the author wanted to show the true face of human and the primitive signs that can come back at any time. Even they had enough education to know how they must have acted, they didn’t act as civilized children. As we have seen in the extract we have studied, they are rescued by the arrival of the officer which symbolizes authority and civilized world. I think, but it’s my personal interpretation, that William Golding should have read the Leviathan by Hobbes and wanted to show that the dreadful human nature must be avoided only by the presence of authority. However, it can come back at any time, above all when there are not political authorities or a civilized structure. Well, I think that Lord of the flies is a good illustration of the Hobbes’s idea concerning human nature. However, the existence of a state of nature has interested a lot of philosophers of the 17th century such as Rousseau or Locke who had not the same idea of human nature and were not really agree with Hobbes. Aristotle said that “man is a political animal.” Well, are men obliged to live in society? If they are left alone in a deserted island, are they capable of pulling through?

In class we saw the film Lord of the Flies, it was the first time I saw it and I loved it.

It tells the story of boys who survived a plane crash. They are on an island and they try to survive but one of the boys, Jack, decide to going it alone and create a rival camp. Then there is a terrible battle between Jack’s camp and Ralph’s camp, two children are killed. I found this film very interesting, because for me it shows us that we keep in us a strong survival instinct, and I think we have now idea how we would react in such a situation. Gradually in the film the children find their primitive instinct, they just want to survive. I think that even if some scenes may « shock » us, it is very realistic and it reminds us that we are « animals » and we could probably do a lot of things to survive. It is, for me, a very good movie !

The moral is presented in numrous way in the novel, usually negative.With the character of Huck and the fact that Tom is involved in an association to ban tobacco and alcohol, we shows the desire of the forbidden, which shows that Twain morality is the main source of immorality. In test like What Is Man? Twain developp this idea, considering that it is the moral freedom given to the man that makes man capable of do evil. At the Church is hypocrisy and vanity of the Reverend Twain ridiculed throughout the episode good point shared by Tom with his friends. This hypocrisy is also directly criticized by Twain when he evoques the responsability of the girls, and the absurd moralistic constraint they are required to applied. lines or moral feelings that are not the subject of irony or it’s critical are these from the feeling of the characters: Aunt Polly is an old generous woman, which prevents punishing Tom: this defect is a nice trait of character.

Twain uses forms of humor. A typical example is the practical joke, which involves placing a person in a situation of  victim, like when Tom pretends to be dead, and all of the village cry him. This kind of humor is not without cruelty, like Twain shows with Tom back to his village, hesitating to prevent his aunt that he is alive to saved him from her grief before giving it to not spoil the surprise effect of this kind of jokes.

Lord Of The Flies was written by William Golding and published in 1954. As you know because we studied an extract and watched the film, it tells the story of a plane carrying british boys from high society that crashed on a desert Island where all the adults died. The kids must survive by themselves.

The group must build an organized society to survive. Each kid on the Island has a signification.

Ralph is the smartest, he is almost a teenager and he became the leader of the group by being elected, he symbolizes the republic and the reason in the group.

Jack takes gradually the control of the group by being brutal, he represent the warrior power. He is charismatic and adventurous contrary to the Ralph’s reason.

Roger is the right arm of Jack, he represent the disturbing and violent cruelty, the pleasure of hurting and killing

Piggy is the fragile obese kid, he represent knowledge but also dependence and weakness, his glasses can makes fire that is the most usefull thing on the island. He is despised by the warrior power but he needs him to make fire, so his glasses were stole by Jack and Piggy died, pushed off a cliff.

Simon represent wisdom and positivity, he loves the nature of the island. He was the first kid who died in the group in a bloody sacrifice on the altar of superstition when he went to destroy it by bringing the truth. So his death represent the loss of truth. He also represent the Christ figure in this novel because he has the capacity to see beyond the wrong ideas and what he lived in this novel can be compared to the life of Jesus Christ.

Lord Of The Flies is sometimes considered like a novel for children, but it’s clear that William Golding created those characters to raise dark and deep thoughts about great ideas and subjects about society.

« The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn » is a picaresque novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1884. Huckleberry Finn, nicknamed « Huck » or « Huck Finn » is a motherless orphan boy about thirteen or fourteen years old. Huck flees the civilization in the company of an escaped slave. He tells them wandering about 1 800 km on a raft down the Mississippi.

I found this book and moreover the humor of Mark Twain very pleasant. In addition, this novel seems to be an anti-racist novel by the fact that Huckleberry helps a slave called « Jim » to go in the free states on their raft.

However, this is a satirical and realistic novel, because we find characters representative of the social category. It is also a pessimistic novel because of the hypocrisy of the men.

We watched a movie entitled :Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . The story deals with the adventures of a young boy named Huck. It’s an adaptation of a novel written by Mark Twain . It’s a black and white movie ,the music had an important role in it, it’s an advantage and also a drawback because it really well represents the feelings of the characters but it’s a little too much, it’s quite exagerated. Atthough I think it’s a very interesting movie and it’s agreable to watch it.

As we studied the voyage and return stories, I thought about the Lord of the flies written by William Golding and which is considered a dystopian novel.
There are children who travelled by plane to reach the USA during the World War. They would escape the violence of the war but their plane is fallen in the sea and they are lost in a deserted island. They try to found a society with an organization. The island is very beautiful, at the beginning they feel good.
The leaders tell some stories about a monster present on the island, the children begin to have nightmare and the story becomes fascinating when they fear more and more this monster which is nothing but themselves. Each child becomes violent to survive whereas they have no real reason to feel threatened. The conflict turns into a kind of civil war on the island up to the end, when some adults find them and help them, realizing that they are become crazy indeed. The « lord of the flies » is just the symbol of the monster.
There was a film about this book in the 90’s too.

In class we talked about « voyage and return stories ». We said that the action can take place on a remote place, and it reminds me a movie I have seen last year : Into the wild.

It’s about an american student, Christopher Mccandless, who just had his diploma but he decides to leave everything because he doesn’t want to live in the modern society. So he goes by car in southern of United States where he meets many people and mades friends. Then he decides to go in Alaska where he lives in an abandoned bus, and he finally finds peace he was looking for. After that, he decides to go home but he is trapped because of the river so he must stay. He is starving and he eats a plant but it is inedible, and he finally dies. This movie is really good even if it is sad. If you want to see a movie about voyage, I recommend it !

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a picaresque novel written by Mark Twain published in 1884. The Huck’s narrative says itself autobiographical.

The scene is situated on the 1840, before the American Civil War. The main character lives in the Missouri. The narrator is a young boy who is called Huckleberry Finn. He is a Tom Sawyer’s friend and he is motherless orphan. His father, alcoholic and violent, comes back. He hears by his son the discovery of the treasure. He wants to get his hands on the treasure discovered by Tom and Huckleberry. So he wishes to get back his son whom he had abandoned. The child avoids his father and persuade him that he was murdered. Then he is on the roads with Jim, a runaway black slave who is wanted because we suspect him of being the murderer of Huck. They want to go in abolitionist north in raft. Lost on the river because of a storm, two swindlers save them and want to « sell » Jim to the Tom Sawyer’s uncle. Tom and Huck find themselves and they imagine projects to save Jim.

The narrator isat the bottom of the social ladder. He is a tramp and he doesn’t hesitate to lie, to steal. He is resourceful and he adapts himself to all the situations. He rejects the social values.

Moreover, this is a satirical and realistic novel. Indeed, the novel is realistic because Twain knows and lived what he writes, and reality is described. The subject is often funny but dirty and violence are also present. Futhermore, this is a satirical novel because the narrator meets representative characters of social category : two stiff middle-class persons, a man of wood, a slave, bandits, rich owner,… The innocent look of Huck shows the aberrations of the men, their prejudices, their cruelty, their cowardice, theire absurde conduct,… It is also a pessimistic novel because of the hypocrisy and the lies of men.

Have you ever read this novel?

Last week, we studied in class an extract from « Adventures of Huckleberry Finn » by Mark Twain. I bought this book (translate in French) one month ago  and i read it, and i find that it was a very anti-racist book (in the story Huckleberry help Jim, a slave, to go in the free states, so they travel on the Mississippi on a raft) so this is why i love this book. I love too this because it is a well written book, and Mark Twain’s humour is very pleasant. I advise you this book.

In class, we are studing the notion of  » the initiatory journey  » , and I want to talk about a artwork which belong to this notion. I’m going talk about  » Into the Wild  » , a biographical novel written by Jon Krakauer and published in 1996.

The story relates the life of the adventurer Christopher McCandless , who wants to return to the wild life , going in Alaska. The novel talk about his expedition during his across of United States as far as Alaska.

The author pays homage to Christopher McCandless in his novel , with a lot of details about his life, like his family. This novel was adapted to movie in 2007, by Sean Penn. I recommend this book , it’s great !

« The Adventures of Tom Sawyer » is a novel published by Mark Twain in 1876. Mark Wain tells the stories of Tom Sawyer, a young boy who grew up in the Missouri, along the Mississippi river in a fictional village entitled St. Petersburg.

Most of these adventures were inspired by the childhood of the author and these fictional events happens before the civil war, although the novel was published after.

« The Adventures of Tom Sawyer » is probably the greatest book written by Mark Twain, the success was so high that an animated series was created several years later by a Japanese production, which was aired in 1980 for the first time.

I watched it when i was a children and on top of that, Tom Sawyer is the character who, in fact, gave the name « Tom » to my brother

Jean-Georges Vibert, Gulliver and the Lilliputians (around 1870)

I want to talk about Gulliver’s Travels. It’s a novel written by Jonathan Swift, and published in 1726. It’s a classic of English Literature. I think most of you know this story but I really liked this story when I was younger. I’m sure this picture reminds you something ! Gulliver’s Travels appears for the first time in French under the title of Voyages du capitaine Lemuel Gulliver. Through this fiction, Jonathan Swift makes a satire of the society of his time. In fact, in this novel, he makes fun of the English society in which he belonged. This nivel, written in the firt person, is divided into four parts. In fact, there are as many parts as Gulliver’s travels. My favorite of them is the Journey to Lilliput, and I think it’s also the most famous.

Lemuel Gulliver is a naval surgeon. After a shipwreck, he finds himself on the island of Lilliput. He is chained and driven in this state further on the island. He discovers the inhabitants of the island, the Lilliputians who are tiny creatures. On Lilliput’s island, the reader discovers a much more advanced society than England at Swift’s time. However, there is a war between the Lilliputians and the inhabitants of the neighboring island, Blefuscu. The reason of this war is absurd : the king of Blefuscu’s island wants to impose the side they must break a boiled egg. This passage is fun and denounces the absurdity of war. In his second travel, Gulliver is faced with the opposite situation: people of Brobdingnag are giants. Because of his small size, Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity for the king, the queen and the court. The last two Gulliver’s travels are not really known.

Gulliver, a brave explorer, discovers on the occasion of his maritime expeditions, strange and fascinating people. Swift talks about the problems of the society of his time, symbolically, through the various characters who appear throughout the story, and through situations where he places his hero, Gulliver. Whenever Gulliver returned to England, is to leave the country as soon as possible and go sailing on the seas.

Gulliver’s Travels refer to imagination and dreams through descritpions of imaginary countries. That’s why they are often read to children as real fairy tales. This story continues to fascinate and seduce readers. There are many adaptations of this novel (cinema, theater, comics…).

Giu-Pin illustrated a comic based on Gulliver’s travels but he has also illustrated a version of Robinson Crusoe, another voyage story, written by Daniel Defoe.

Tom Sawyer is a fictional character invented by Mark Twain in 1876. The Autor talk about him in « The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  » and in other books too as in  » The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  » what we have began to read in class.

His story : Tom is orphan . Mark Twain invented him in memory of his childhoods friend. Tom Sawyer is generous , courageous , free ans anticonformist. Withs Tom’s character autor criticized American Society .

Everyone think Tom is an symbol of freedom because hewas an rebel.

But Twain decide to stop written his history because he’s become arrogant. But he continued to written about Huck , Tom’s friend. Contrary Tom who’s imagine his adventures as an child, Huck lives  and support reality of life.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a british novel published in 1883. This novel are intended for children but is interesting because it reminds the voyage and return stories, but this novel is qualified like a coming of age story.

the plot is very simple Jim the main character is a young boy (15-17 years old) and he lives in a inn. One day a pirate at inn receives an black spot, and among pirate it means that it will soon die. After few days the pirate dies and Jim with his mother find a key on the pirate’s body. in his bedroom they find a safe. Inside the safe there a map which shows a treasure island. And Jim decided to go on the ship at the search of the treasure.